Hayley Haining will coax disfunctional muscles which she says sometimes feel �like a dead fish� to carry her round the 26 miles 385 yards of the ING New York Marathon on Sunday.

Hayley Haining will coax disfunctional muscles which she says sometimes feel "like a dead fish" to carry her round the 26 miles 385 yards of the ING New York Marathon on Sunday.

Not only has the Kilbarchan woman had to overcome recurrent injury to recapture her running career, she has had to learn the art of self-physiotherapy while converting herself over two decades from one of Britain's most promising track teenage track runners to a world-class marathoner.

More than 20 years after leaving the under-15 age group, she is still ranked in Scotland's top five at 800 and 1500 metres, while at 3000 metres as a junior (under-20) she remains a close second behind future European and world indoor champion Yvonne Murray, and more than 20 seconds ahead of future world champion Liz McColgan.

In 1991 Haining finished seventh in the junior race at the World Cross-Country Championships in Antwerp, ahead of Paula Radcliffe and was hailed as the next McColgan. Thereafter, however, injuries blighted Haining's career, yet in one narrow window of recovery and retrieved fitness seven years later, she made Britain's senior team for the world event, in Marrakech. On the day that Ireland's Sonia O'Sullivan won the women's double, Haining finished 13th in the long race, first British finisher behind Radcliffe. Just a few strides in front of her was Susan Chepkemei, who later set a world half marathon best, won the Rotterdam marathon and was three-times runner-up in New York.

There is no way of knowing where Haining's track potential might have taken her, or what she might have achieved with uninterrupted training, but she is enjoying a late flowering as one of the elite invited field in the race through the five boroughs of the Big Apple. Yet there is no bitterness that fame and significant fortune eluded her, or that world record-holder Radcliffe claimed what had once appeared her birthright. Radcliffe even kept her from the Olympic team this year when all logic dictated that injury would prevent her from being anything but a shadow of her self.

While Radcliffe has amassed a fortune, Haining has been happy just to be able to run. "I've done this by learning how to treat myself," she said "I've been doing it for three or four years." This coincides with her step up to the marathon which includes a World Cup team bronze medal. "The last three years have been an adventure for an old woman. I can hardly believe I'm here, sitting in this skyscraper, on the 44th floor of the Hilton, overlooking Central Park."

She has wound down her training there this week, and explained how she has had tuition from the physiotherapists credited with helping Radcliffe salvage her career. "Ger Hartman and Alison Rose have treated me. I just watched what they do, and asked their advice. I've also had huge help from the Scottish Institute of Sport."

Her full-time job as a veterinary pathologist meant she was unable to undertake the treatment regime of a full-time athlete. "I just didn't have the time to go for physio all the time. I'd have been even more worn down than with the injuries. So I asked questions and was always learning.

"I've had bother with my lower leg and foot over decades. When I try to isolate the muscle, no matter how hard I think, I can't make it work. Muscles should be smooth, a consistent texture, but sometimes mine go all lumpy and doughy, like putty. What actually happens, I don't know, but I can coax them back. I have been taught what I need to do.

"I could feel congestion in my muscles, little lumps and tears. Sometimes there was no response in the muscle at all. It felt like I was handling dead fish. So I would be in there probing and massaging the deep tissue, to keep the muscle clean and supple. I've to keep firing up the muscle memory, reminding it of how to do the job. It's mainly down the inside of the shin, but also in the foot. But I work on the joints as well. I do this twice a week when I'm doing more intense track work or high mileage. I have literally been feeling my way along.

"But I can't go poking and probing too much. You ache anyway, after hard training, so you have to have faith that you've done the job properly.

"It's taught me to increase my training slowly, and if I need to treat myself more than twice a week, I know that I'm overdoing it. Sometimes, when I've done 10k on the track, I'm quite happy not to be crippled.

"I have been close to 100 miles per week in the winter, and up to that for several weeks in the summer."

She took a three-week break after she realised she would not be racing in Beijing, but since then she has run the fastest 10k and half marathon times of her life. At 36, she is as excited as a teenager at her second chance.

Life Lines, Herald Magazine, tomorrow