Athletics: Trophyless world of the Paisley pensioner who blazed a trail for Paula

All or nothing: How the world record holders compare

It was a marathon in itself. The morning after Paula Radcliffe's record run through the streets of Chicago, the reckoning began on just how much of a windfall the Bedfordshire woman would be taking with her from the Windy City.

There was her appearance fee to consider, then the winner's cheque, then the bonus for setting the world's fastest marathon time, then the bonus from her kit sponsor. The final estimate came to something like £495,000. "It's just a number in the bank," Radcliffe said.

Meanwhile, across The Pond in Paisley, the last British woman to set a world best for the marathon was being asked what she had won for achieving her global feat. "Nothing," Dale Greig replied. No money? "No." No prize? "No." No trophy even? "No," she repeated. "Nothing except unwanted publicity."

Radcliffe was the third news item on America's CNN and NBC television channels last Sunday night, because she had taken the extent of women's speed endurance to a new limit. Greig made the front page of the Sunday Express on the morning of 24 May 1964 simply because she had run a marathon the day before.

The fact that she had run it in 3hr 27min 25sec, more than nine minutes quicker than the best recorded time by a woman, was almost incidental. Back in 1964, female athletes were not officially permitted to race at distances farther than 800m, half a mile. Ryde Harriers received a letter of reprimand from the Southern Counties Women's Amateur Athletic Association for allowing Greig to complete the 26 miles, 385 yards of the Isle of Wight Marathon.

Now 65 and retired after 50 years as a printing administrator, Greig watched the Chicago marathon on television at home last Sunday. Surely she must have had a wry smile at the different kind of stir created by Radcliffe's record-breaking run: all the adulation, the talk of all-time greatness and of recognition as Sports Personality of the Year?

"No, not at all," she cheerfully demurred. "I just admired what Paula did. I admired her courage: to be brave enough to go for it from the gun and hope you'll hold on for the whole of the distance, keeping that pace going."

The pace Radcliffe held, for her finishing time of 2hr 17min 18sec, was 5min 14sec per mile. "I don't think I ever did 5:14 for one mile," Greig said. "I ran that marathon at eight-minute-mile pace. The staggering thing for me is that we now have women running faster than Emil Zatopek. But it is a different ball game for women these days. It's more than a business. It's a dedicated way of life, isn't it?

"Times have changed. Back then, you just ran two or three times a week, and at Highland games and things. It was just fun. I was just doing it for my own satisfaction."

A Greek woman by the name of Melpomene had the same motivation for running the Marathon to Athens course the day after the inaugural Olympic marathon race in 1896. She had completed the route a month earlier in 4hr 30min but had been barred from competing with the men in the Games.

The first woman to be officially timed over the marathon distance was a Briton, Violet Piercy. In 1926 she completed the Windsor to Chiswick course in 3hr 42min 22sec. Her time stood as the best by a woman until December 1963, when Merry Lepper of the United States ran 3hr 37min 07sec at Culver City.

Then, five months later, came Greig's run on the Isle of Wight – the first breach of the 3hr 30min barrier by a woman. Ten years later, at the age of 37, she won the first international championship marathon for women, at the world veterans' championships in Paris. She was also the first woman to run the 55-mile London-to-Brighton race – seven years before female competitors were officially allowed.

As a pioneer of women's distance running, it would be fair to say that the Paisley pensioner is as significant an athletics figure as Paula Radcliffe. Just don't say it within earshot of the modest, engaging Scotswoman. "I'd deny it," she said. "I didn't wake up one day and say, 'Oh, I think I'll be a pioneer.' It just evolved. One thing just seemed to naturally follow another, because I was interested in the outdoors and liked the countryside, exploring the highways and byways of the local county."

It was not a path paved with gold. Greig never won a penny for her running. "Tea sets, cruets, cutlery, the odd table lamp or sewing basket: that's all I won," she said. Not that she is bitter at having missed the gravy train that has made Radcliffe a marathon millionaire in six months. "Certainly not," she said. "This is a different era. It's like professional footballers getting £20,000, £50,000 a week now. What do the old footballers think, the ones who were getting £20 a week? It's just a different time.

"And how can you begrudge anybody anything? It's like saying you're jealous of somebody winning the Lottery when you don't even do it. You've got to be content with what you've got yourself. It's just a different world now."

It is indeed. Back in 1964 the world thought women were not physically equipped to withstand the rigours of a marathon run. Greig was trailed all the way round the Isle of Wight not by a television camera truck but by an ambulance. Amid all the fuss that followed, when she actually made it across the line, in one piece and inside Merry Lepper's time, the true magnitude of her feat was never fully appreciated.

"My time was actually 3hr 27min 25sec, but it was published in the papers as 3hr 27min 45sec," she revealed. "I just let it go. I wasn't bothered. I was only doing it for a bit of fun, as a challenge for myself. I wasn't looking for any recognition or anything like that."

It was just as well. But, then, if it wasn't for pioneers like the woman from Paisley, there would have been no frontier for Paula Radcliffe to chase – and no bounty to claim.

Marathon woman of 2002: Paula Radcliffe's world record-breaking run in Chicago earned riches estimated at half a million, adulation, lasting fame and talk of awards aplenty