Refresh the BBC weather page all you want in race week but it isn’t going to change a thing. Trust me I’ve tried. It was a long train ride from London to Edinburgh for the marathon and I wasn’t going to let a bit of sun and 24 degree heat stop me from making it worthwhile and getting a PB. Besides I’d uttered the immortal words “Sub 4 or bust” on twitter.

You can be prepared for hot weather though so I had procured a very uncool cap and doused myself in P20 sunscreen. Oh and I went away for four months and ran around in 30+ degree heat (I totally planned that).

Edinburgh Marathon had an interesting duel start situation going on which meant that as I was in the front pen of the second start I could see the start line as we stood waiting. The announcer told us that a 78-year-old woman would be running her first marathon with us at which the crowd of runners applauded.

9:07 miles were the order of the day to get round in under 4 hours. The first couple of miles felt good. The Achilles trouble I’d been having seemed to be gone thanks to an extreme taper of just four short runs in the past three weeks and my legs were feeling pretty fresh.

The route took us pretty much directly out of Edinburgh and towards the sea which wasn’t great for sightseeing but essential for avoiding hills. The route was undulating but overall a net downhill according to the elevation diagram on the race website. I must have been asleep during the massive downhill bit. It didn’t feel very ‘net downhill’.

As we hit the coast for the first time around 5 miles the sun was getting hot and the sea was looking inviting.
The support though was excellent from kids with water pistols giving runners a soaking to those flouting the hosepipe ban to hose us down.

Around mile 15 a runner in front of me stopped running suddenly and I lurched to the left to avoid going into the back of him. A twinge of pain went through my Achilles and my stomach dropped – not now! But 100 meters down the road it seemed fine.

The route hugged the coast for about 12 miles before we turned around at around 19 miles and headed back towards the finish. I’d stuck pretty rigidly to my 9:07 mile plan but around 20 miles a run of 9:20, 9:23 and 9:25 put me behind and in danger of getting 4:01.

At 23.5 miles I saw my friend Kristy cheering and I put my feet down. The last three miles 8:55, 8:56 and 8:50 brought me onto the finishing straight with a sprint finish between me and sub-4 glory. The final chip time? 3:59:31. Ecstatic I celebrated with a pizza and a pint of the special marathon beer from the Stewart Brewery beer tent while chatting to two runners from Reading, one of whom is doing 20 marathons this year – Edinburgh was his 8th.