The Arizona-based Scot, who turns 30 this week, makes his first appearance on home soil in almost a year in this morning's Bupa Great Edinburgh Run following a summer wrecked by injuries and ailments.

It left him having to watch the Olympics from his couch in between rehabilitation sessions in the gym and spells lending his expertise to the online coaching service started up by his coach, Greg McMillan. They were frustrating times, he concedes, but Lemoncello had long prepared himself for the disappointment of passing up on London.

"I'd had an injection to repair my tendon back in January and my coach told me then to be prepared to miss the Olympics," he said. "So when it came to that point where I had to make a decision, I was almost mentally set to say: 'No, that's it, you're out.' It was still hard but easier than it would have been if I'd not been thinking about it. I wasn't completely devastated. And it's turned out to be a good thing and I'm now focused on the next thing."

A tentative return last month in a half-marathon in Denver ended with an unexpected victory, achieved despite ongoing tenderness in his problematic ankle and hamstring. "But I came out of the race feeling better than I'd hoped for. I was pretty much pain-free. That was the No 1 goal, to see how my body would react. The win was a bonus."

In Edinburgh, he will look for further gains in a field which contains Olympic steeplechaser Stuart Stokes but is without the overseas talent attracted in previous years. It is similar in the women's race where Freya Murray will be the hometown favourite. The 10-kilometre event, which now starts in Holyrood Park, has been revamped but Lemoncello senses it will be to his benefit.

"The course has been made a bit more hilly this year so it will be a good work out. But the main thing is I want to get a win on home soil."