As my sister and I joined the crowd of runners waiting to start the half marathon, I wondered how, and even if, we were going to manage this. We’d started training only a few months before and the longest continuous run we’d completed was 10 miles long.

As we waited for the signal to start, I worried over silly things: whether I’d drunk too little or too much, whether the number would fall off my Marie Curie running vest, whether I’d lose the luminous sunflower from my hair…. And then I saw a lorry branded with her surname and my insecurities were silenced.

We started the race and comfortably ran the first 6 miles but each mile after that became more difficult. Our resolve was chipped away by each new uphill slog. Our energy was drained as the runners in front passed us by, going back the way we had just come. But cheering strangers forced us to smile through our agony and we kept running.

We kept running until we hit the last couple of miles when my sister suddenly began to struggle with her breathing. At the bottom of the final winding hill, she remembered that the wonderful woman we were running for, her mother-in-law Yvonne, was losing her life to cancer.

Despair and grief overwhelmed her.

And then we rounded the corner and Elbow’s One Day Like This played out from a sound system. It was Yvonne’s anthem and it felt like a sign.

Hearing that song gave my sister the strength she needed to continue. We kept on up the hill and when we reached the flat, final drag, we jogged through the finish line!

I used to think that long-distance running was about physical strength but our half marathon taught me that it’s about emotional and spiritual power as well. Many of the competitors that finished with us were amateurs like me and my sister. The elation, relief and exhaustion I saw mirrored in their faces showed their hearts and souls as well as their bodies had been tested as ours had. We’d all run a race we weren’t certain we could finish, not for the sporting challenge but for somebody we cherished.

On ‘one day like this’ we’d done something extraordinary.

On ‘one day like this’ we’d been the embodiment of pure, unstoppable, undefeatable, love.