Runner reveals she completed Olympic Marathon in Paris with broken leg

  • Rose Harvey describes the pain she experienced running the Olympic Marathon with a broken leg.

A marathon runner from Evesham who finished the Olympic Marathon course in Paris in a time of 2:51:03, in 78th place, has revealed she ran the course with a broken leg.

Rose Harvey's running journey peaked on Sunday when she took part in the Olympic Games as part of Team GB, but she didn't get the result she hoped for, limping round the course and coming in with a time far behind her Personal Best of 2:23.

She's since revealed she has been diagnosed with a stress fracture.

Harvey, a former corporate lawyer, first became passionate about running during lockdown when she was made redundant.

Writing on Instagram, she describes how she set herself the initial goal of making her local running team, but ended up getting such a brilliant time in her first race, she leapfrogged that objective to represent her country."The first opportunity to race was the Cheshire marathon, where I ran 2:30:59, a 25 minute PB.

"I never got to run for Surrey, as that time won me an invitation to the England half marathon team. And it all snowballed from there!"

Years of training followed and she made it into Team GB.

Rose Harvey battled to complete the race Credit: PA

'This was far from the Olympics I dreamed of, but still an experience of a lifetime.'

Her training was going well for Sunday's race, until she developed a bit of tightness in her hip. She and her training team thought she would be able to run through it with some race day adrenaline, but her dream race turned into a nightmare."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, I would have stopped and there were so many moments when I thought I couldn’t take another step. The downhills were hell.

"But despite 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."

Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain she explained the pain.

"The hills were just agony, the amount of impact. I mean some of them I had to walk. I had to give myself a break at the end just to regroup. Because I was running on one leg it was really cramping and I was getting a lot of pain in that leg too.

'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."It was heartbreaking.

"But being part of the Olympics is something I’ll never forget and being able to share the race with so many of my amazing friends and family meant the world to me."

The race was won by Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands, in a time of 2.22.55.

Sifan Hassan won the women's Marathon Credit: PA

Harvey now has to prepare for her wedding to her long-term partner next week.

  • Rose describes how she met her partner through running, and how he handles being slower than her!

She is currently on crutches, after being wheeled away from the Marathon finish in a wheelchair, but is resolute that she will have cast them to one side for her big day.

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