Picture the scene. 6:30pm, Saturday 19th September. Pete and Jonny are on a train, tiredly returning from a series of meetings in London, when out of the blue, Jonny gets a text message from his cousin asking if he would like an entry for The Great North Run. The only problem being that the race was in 14 hours time. And Jonny had done absolutely no training whatsoever.

Never a man to turn down a challenge, Jonny gleefully accepted. The fact that the pair of them had been downing pints earlier while watching the Arsenal v Wigan match at The Emirates Stadium (funny how lots of Solution Group meetings seem to be located near Premiership grounds) didn’t seem to bother the newly self appointed, running adonis.

The prince of swimwear turned up at the starting line looking like Steve Ovett's older, unfit, hairy brother. Setting off like legendary Newcastle United nutcase Temuri Ketsbaia on a particulary fruitless mazy effort, Jonny soon realised he better slow down the pace or he would find himself on the local news wrapped in tin-foil being paraded to the nation as a prime example of how not to train for a half marathon

(having not followed any of the advice giving at http://www.greatrun.org/Training/Article.aspx?id=49 this was a very realistic prospect).

But, no. The hirsute, free scoring Ben Lomond Centre Forward paced himself sensibly and that fierce regime of a game of football every day for the last 29 years paid off. Crossing the line at a very respectable 2 hours, 2 minutes and 14 seconds there were smiles all over the big man's face. Until he realised that if he had only ran each mile 10 seconds quicker he would have ‘broken the magical two’!

Apparently he’s thinking with a bit of training he might even win it next year...