Unlucky for some, the number 13 turned out to be more than fortunate for graduate marathon runner Alyson Dixon.
By finishing 13th in this year’s Virgin Money London Marathon, the 37-year-old booked her place on the Team GB flight to Rio, which will soon be departing from what everyone involved in British sport hopes will be the runway to a gold rush in Brazil.
Aly graduated with a bachelor's degree in Sport and Exercise Development in 2000, winning the BUCS 10km race twice in her university career. Over 60 per cent of gold medalists since 1992 have participated in BUCS sport, with 56 members of Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics competing for Great Britain at the World University Games.
Aly will be hoping to add to that statistic in Rio and she paid tribute to her university sporting career, for making her into the athlete she is today.
“At school I wasn’t good enough to make English Schools, so BUSA was my first big competition. You had to go into a call room, that kind of stuff - it was a real championship,” she added.
“I managed to win the 10km, then I defended my title the year after. It was then when I thought, ‘I could be quite good if I commit a little bit more’.
“I matured and survived the university years then I was in it for life.”
Aly’s time in London, 2:31:52, was below the Rio qualifying time and by being the first Brit across the line, she was guaranteed a spot in the Olympic race.
She is now in the middle of an intense training block in the Pyrenean mountains, but took a break from training to fit in a city break in Amsterdam in July - still managing to fit in a quick half marathon while she was at it though.
With less than a month to go until the Games kick off and having been to Birmingham to go through the Team GB kitting out process, Aly admits she has not stopped smiling for three months.
“I’m with all the endurance guys going to Rio and I look round at them thinking, they’re off to Rio soon, then I think ‘oh yeah, so am I’,” said the Sunderland Strollers athlete.
“The smile has not left my face since the London Marathon.
“Every time I see somebody and they say well done, there’s a massive smile again.
“In 2012 I was not really ready to make the step up, it was something I hoped for because I had the B time, but I always thought it wasn’t really going to be enough.
“It did give me that determination though, to think that if I’ve got this far, in another four years can I make it?
“I’m not getting any younger, I’m nearly 38, so it was just one year at a time, then 18 months I thought ‘this is it, let’s go for it’.”
Aly will be making her Olympic debut in Rio and has been running up to 120 miles a week in training to make sure she is in the best possible shape ahead of the biggest race of her career.
She has never been to South America before but hopes that the heat experienced at her current training base will give her an idea of what to expect in the tropics of Brazil.
“We’ve got two weeks in Brazil before the race, so people say it only takes 10 days to acclimatize so we should be well used to it by then,” she added.
“I remember walking into the Commonwealth Games and seeing Tom Daley and Bradley Wiggins, and just thinking ‘wow’.
“So the less time we’re in the village before we race, is probably better, but we are lucky we’ve then got the week after to go star spotting and sightseeing around Brazil.
“Although I’m really looking forward to the race, it’s the whole Olympic experience I’m looking forward to, and just soaking that up.”
This article originally appeared on Evening Chronicle.