Piece of cake this marathon lark

So I'd signed up for this flippin' Hastings Marathon hadn't I?

Old Brainbox from Zimbabwe had decided it would be good for his fitness and good for my profile if we walked the bally thing. Although I had joked about my little 4.2 mile race in Swanley last week being my training session, this kiddie is, of course, a serious athlete and I have to take the sport and all its challenges seriously. But I also have to take my responsibilities seriously too ....

... which is why, on the day before the Hastings Marathon, I was to be found performing the opening ceremony at the Kent Christmas Cracker in Deal, organised by those gin-soaked bozos from Nice Work. Now I don't know if you've ever been to this particular part of Caravan County - but Deal is what I would call remote. In fact, if Deal had been discovered before Mansfield we'd now be quite comfortable with the expression "It's grim down south'.

We were at an old mining site now rather poetically renamed Fowlmead Country Park - and it is remote, it is wild and windy - and, my God can it rain there. Plus, it was cold enough to freeze the handle off my teapot. And so as soon as I'd performed my ceremonial duties I retired to the Dog and Duck with my van driver Ernie and Granddad Stan the Bandana Man - and promptly got stuck into a few tubes of Guinness and a bottle of red wine.

Now I know that's not fuel for an athlete - but I thought it was OK fuel for a walker. And so I retired for the evening feeling pretty comfortable with myself.

About 3 o'clock in the morning I awoke with a start. The old grey matter had been churning round and I'd been doing a bit of mental arithmetic. My average walking pace is around two and a half miles an hour. So, let's assume I could crack on a bit - but then factor in the long, long distance. This bally marathon was going to take us around eight and a half hours to walk!!!

And the cut of time my dear Ronnettes?

Six hours.

Now how's that for a quandary? I was in between a brick and a hard hat here wasn’t I? The Zimbabwe Flash wanted to do the thing. Neither of us was fit enough to do it - but there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of people lining the streets. We couldn't disappoint them could we?

So, at 9.15 I found myself in the wonderful seaside town of Hastings frantically searching for the ZF - and after finding him slumped over a hair of the dog taking the last remnants from a packet of Park Drive I broke the bad news to him.

We were going to have to run the flippin' thing.

Being an elite athlete though I had worked out a race strategy. Obviously, the youngsters - those who felt they had something to prove - we'd let them go. We'd let those who fancied a go at your man here - beggar 'em - let them go too. Any international athletes could head north, and I'd already demanded that I didn’t run near anybody from Yorkshire, Wales or Scotland.

That left about half a dozen of us. Our strategy was cunning but simple. We'd need to conserve energy. So we would walk up any incline - no matter how steep or not steep - we would walk. And we'd jog slowly along any flat bits. And we'd run down the hills.

Which is how we found ourselves walking after 100 yards of the flippin' event. But it did give the packed streets what they'd come for - an unhindered view of an athletic and sporting icon. They applauded warmly as we completed the first 600 metres in 10 minutes although I have to say not that many of them hung around to see us come around on the second lap. I blame that on the fact that much of the crowd were just ordinary people and women - not much sporting knowledge you see.

But do you know something? My cunning race plan did work. It left us with enough energy to get ourselves out of Hastings and on to the long drag around rural East Sussex. My cunning plan might not have been that swift in its execution but it was a workable plan never the less. And I'd calculated that if we stuck to the plan we might just get back to the finish around the cut-off time. And that, I reckoned, would be some achievement for your man here.

So what happened?

Well we only went and finished the bally thing!! In doing so, we came in just five minutes outside the six hour cut off time. BUT ... because for much of the race we were at the south end of the field, by the time we got to Bexhill-on-Sea the chuffing marshals hade been sent home because it was so bally cold - which meant your kiddie here, the ZF plus assorted competitors - including a Rhinoceros - were left scratching our heads in some God forsaken part of the town wondering where on earth to go. And where did we go? Yup - the wrong way!! So, we ended up doing 27 miles rather than the regulation 26.2!! And if we had done the normal distance - we'd have been home under that cut off time.

So I was rather proud of my 6 hours 6 minutes. On so little training but confirmation of that old truism - class is permanent.

I'm not sure where I came in the grand scheme of things but I reckon easily top twenty.

So, roll on London 2012 eh?

Keep on tapering.

Ron