From the beginning it was hard to imagine what a marathon is like, but once you have spoken to a few that have done it, it’s clear it is no easy feat.

It was 12 weeks before the race that I was handed the ticket by St.Catherine’s Hospice. I was prepared to take it seriously and started my 10k a day run but after the first 10 days, I strained my achilles heel. It was 3 weeks until I could start training again and managed 4 weeks and a 14mile’r before it happened again, just 3 weeks before the start.

With minimal training due to the ongoing injury all I could do was rest the achilles and hope it would hold up.

With the 36000 starters crammed into Grenwich Park, I was ready to start. The weather was perfect, sunny and cool. Just two miles in my outer right knee was very painful but I thought it would loosen up. Tower Bridge 13 miles in 10 minutes under my finish target time of 4 hours, managing to ignore the worsening knee pain by lapping up the crowds and fellow runners support, I was feeling good.

20 miles, a hail storm, “the wall” and excruciating knee pain forced me to a dreaded stop with a St John’s physio who pointed out the typical runners injury advised me to stop or take it easy. I couldn’t stop, he pulled me to my feet and I could hardly move, frozen with stiffness I hobbled and tried to get back into some form of run, my legs felt like two steel tubes.