Marathon-Photos.com, the official race photographer, will be covering this event and offering a range of services including photographs and certificates for each competitor, available via their website at www.Marathon-Photos.com

The marathon is run over a distance of 26.2 mile (42.195km). In 490BC a messenger in Ancient Greece is reported to have run from Marathon to Athens (26mile) to tell the Athenians not to surrender to the Persians. History has it that he dropped dead of exhaustion!

DUGIE'S TIP, they should have had more watering stations. Remember to keep loading those carbo's and keeping well hydrated in the build up to race day. The good runners are queing for the loo. Right Paula!

1984 the first Olympic Marathon for women is run in Los Angeles.

1981, 6255 runners complete the first London Marathon.

BORN TO RUN, the Kalenjin tribe live in northwest Kenya. Twelve of the worlds top distance runners are Kalenjin. They live at an altitude of 7000ft at this height oxygen levels start to fall, so the body compensates by increasing the number of oxygen carrying red cells in the blood, so the heart beats slower to carry the same ammount of oxygen around the body.

TRAINING, the advice from the London marathon medical team is that you should be able to run 15ml comfortably three weeks before the race.

DUGIE'S TIP, take a two week break in Kenya with the Kalenjin's prior to coming to Lochaber.

HITTING THE WALL Lots of runners crawl home after they ‘hit the wall’ many runners simply stop. Short of being carried over the line there’s no way they can complete their marathon.

A strong urge to stop running frequently hits inexperienced marathon runners some time after 18 miles. At this point they have completely used up their glycogen reserves and only have fatty acids left to run on. The problem is that fatty acids release their energy at half the speed of glycogen. The result is that pace has to slow by half and this can push an 8 minute-miler down to 16-minute miles – no more than walking pace. If other factors such as dehydration or over-heating are playing a part as well a runner is literally stopped in his or her tracks.

DUGIE'S TIP If you hit a wall then you've gone the wrong way, no wall's on my course. We may delete the 18th mile to see if it helps.