Retired Marlborough engineer Alan Joslin knew exactly what to expect when he waited with the other 30,000 contestants for the start of the London Marathon on Sunday – because he had run 93 previously, including a dozen or so times in the London event.

Mr Joslin, 61, who lives at Barton Park, was planning to run on Sunday even before he was persuaded by his good friend Chris Loveday to run in aid of the charity TWIGS (Therapeutic Work in Gardening, Swindon) which helps people get over mental health problems and return to work.

Chartered surveyor Mr Loveday, 60, who lives in London Road in Marlborough, has previously run the London Marathon, as well as the New York Marathon last December, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, to raise funds for TWIGS.

Both men are members of Marlborough Running Club and when Mr Loveday heard that Mr Joslin was running in Sunday’s London Marathon he invited him to run for TWIGS and hopes to have raised between £600-£700.

Mr Joslin said he was “a couch potato” when he took up running at the age of 25 and kept at it regularly until 1991 when he ran his first ever marathon in Leeds.

Since then he has run 94 including Sunday’s and they included the Paris Marathon ten times, marathons in Berlin and Chicago and his favourite held in Medoc in the Bordeaux region of France where the race has 22 refreshment stops offering wine as well as water.

Sunday was his 12th marathon in London and he had a trouble-free run, he said, crossing the finish line in five hours 19 minutes.

He said: “Years ago I would have been two hours faster than that.”

He said: “I had a bit of a cold so I took it easy to start with or I could have finished about ten minutes quicker.”

The father-of-two, who was a mechanical engineer with npower in Swindon, is planning to complete his 100th marathon next year so he can boast that he is a member of the elite 100 Club.

“I would like my 100th to be the Neolithic marathon from Avebury to Stonehenge next year,” said Mr Joslin, who is planning to run in this year’s on Sunday, May 6 which will be his 95th marathon.