RON HILL had already logged yesterday's training session in the diary when we spoke.

"Two-and-a-half miles, easy," reads the entry. "Easy" less because he had a cancer biopsy this week than that he has a 10k race tomorrow. At 75, there are no concessions to a daily regime that will, "God willing", celebrate its 50th anniversary on December 19.

The week that it started, in 1964, the House of Commons voted to abolish the death penalty. Within days the Moors murderers kidnapped and tortured Lesley Ann Downey. The Beatles celebrated a Christmas No.1 with I Feel Fine.

That's when former European and Commonwealth marathon champion Dr Hill last missed a day's training.

"As of today, I have logged 158,985 miles," he told me, the equivalent of more than six times round the world.

"I had a prostate biopsy on Tuesday," he adds. "I hope it's not going to be anything untoward, but at 75, I believe if it is cancer and slow-growing, they are not going to do anything: 'Just carry on with your life.' I'm hoping to get to 100, and hoping it won't be that which gets me."

Hill insists he will just keep on running. It will no more stop him than the car crash which hospitalised him with a broken sternum, or the six weeks he spent in plaster after bunyon surgery. Not even his GP (serial-killer Harold Shipman) stopped his daily run.

"He seemed a good GP, but I saw him only once. I was much too young then to interest him."

Hill won the European title in Athens in 1969, taking three minutes from the record on the course which later destroyed Paula Radcliffe.

When he won the Commonwealth crown in Edinburgh the following year, he relegated Scotland's defending champion, Jim Alder, to second. Their times that day in 1970 remain the Scottish all-comers' record (which should have been acknowledged as a world best) and the Scottish native best respectively.

When Hill won the 1970 Boston Marathon (2:10.30) he broke the course record by more than three minutes. "There was no prize money at all [last year it was $150,000]. I got a medal, a bowl of beef stew, and a laurel wreath which agriculture regulations wouldn't let me take it out of America."

Hill wrote out Emil Zatopek's world road record for 25k and set world bests at 10 and 15 miles, but when he won the Commonwealth title in Edinburgh, the greatest prize eluded him. The official world mark then (2:08.34, by Derek Clayton, in Antwerp) would not be ratified now.

Many road-running authorities consider the Belgian course as much as a kilometre short. It had been taken as the average of five cars going over the course, and statisticians don't recognise it.

"However, the IAAF [world governing body] don't want to know," says Hill whose time then was second fastest.

He contested three Olympics, with best performances of seventh in the 10k and sixth in the marathon. He won Britain's oldest half-marathon (Freckleton) in 1964 and still holds the course record at 64 minutes. "I plan to do the 50th anniversary race this year," he says.

The last of his 115 marathons (the Boston centenary, in 1996) was the only time he failed to break three hours. By then he was 57; 29 of his marathons were sub 2:20, and 103 were under 2:45.

The decline in UK endurance standards disappoints him. He cannot believe that the depth of African talent has put Britons off.

"It should be a great honour to win a vest for your country, worth striving for. There are too many distractions, people looking for short cuts. You have to put in the 120 miles a week, do the long run every week, do speed work and race a lot. These guys won't race."

Exempt from that, of course, is Mo Farah, whose full marathon debut in London next month is eagerly awaited. Farah is UK record holder at 5k and half marathon, and second at 10k on the road. He ran to half-distance last year. Much is expected of the double Olympic and World track champion. But as Hill says: "The jury is out."

Will Farah's loping style translate to the marathon? Even the Briton's multi-million dollar shoe project carries no guarantees.

As Hill says: "Farah and his coach, Alberto Salazar, are covering every option. They have tried to change his running style. I'm sure he has done the long runs.

"He'll have his diet. Everything is strictly under control. Everything is in his favour for a good marathon. But Haile Gebrselassie [former world marathon record holder] is querying whether Mo should leave the track to do the marathon.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be a pretty good payday - even for Geb. He will be the highest-paid pacemaker in the history of the sport!"

Rewards now, however, don't make Hill jealous. "You can't change it, can't look back. What if I'd had the advantages people have today: no need to work, plenty time for rest and sleep, no financial worries, able to go to altitude? But that simply wasn't there. I was just very happy to get the best out of myself."

Ian Stewart, Scotland's 5000m gold medallist when Hill won in 1970, recently outlined how endurance runners pack themselves with protein and carbohydrate recovery drinks within minutes of sessions.

"With lottery and all these resources, he suggested I'd have run 2:05. I think that was tongue in cheek. You just can't say. I'm not frustrated. I had my championships, and I'm happy with that."

Tomorrow's race is the Ron Hill 10k, no less. "It's in Accrington where I was born. I'll run, though I'm quite poorly.

"I had that operation on Tuesday, and feel pretty bruised. I've had a bad chest and a cold as well, but I will run it, because the town in the last few years has done a lot for me. They made me a freeman of the borough of Hyndburn."

His last 10k was a speedy 53min 59sec, but he insists he will take it easier. "If you feel that badly about running slow, take your ball home," he says. "I just run and don't bother taking my time."

Hill is an inspirational icon who, like Alder, Lachie Stewart, Ian Stewart and Ian McCafferty, and 1954 marathon winner Joe McGhee, should be considered for medal presentation duties in Glasgow.

"It would be nice if they could get us to run a lap of honour," says Hill, "or present medals, but it will be the usual officials . . ."