MARATHON veteran Gordon Brown is preparing for his 11th marathon – at the age of 78.

The grandfather has cupboards full of medals and trophies in his West Derby home, but this Sunday will be the first time he has run the 26.2-mile challenge in his home city.

He said: “I feel very fortunate to be doing the marathon and I’m so excited that it is in Liverpool.”

“From when the gun goes, it’s agony until the end.

“There are moments when it gets really bad, but I just count to 300 and push through it. Then you see the clock and it’s great.”

The Liverpool Harriers runner jogs at least six miles every day and puts his success down to being positive.

He said: “There’s definitely someone looking after me spiritually. Everything I’ve ever asked for I’ve got and I always come first in my age category in races. Sometimes I beat the winners of younger categories.

“There isn’t a runner who doesn’t know me.”

But the father-of-two and grandfather hasn’t always been a fitness fanatic.

In the 60s, working as a theatrical agent, he led a rock and roll lifestyle drinking at least one bottle of Bacardi a day, smoking 80 cigarettes a day, and rubbing shoulders with the likes of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

But around 25 years ago he became seriously ill and needed a triple bypass.