It’s April, which means that Sundays this month are chock full of marathons. For the past four years I’ve run at least one of them – last year I was greedy and ran both Manchester and London.

I wrote a lot of marathon training plans at the start of this year and with each one I wrote I felt a bit sad that I wouldn’t be lining up to run 26.2 miles this year. But I’d already withdrawn from South Downs Way 50 miler because juggling training and coaching was taking some getting used to. So I stuck to the half.

After running Cambridge half marathon I took a few days off and then went out running again. My legs felt OK so I started to build up my miles again. I have a Good For Age place for London that I could use and I mulled it over. I picked up the pace on a few runs and started to wonder whether I could get myself in PB shape.

Everything was going well for a couple of weeks until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

I had a pain in my left leg. I gave it a few days off but it didn’t go away as quickly as I’d like, so I went to see a physio.

I’m very lucky that running is my job. But it means that running as a hobby has to take a backseat right now. Being fit and well to run with my runners comes before being fit and well to race. So when, after two weeks off running, my leg was sorted and I was cleared to resume training, it wasn’t my own training that was most pressing.

I want to run another marathon. I want to have another crack at qualifying for Boston. But it won’t happen at London. Two weeks out of training means I wouldn’t run in London the way I want to. I wouldn’t be in PB shape, and I definitely wouldn’t be able to run with my groups for a week after.

So this April, I’ll be watching from the sidelines cheering on friends and some of the runners I’ve coached. Good luck to everyone who is marathoning this month. I’ll be with you every step of the way.