After a whirlwind journey from law to the Olympics, nothing was going to stop Rose Harvey – not even the small matter of a stress fracture in her leg.

Harvey’s story was already remarkable enough. Four years ago, she was made redundant from her job as a corporate lawyer, and decided to use lockdown to see how far she could get with her running.

Her first outing over 26 miles was the Cheshire marathon in 2021, which she ran in just over two hours and 30 minutes. From there, she joined with Puma as a professional athlete and was able to train full-time, becoming British champion and recording a new personal best of 2:23:21 at the Chicago marathon last year – putting her sixth on the British all-time list.

Selection for the British team at this year’s Paris Olympics followed, and Harvey took her place alongside the world’s best at the weekend.

But there was to be a painful twist.

Harvey explained: ‘My incredible team and I put in so much work to make the start line fit and healthy and we were all optimistic that with a bit of race day adrenaline, I would be able to run the race I knew I had in me.

‘A couple of miles in, I quickly realised that wasn’t going to happen. The next 24 miles were a painful battle. It turns out I had stress fractured my femur.’

In any other race, she would have stopped, but this being the Olympics, she was determined to finish. She crossed the line in 78th, but with the admiration of a nation.

'There were so many moments when I thought I couldn’t take another step. The downhills were hell,’ she said. ‘But despite that most of my race goals having slipped away, there was still a tiny part of my Olympic dream that I could hang onto - and that was finishing the Olympic marathon. I couldn’t give up.

‘I kept telling myself to smile, soak up the energy of the incredible crowds and just put one foot in front of the other.’

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