Sonia O'Sullivan breathed a sigh of relief after easily achieving the qualifying time for the European Championships with her 10,000 metres victory at the Aqua-Pura Commonwealth Trials in Manchester today.
Irish star O'Sullivan, who became a mother for the second time only six months ago, destroyed a quality field which included former Olympic silver medallist Elana Meyer to come home in 31 minutes and 33.20 seconds.
The time not only meant she had achieved the qualifying mark for Munich, where O'Sullivan will defend her European title, but also for next year's world championships in Paris.
"It was good, it was fun," said O'Sullivan.
"It's a good place to have done it - a good atmosphere and a good crowd.
"I would have liked more company for longer.
"It would have made me run harder later on, but I sensed Elana wasn't keeping up, so I pushed on and ran hard over the last four laps - I didn't want to have to do another one again next year."
O'Sullivan was, however, noncommittal about whether she would also defend her 5,000m crown in Munich.
She said: "I've got a couple of 3,000 and 1,500 races lined up and after that I'll see what happens.
"I do feel strong enough to get the qualifying time for both."
The only dark cloud was Ireland's agonisingly narrow defeat by Spain in the World Cup - the match reaching its conclusion as O'Sullivan was running.
She said: "The team did well, they seemed to have it in their pockets, but I'm just glad that I didn't have to watch those penalties."
Behind O'Sullivan in her runaway victory was German Sabrina Mockenhaupt, who ran a personal best and European qualifier of 32mins 27.63secs, while Meyer was third - and almost lapped by the Irish runner - in 32:36.15.