Remember when, three weeks before Edinburgh Marathon I pulled my Achilles? And how in the run up to Venice Marathon I strained my groin then fell off my bike and landed on my knee? As well as how I had a bad case of shin splints preparing for Nottingham marathon?

In the run up to Manchester Marathon I’ve wanted just one thing – an injury free training cycle. It was all going so well. My training sessions were being ticked off without missing one, despite some pretty crappy personal stuff I had to deal with. My legs were feeling strong and I nailed a 20 mile run at marathon goal pace.

Finally it looked like the stars had aligned and this was going to be the marathon where I could lay down a time that would not only bag me a ‘Good for Age’ qualification for London Marathon, but smash it and finish with time to spare.

Then I went shopping for jeans.

My legs have behaved so well this training cycle that I thought it would be nice to treat them to something – a new pair of skinny jeans. I was weaving my way through the crowds on Oxford Street in a pair of Converse when bang – it felt like I’d stepped on a nail.

A pain was stabbing at the arch of my foot. I hobbled about and then headed home to spend some time with Dr Google. When, two days later, the pain hadn’t gone, walking was proving a problem and my long run had been cancelled in favour of a cycle, panic had taken over.

All those training runs, all those intervals, all those miles that had gone so well wasted. I wasn’t going to be able to run my dream marathon in Manchester. As the words ‘Plantar fasciitis’ ran round my mind I couldn’t see a way that I was going to be able to make the start line, let along smash my PB.

I emailed friendly physio Julia. She suggested I stretch my calves three times a day as this could be the cause and roll my foot on a frozen bottle of water. I wanted to go for a run to test it out, so she told me to get some heel gel pads.

After 10 days of not running I nervously stepped out for a run, gel pads in my shoes and kenisiology tape on my foot. After a niggly first mile my foot felt ok but running after 10 days of not running felt weird and clunky. The next day I headed out again. It should have been my last long run before the marathon – a 20 miler. But this wasn’t going to happen.

I headed out to find some flat ground – going uphill was still causing me problems. I ran hard not knowing how many miles I’d be able to cover and figuring that a few fast ones would compensate for lots of slower ones.

After 13 miles I was still running, but I’d gone off to fast and had run just shy of half-marathon pace. It felt horrible but I did two more miles and wrote a respectable 15 on my training plan where the 20 should have been.

Now it’s taper time. There’s nothing more I can do now but hope the next three weeks allow my foot to recover fully, not push it by running too much or too fast, and trust that the training I did before those missed 10 days will prove themselves come race day. We’ll see.