AFTER months of frustration, Kent's international athlete Charlotte Dale is hoping for an injury-free 2007.

The 22-year-old former European Junior Cross-country champion, who lives at Whitstable, is targeting the Ashford and District 10k road race this Sunday for her first competitive outing of the year.

She holds the course record, 32 minutes 13 seconds, after winning in 2005.

Dale, now dividing her time between London and Kent while completing a part-time gym instructor’s course at Canterbury College, said: “I have been out for four months with a hamstring injury which just popped when I was out on a training run at Bushey Park, in south-west London."

Dale’s last major event was the Ekiden International Relays in Japan in November, 2005, when she was a member of the six-strong Great Britain team, including Paula Radcliffe, which finished seventh.

FULL STORY IN THIS WEEK'S KENTISH GAZETTE AND KENTISH EXPRESS