Natasha Wodak takes down Malindi Elmore's Canadian women's marathon record in Berlin

Natasha Wodak shattered the Canadian women's marathon record on Sunday in Berlin.

The 40-year-old of Surrey, B.C., ran two hours 23 minutes 13 seconds to finish 12th.

She broke the previous Canadian mark of 2:24.50 set by her friend Malindi Elmore in 2020.

Ethiopia's Tigist Assefa won Sunday's race in a course record 2:15.37, the third fastest time ever and 18 minutes faster than she had ever run.

"I wasn't afraid of my rivals, even though they had faster times than me," the 26-year-old Assefa said.

Wodak had run a single marathon in 2013 and wasn't prepared to sacrifice her love of road and track racing to attempt another.

But once the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was postponed and rescheduled to July 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, a marathon quickly became Wodak's primary focus.

On Dec. 20, she competed in The Marathon Project and completed the 42.2-kilometre event on a flat 6.9 km loop course on the streets of Chandler, Ariz., in 2:26:19, then a personal best by nearly 10 minutes and the second-fastest time in Canadian history.

"I want to see what I can do in the marathon before I run out of time," Wodak told CBC Sports in October 2020. "Many of my friends and other women are running so fast in the marathon. I've been inspired over the past [few] years and I want in on that."

In recent years, she has picked the brains of Canada's elite female runners, including Elmore, and incorporated their workouts into her program.

Wodak, who has specialized in the 10,000 metres on the track, was 13th (2:31:41) in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, where the then-41-year-old Elmore placed ninth (2:30:59) — the best Olympic marathon finish by a Canadian woman in a non-boycott Games — 17 years after her most recent Summer Games