Rose Harvey was running along the pavement in South London on one of her last training sessions before the London Marathon when a driver pulled out of a driveway without looking. She ran straight into the car, landing in a heap on the bonnet. Her knee took the full force. The driver got out and shouted at her. ‘He was so angry, bizarrely, given I was on the pavement,’ she says. ‘My first reaction was to keep running!’
It was only when she got home that she realised how bad it was. With just 10 days to go before she was due to line up with the elite women on the start line at Greenwich Park, Harvey’s knee was so swollen she couldn’t bend it. ‘I just couldn’t believe it had happened’, she says. ‘I was feeling really confident. I had been averaging 100 miles a week in my training for the first time. I had been out in America at a training camp in North Carolina. I was going into London feeling great. And then this.’
For the next week, Harvey attempted to run no more than three miles a day, just to keep moving. ‘If I was jogging, I could kind of hobble on it. But going quickly really hurt.’ She was devastated but told no-one – neither her coaches, nor her friends. Only her osteopath knew. ‘In my head, I thought if I pretend it hasn’t happened, maybe it will be okay. It was desperate measures at this stage.’
On marathon day, Harvey decided to give it a go. ‘I was clinging on to that one ounce of hope that it would be alright,’ she says. ‘I smothered my knee in about half a tube of Voltarol gel and went out there. I thought I’ve just got to start this race and give it a go for all the people who’ve been with me on this marathon running rollercoaster ride.’
And it has been quite a ride. Harvey only took up running more seriously at the start of lockdown, when she was suddenly made redundant from her high pressure job as a corporate lawyer at the age of 27. She found herself at home with lots of time on her hands. Running until then had just been a hobby. She ran to work sometimes. She ran at weekends. But she never ran more than 35 or 40 miles a week. She only took up running when she moved to London at the age of 21. She didn’t know anyone and was horribly unfit after years of partying at university and says she joined her local club, Clapham Chasers, mainly to meet people. Despite a full-on job as a junior lawyer and little time to train, she became a good club runner. In 2016, she finished a half marathon in 1:22; the following year she ran her first marathon in 2:55, despite only being able to train three or four times a week. ‘I was aiming for 3:15,’ she says. ‘I set off far too quickly and just kept going. I was really surprised. But, oh, the pain afterwards!’
She had another go in 2018 (the hottest London Marathon on record) and got slower not faster. I’m not doing that again, she thought. And then the pandemic arrived. ‘I went from being in the office all the time to being at home with nothing to do. I’d been in this crazy job – and suddenly it just stopped and I realised how exhausted I was from work. I thought I’m going to do something completely different and fun.’ So Rose signed up for a half Ironman and began training hard. She started with three sessions a day, running, swimming, cycling. ‘I either give something 100% or I don’t do it at all. There’s no in-between,’ she laughs.
Her life changed during one of those sessions, when she was running in Battersea Park. She was spotted by the coach Phil Kissi, who offered to take her on. Within a year she ran the Cheshire Marathon and wiped 25 minutes off her PB, finishing in 2:30:58. She couldn’t believe it. ‘I think, because we’d been in full lockdown all the way through, I had no benchmarks. So I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t really clock how much quicker I had got. There were a few articles afterwards saying where has this girl come from – and I think it was only after that marathon that I started thinking, “Wow, I have actually got something! This is cool!” I was loving it.’
Less than six months later, Rose found herself on the elite start line of the 2021 London marathon for the first time. ‘I had major imposter syndrome,’ she says. ‘I just thought, “What the hell am I doing here on this start line?” Normally the progression is you do track when you’re younger and you do all the shorter distances and then you slowly move up to marathon. I didn’t have all that background; I didn’t have all that training. I just went straight to marathon.” But she earned her place on that start line, finishing in 2:29:45, another PB.
And so a year later, here she was back again, standing shoulder to shoulder with the elites. She was faster, fitter. She had quit her job as a lawyer and was now a full-time sponsored athlete. And what no-one knew is that she had bust her knee in a run in with a car and there was every chance she wouldn’t finish. ‘Just before I set off my coach, Alastair, said to me just remember when it gets painful – that’s the time to show everyone what you’ve got. He didn’t know how much pain I was already in, but he just happened to say the right thing at the right time. It kept me going.’
She felt the pain in her knee from the start. But with every mile that passed she told herself that if it didn’t get any worse, she would be fine. And she kept going. ‘That for me was pretty much the whole race.’ Not only did Rose finish but she came in as the fastest British woman in 2:27:58. ‘I had such a wave of emotions crossing that finish line,’ she says. ‘I’d had less than a 50% chance of finishing. I had held it together for so long, telling no-one what had happened. I just burst into tears. I couldn’t speak.’ It was only after the race that she confessed to her coach. He was stunned.
Now Rose has the Paris 2024 Olympics in her sights. ‘I still can’t believe what has happened to me in the last two and a half years,’ she says. ‘I still feel like I’m kind of on a holiday. Every morning I wake up and think, “Wow this is amazing I’m living my dream – running and being paid to do it!’ But to get to Paris, she will have to shave another chunk off her time. Can she do it? ‘Yeah, I think so with consistent training. I’ve taken 25 minutes off my PB so far. So yeah – I think, why not? You just don’t know until you try. You’ve just got to give it a go. You’ve got to see the opportunities, take them and give it 100%, and I just think why can’t it be me?’
