This will be my only boast

In the marathon, anything does and will happen. If it’s not nerves, it’s the sheer volume of running with thousands of people, in a different country, in a different place. Lots of things you can’t control. So yesterday, I ran my only little event: the Rowena Harding 20 miler. Last year this was a really important distance. I ran with a cycling support crew and I ran and I ran. We expected me to fall over – after all, that time last year, I was registered in a marathon as a walker. But I kept running and we both looked very surprised when I got back home in one piece.

So this year, I decided to celebrate the 20. It was something I could control, on a route I knew, just me and African running dogs at the canal. Of course, what I didn’t bank on was food poisoning the day before, and spending much of the preceding morning with my head in a bucket. Oh well, the show had to go on and I went for the 20.

I whinged at 3km, I cried at 3 miles. I had a right paddy under the West London fly over. And there was a shouting and screaming fit at Little Venice. I figured as long as I kept my legs turning over it would be ok. And soon 7 miles came round and I felt a little better, got into a rhythm, got lost in Islington, kept the legs turning over and found myself in Hackney. Hackney! Hackney is a destination – not somewhere you stumble into from Willesden Green. Once I had passed my third uber trendy grungy canalside cafe I knew I had to go back west. And with a little whimper of joy at the 11 mile mark, I did just that, turned around and did it all again.

I finished in 3hrs 46. I was pleased just to finish. The next day, I realised that I had completed the last long run, and that nothing but my own mental demons and an unfortunate but unlikely accident with someone dropping a suitcase on me, was going to stop me from taking the start line in Athens. I sent text messages to my physio, osteo, pilates guru to say thank you for all her help and choked back a little emotion and whispered myself a little “bravo.”

On your marks...