THE searing pain came out of nowhere. One minute I was determinedly schlepping through the torrential rain and gusting wind, the next every step was agony. It felt like the sole of my right foot was being prodded by a white-hot poker - or repeatedly standing on the same jagged Lego brick.

If you tuned in last week, you’ll know that I tackled the Edinburgh half marathon a fortnight ago. The conditions were tough. But, just before mile six, I found myself unexpectedly hobbling.

I’m still not sure what happened. My best guess is that I jarred my foot at some point. There were a few occasions where I’d had to swerve or slam on the brakes, so to speak, as other runners halted without warning in front of me.

My brain toggled through a gamut of emotions: shock, disbelief, fear. A thought bubble formed: what if I couldn’t finish? I immediately batted that flicker of negativity away. Because if I didn’t acknowledge it, then it wouldn’t become a reality.

I cast my mind back to the message my friend Alison had sent me the night before: “Don’t doubt yourself. There will be no sweeper bus picking you up. You will be crossing that finish line as a half marathon finisher.”

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I pushed on along the promenade at Portobello. A man winced in sympathy as I shuffled past. Other spectators shouted my name and words of support. A child gave me a high five and offered me a gummy worm from a box of sweets. It all helped.

I started to do the maths. A mixture of self-bargaining and deludedly optimistic calculations. Less than a mile and I would be halfway. Get to seven miles and I only had six left.

My longest training run, thanks to the disruptions of illness and injury, was 9.5 miles. But I knew if I reached mile 10, I would see friends cheering and get a much-needed boost. After that it was just the equivalent of a Saturday morning parkrun, a mere 3.1 miles, to navigate.

So, I kept moving. I blocked out the pain and focused on the cacophony of noise around me. Snatches of conversation. The squelch of wet trainers on puddle-strewn roads. Cheers and clapping. The rhythm of the race.

Suddenly, something felt different. It took a moment to place what it was. And then I realised: the pain in my foot was gone. Maybe this was the final lesson? The universe sometimes has a way of testing us to check how much we really want something.

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The miles ticked by. Seven, eight, nine. Before I knew it, I could hear the roar of the crowd lining the route past Musselburgh Racecourse.

On the other side of the road, I watched the faster runners on the return leg of an out and back section, heading towards the finish. Mile 10. I spotted some friends among the blurry sea of faces and my determination soared.

Three miles was all that remained. Along a soul-sapping, undulating stretch of country road. This bit went on for an eternity. Time sped up, slowed down, sped up again.

I’m grateful for every single stranger who called out my name and cajoled me to keep going. I turned one last corner and there it was: the finish line.

Then came a spine-tingling, goosebumps-inducing vortex of clashing emotions. Relief, exhilaration, joy and an odd sense of disappointment that it was over, despite the fact I had spent 13.1 miles giving it everything I had to get there.

I was at the end, yet it felt like the beginning. Because when you have conquered something that at one stage seemed insurmountable, the possibility of what might come next feels infinite.