An email conversation with David Bedford: 'Whoever wins on Sunday will be greatest in the world'

The London Marathon will be 26 years old this Sunday. How much older will it get? I'm certain it will have its centenary. It has captured the public imagination.

The marathon world records are 2hr 04min 55sec for Paul Tergat and 2:15.25 for Paula Radcliffe. How much faster can the event get? In my lifetime we will see someone break two hours. And in my lifetime I don't think we will see any woman run faster than Paula. Apart from Paula.

Sunday's race will see the world record holder, Tergat, and Haile Gebrselassie meeting each other in a marathon for the second time. Who will win? Hard to say; but I think we could see half a dozen runners involved in the final two or three miles. Whoever wins will be the greatest marathon runner in the world.

Who was your sporting hero? Ron Clarke. When I was starting he was absolutely flying. I competed against him a couple of times near the end of his career and he was too good for me.

People say there is a similarity between yourself and Clarke, that neither earned the rewards his talents merited. Do you agree? He broke 17 world records, I broke one. I ended up running faster than him over 10,000 metres, but Ron had an awful amount of bad luck. The year he was winning everything the Olympics were at altitude in Mexico. If they had been anywhere else he would have won the 5,000m and 10,000m easily. I was at the top for four years before I got a leg injury, but on a bad day I was sixth in the Olympics and on a good one I broke the world record. I feel happy with my career.

The London Marathon is the largest annual fund-raising event in the world and has raised more than £40m for charity. Is that a better stat for you than 27minutes 30.80sec for 10,000m? No contest. My world record needed coach Bob Parker and me and a few others. In order to raise £40m you need a lot more help.

You have been known to enjoy the odd drink. What's your favourite? Light and bitter.

What's your favourite book? It was written in 1912 by Thomas James Barratt, and it's called the Annals of Hampstead. It's a history of the place where I now live.

What is it with ex-athletes and motorbikes? I've got a Triumph Bonneville and there's nothing like the feeling of riding it. Maybe it's something about making journeys on your own, like people did on horses, whatever the weather. I've ridden to a lot of major championships over the years, although the Athens world championships in 1997 weren't so good because I broke down at Calais and had to do it by train and plane. I think this year's Osaka world championships will be a bit far. And Beijing next year. But I'll be taking the bike to Berlin in 2009.

Do any runners now make you think, "He's a bit like I was"? I ran three times a day, 200 miles a week. I see that sort of commitment from some of the world stars, but I don't see it so much from runners in this country.

Paula Radcliffe has won London three times in the last five years, but there hasn't been a British male winner since Eamonn Martin in 1993. Has commitment got something to do with it? Up to a point. I think you can see now with the junior women that there has been a "Paula effect". They have seen it is possible to beat the best African runners. On the men's side, you look at someone like Mo Farah and you'd have to say his recent 11th in the world cross-country championships was as well as he has ever raced. I think at some point Mo will run a great marathon --hopefully, this side of the 2012 Games.

You had a spot of legal bother with the directory enquiries company The Number a few years ago because they were using blokes that looked like you, circa 1972, in their adverts. They're still there, aren't they, with their Zapata moustaches, hairbands and red socks? Yeah. I hate the little sods. I objected because it was clearly me, and everyone said it was me, and they said, "No. We've never heard of Dave Bedford. This was based on an American athlete called Steve Prefontaine." That was a load of old bollocks.

Some people would kill to have their image so high-profile. I suppose at one stage I could have been persuaded that that was a decent position to take up. But when a legal case has cost you £60,000 it tends to piss you off. Ofcom upheld my complaint, but that was all that happened.

The London Marathon would not be in existence without the efforts of the late Chris Brasher. What are your memories of him? Chris - and John Disley - created something which would probably be impossible these days. Brasher never took no for an answer. I found him intelligent, controversial and volatile.

Remind us of the time you eased the boredom of training for the 1972 Olympics by shooting the walker Paul Nihill in the backside. That was widely exaggerated. It was only an air rifle and there was no blood. He was about 200 yards away, so by the time the pellet reached him it dropped like a snowflake. He slightly overreacted. But he had it coming.

Remind us of your first marathon. That would be the first London one, in 1981. The night before I was in one of the nightclubs I owned in Luton, The Mad Hatter, and one of the locals bet me £200 I couldn't run the marathon. I took the bet, moved off the beer and went on to pina coladas, thinking the juice would be good for me. I did some carbo loading at 3am with a curry at the Light of India. Of course, the clocks went back the next day so I lost another hour of sleep there, and the marathon started round about 8am. Things were great until about halfway when the tandoori and drink started to kick in. It took me 45 minutes to run the last three miles, and I was caught on TV puking into a drain.Funnily enough, I never saw the guy who owed me £200 again. I'm still looking for him.

What was your greatest race? Would it be the one where you took eight seconds off the world 10,000m record in 1973? Probably. But I think my best performance was at Crystal Palace the year before, at the Olympic trials. My coach, Bob Parker, didn't want me to get too tired during the 5,000m and during the race he told me to slow down, so I put in a lap of around 70 seconds after the 63s and 64s. But then I thought, "This is stupid", and speeded up again. I missed the world record by three-tenths of a second. I don't think Bob has ever forgiven himself. I thought it didn't matter because there would always be another day. But you don't always get another day.