I was supposed to be in Boston. Yesterday was the 103rd annual Boston marathon, and while there may be richer prizes in a professional runner's calendar, and races with a bigger goodie bag, for the thousands of us who've let our gym memberships lapse in favour of battered trainers and a pair of inappropriate tights Boston has an almost mystical appeal.

Apart from being the oldest event, Boston's very tough qualifying times – a runner my age would normally have to have run a recent marathon in under 3 hours 35 minutes to get in – make just getting there an ambition for many of us. But since I've never yet managed to finish under four hours, I always assumed Boston was out of reach.

So when I got an email from a tour operator offering places to UK-based runners without having to qualify, I spent about 15 seconds wrestling with my conscience – with 10 of those seconds reminding myself that Boston's organisers, like those in London and New York, need to raise money somehow. Besides, I'd run London often enough to feel that no race experience would be complete without putting the bite on my friends for a worthy cause – and I happen to have a cousin who just started a charity, based in Boston, helping volunteers to provide sustainable support for communities that welcome aid.

All through the interminable London winter my friend Ben and I pounded the pavements, from Camden up to Walthamstow and back, and, a few weeks ago, from Hampstead Heath out to Chiswick. Like Richard Nixon in 1968, we were rested and ready – if not quite tanned.

But as you've probably guessed, we never made it to Boston. When the airports shut down on Thursday I felt positively smug to be booked on Friday – for which hubris I was duly punished. On Saturday I was still struggling to maintain a Zen attitude – a worthwhile goal for any runner – when Ben announced that Tim Hutchings, the organiser of the Brighton marathon, had taken pity on us. My feeble efforts at resistance were soon overcome by the argument that at least this way we'd have T-shirts to show for all those months of training. (And I'm afraid that at my age and speed it really is all about the T-shirt.)

And so I found myself on the 7:05am from Victoria, smearing on Vaseline in the train toilet and trying not to injure myself with the safety pins holding my race number in place. I'd only ever been to Brighton during party conference season, and we arrived in a very different city from the grim, locked-down security zone that surrounded Labour party festivities during the Blair era. The race was not huge – fewer than 10,000 people entered – but there were good crowds at the start and along most of the route, and everyone was in a party mood. The start – with Steve Ovett, whom I personally had always liked better as a runner than his great rival Sebastian Coe, firing the gun – was slightly delayed, but all the pre-race formalities were well organised (unlike my last time in New York, where there was a small riot at the baggage trucks).

The course itself was a delight: perhaps a little hilly for record times (though apparently far kinder than Boston) but taking in a lot of beautiful, if slightly seedy, Regency buildings (we passed the Pavilion twice) before heading out along the front. We looped past Roedean, alma mater of Phyllis Pearsall of A-Z fame and many distinguished actors – the students were still on holiday, but a small but enthusiastic group of faculty clapped us along – and Shoreham power station, finishing on the promenade. The heat meant breaking four hours was never a realistic prospect, and the last six miles were pretty tough (though you couldn't help but smile passing through the cutouts in the cardboard "wall" at mile 20). But the sea air was deliciously salty, and it was so nice to be able to just take a train back home. Better for the planet, too. I'd still like to run Boston one day, but with such a great race so close to home, I'd strongly suggest anyone crowded out of London – or simply in the mood for a change – consider taking the train to the pain. (And if the weather in London next week is still bright and sunny, I'd recommend that first-timers in particular take it slow enough to enjoy the scenery. We didn't break any records in Brighton, but I felt well enough to be out again this morning. So thank you, Eyjafjallajökull. And thank you, Tim Hutchings. But most of all, thank you Brighton, for a fine day out!