Illiotibial band syndrome. Sounds like some nasty disease doesn’t it? It is, in fact, the knee condition I am pretty sure I have been suffering for the last three months, writes Hannah Webster.

I’ve got to say though, it doesn’t half feel like a disease, with all the difficulty I’m having getting rid of it.

It is basically an agonising pain on the outside of your knee, triggered from overuse when the muscle running along the outside of your thigh rubs against the bones in your knee.

It hit me at mile nine of the Birmingham Half Marathon in October, which devastated my time from what was to be a personal best to a personal worst, as I limped the last four miles and was virtually crippled for days afterwards. Every now and then I would get a sharp pain when going up and down stairs, usually crying out and alarming some poor passer-by.

I was not able to run for a month, and when I did run again I could only run for four minutes at a time before I had to stop. I tried again a few weeks later and it was six minutes. Pretty slow progress by anyone’s standards, but I have now worked this up to 33 minutes, although it is positively driving me mad.

Having trawled the internet, all I have found is advice to rest – which I have done for nearly three months – and slowly work up the mileage. It doesn’t say what to do if you are on a timescale of completing a marathon in four months.

I am now frantically putting an ice pack on it at every opportunity, taking ibuprofen and wearing a knee support as much as possible. I ran for 45 minutes the other day and had to stop because of the pain, but at least I know I can run for that long without coughing up a lung or collapsing. I found a few websites which say to seek physio advice, but I know all he/she will tell me is not to run, and I really don’t want to hear it.

It’s incredible to think back to about five years ago when I would not have complained at all to have an excuse not to run, whereas now it’s actually stressful and worrying that I can’t get out the door as much as I would like.

My first “hard run” of six quarter-mile repeats at two minutes each, scheduled for Wednesday, is bound to test it. I can only hope my muscles get the hint and realise I will not be giving up.