After a whirlwind journey from legislation to the Olympics, nothing was going to cease Rose Harvey – not even the small matter of a stress fracture in her leg.
Harvey’s story was already outstanding sufficient. 4 years in the past, she was made redundant from her job as a company lawyer, and determined to make use of lockdown to see how far she might get along with her working.
Her first outing over 26 miles was the Cheshire marathon in 2021, which she ran in simply over two hours and half-hour. From there, she joined with Puma as an expert athlete and was capable of prepare full-time, changing into British champion and recording a brand new private greatest of two:23:21 on the Chicago marathon final 12 months – placing her sixth on the British all-time listing.
Choice for the British group at this 12 months’s Paris Olympics adopted, and Harvey took her place alongside the world’s greatest on the weekend.
However there was to be a painful twist.
Harvey defined: ‘My unbelievable group and I put in a lot work to make the beginning line match and wholesome and we have been all optimistic that with a little bit of race day adrenaline, I’d be capable to run the race I knew I had in me.
‘A few miles in, I shortly realised that wasn’t going to occur. The following 24 miles have been a painful battle. It seems I had stress fractured my femur.’
In every other race, she would have stopped, however this being the Olympics, she was decided to complete. She crossed the road in 78th, however with the admiration of a nation.
‘There have been so many moments after I thought I couldn’t take one other step. The downhills have been hell,’ she mentioned. ‘However regardless of that the majority of my race targets having slipped away, there was nonetheless a tiny a part of my Olympic dream that I might grasp onto – and that was ending the Olympic marathon. I couldn’t surrender.
‘I saved telling myself to smile, take in the power of the unbelievable crowds and simply put one foot in entrance of the opposite.’