1. A method of processing a load instruction, comprising: upon receipt of the load instruction, predicting whether the load instruction is dependent upon a previous store instruction, if so, identifying a distance from the load instruction to a colliding store instruction, the distance represented in terms of a number of store instructions separating a most recently received store instruction and the colliding store instruction, determining whether the colliding store is present in a core execution unit, and if the colliding store is present in the core execution unit, storing the load instruction with a dependency marker identifying the distance.