sideways with every step. This puts a lot of pressure on my ankles, which are pretty weedy anyway. One of the things that helps me to improve slightly is to concentrate on the stronger bits of my legs – be conscious of the movement of my thighs pushing my

, he got me to incorporate some sort of 'conditioning' into every waking hour, for example by wearing ankle weights through the day or carrying a weighted backpack whenever possible. Also loads and loads of partial squats that kind of made my quads bomb

likely to suffer if you fall out of a window while you're drunk or if you're still trussed up and tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere when the race is due to start. – VelociraptorWear St George kneepadsYou might be risking a twisted ankle, or some

't start running again. You can use any of the scores of beginning-to-run schedules that are out there. With my first I had a C-section, and a nice young physiotherapist who visited me a couple of weeks later gave me lots of advice about rotating my ankles