The former Ballarat athlete, now based in New South Wales, captured the 10-kilometre title in the Gold Coast marathon carnival. Mitchell clocked a winning time of 32 minutes, 59 seconds in a personal best for the distance on the road.

A late entry, Mitchell was happy with her hurriedly devised race plan that edged out Glasgow Commonwealth Games marathoner Sarah Klein (33:15).

“I just wanted to run strongly and consistently and just make sure Sarah didn’t pick me up in the last bit, so it all went to plan,” Mitchell said.

“The atmosphere here is brilliant. Everyone’s lined up along the course for the last kilometre and also on the way out you get the crowd, so it’s awesome.”

Mitchell will return to her specialty event steeplechase later this week for racing in Finland as preparation for the 3000m steeplechase at the world athletics championships in August.

Ballarat’s Duer Yoa (1:08.54) finished 12^th in the Gold Coast half marathon on Sunday.