WHEN Hayley Haining lined up for her first marathon earlier this year, Paula Radcliffe wandered across and gave her a hug. It was a gesture which said everything about the Scot's long absence from the sport. Haining, succinctly and sincerely, says everything that has happened from that day to this has been unbelievable.

You can understand her sentiment. A door she thought had long since closed was thrown open in London in April. Today in Helsinki she will run in her first World Championships, in an event she first contested on something of a whim.

Haining is 33 and should have chips balanced on both shoulders given the ill-fortune which has dogged her athletics career, yet the veterinary surgeon knows there is nothing to be gained from such a pessimistic diagnosis.

"Make the most of it, " her coach told her after she ran 2 hours 35.23 minutes in London to finish 12th and qualify for both the British team in Helsinki and the Scottish Commonwealth Games team for Melbourne.

"The whole point of running London wasn't to get any sort of qualifying time. I wasn't even thinking about that. I'd just got back into running last summer and I was really enjoying it, " said Haining.

"I happened to mention to people at my club I'd like to run a marathon and they suggested London. I just wanted to finish the race and enjoy it. The fact I managed that time was unbelievable and the whole experience since then has been amazing."

So this afternoon Radcliffe and Haining will line up in the same field, just as they did 14 years ago in Antwerp at the world crosscountry championships. Back then they were teenagers at the start of careers. It was a time when the girl from Dumfries had the measure of Radcliffe, for she was the No 1 Briton, finishing seventh in the junior race, while Radcliffe could only manage 14th.

She seemed the natural successor to Liz McColgan, her potential evident since the day she became the British schools cross-country champion at 13. But severe foot problems were already apparent and it took her mother to convince her not to throw away her spikes amid so many set-backs. It would be another five years after Antwerp before Haining wore a British vest again.

Remarkably on her return to Team GB she led the team to a silver medal in the European CrossCountry championships. A year after that, in 1997, she was 22nd in the World Cross-Country Championships and 12 months later she improved to 13th.

But Haining, a clinical pathologist at Glasgow Veterinary School, continued to be bedevilled with fractures and instability in her feet, which wrecked her chances of translating her talent into success on the track.

Advice and treatment was sought from Ger Hartmann, the renowned Irish specialist physiotherapist, and Haining was supplied with specially-made orthotic insoles and an exercise regime to strengthen and rehabilitate her susceptible feet.

In 1999, four years after she last completed a track race, she topped off her season by securing the AAA 5,000m title, but the battle to stay race fit was beginning to take its toll, particularly when she started to study for a PhD.

"I wasn't injured when I stopped running four years ago, but I was having to do a lot of rehab work at home every day just to be able to run. Plus my work was quite timeconsuming so the most sensible thing to do was to chill out for a while, " she said.

"It was difficult to break the habit of a lifetime so I was still going out and doing some jogging and looking after my ankles and feet. It wasn't like I sat on my backside for four years!" she joked.

Spring 2004, with her Phd completed, the brightening weather encouraged her back out running more often, although an international return was the last thing on her mind. She started training with the Kilbarchan club, running a half marathon in Glasgow and a 10k in her home town of Dumfries.

And then the marathon appeared on the horizon.

"Since I came back last summer, I've only been training once a day which has probably been a major factor in that I've been able to do the marathon because I've not been trying to get fit quick and ending up simply getting injured quickly, " she added.

The insoles and exercises continue to do their work and she will line up today to face a course which is both undulating and exposed to the wind. Given the worst the Helsinki weather has thrown at competitors over the past week, it threatens to be an incredibly tough challenge.

"It is certainly going to make it interesting, " observed Haining. "I just want to finish on Sunday and know I've given my best. Then you have no reason to complain."

And what of Radcliffe, the woman who welcomed her back to the fold. "She is in good shape and we all have our fingers crossed."

That's Haining and everyone else.