When the International Race Weekend marathon record was set Bob Marley and all four Beatles were still alive, Jimmy Carter was US President and no-one knew what a cell phone or a compact disc was.

That's how long ago it was since Andy Holden ran two hours, 15 minutes and 20 seconds in January, 1980, a time never surpassed in the 27 intervening years despite a $10,000 bonus on offer for anyone who manages the feat.

Remarkably, Holden spent the evening before that historic race sinking "quite a few" pints of beer in the Henry VIII pub.

Rumour has it he sipped his way through 10 pints. Holden, now 58, doesn't think it was 10 but concedes it was a fair few.

He lives in the English Midlands and these days runs only for recreation. His three visits to Bermuda in 1979, 1980 and 1981 coincided with his own golden years as a marathon runner.

"A group of us came out in 1979, there was me and three from Gateshead, including Charlie Spedding who got the marathon bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics," he recalls.

"The other three did the 10K and I ran the marathon."

The deal was that the runners would be given accommodation on the Island but had to pay their own flights. Holden remembers he stayed with Pam and John Cash that year. The 1979 marathon followed a course out to St. George's and back.

Holden said: "When we went out over the Causeway it was nice and calm. Then we turned around at St. George's and there was a storm blowing as we headed back. We were running into a gale."

Holden broke away from British Olympic medallist Ian Thompson and won the race in 2:18:50. Astonishingly, Holden was in the middle of a 200-day training regime that consisted of simply running 15-miles each and every day including the day before the marathon.

"The winter of 1978-1979 was very cold in England. The only time I didn't run in snow from Boxing Day to March was the two weeks I stayed in Bermuda."

In 1980 Holden found race conditions to be much better. The course had also changed so it no longer took runners across the Causeway.

Holden tucked in to a group of runners that included Scotland's Jim Dingwall, a 2:11 marathoner. He felt good and pushed hard during the last 15 miles to set the record time of 2:15:20.

His last time in Bermuda was in 1981 when he set the second best marathon time of 2:16:57.

"They altered the marathon course in 1980 and '81. I remember there were quite a few hills."

In his prime Holden was regarded as a "hard man" of British athletics because of his tough approach to training and racing.

He was a World Cross-Country Championship athlete and broke the UK record for the 3,000 metres steeplechase in 1972.

Speaking from his home this week, he said he had fond memories of Bermuda. On hearing of the $10,000 prize for the person who breaks his record, he said: "In 1980 I got an adidas track suit for winning, ironically, at a time I was sponsored by Nike so I gave the track suit away."