IT'S true. Wonderwoman really does exist. No, for once I'm not talking about Mrs Editor's Chair. Instead, I am singing the praises of diminutive, unassuming Marlow reporter Helen Usborne.

Helen, 25, proved her superhero status when she showed she was faster than a speeding bullet on Sunday. The pint-sized reporter was one of four Star employees who ran the Wycombe Half Marathon.

All the others did well to finish well over the two-hour mark, and staggered home with aching legs, dazed from the searing heat. But not our Uzzy Usborne.

I was out of town at a memorial service so I decided to ring our duty reporter's mobile telephone on Sunday afternoon to find out how my brave runners had fared.

Helen answered and immediately put me on hold, explaining she was working on a story. It turns out she was the duty reporter for the weekend.

She finally came back to me and started to discuss difficulties she was having getting information on a fire.

"But did you run the half marathon?" I asked.

"Oh yes," she replied. "But I'm now trying to work on this story."

She had been assigned the weekend duty months ago on the office rota. Others would have sought to swap with someone, but Helen compromised only by packing away the duty phone in her bag for the duration of the race.

"I thought about taking it round with me, but then realised it may have weighed me down," she admitted.

Helen casually told me she had completed the course in 1:48 minutes a full half hour faster than her boastful colleague, Bourne End reporter Matthew Harris. She was 335th out of 1,240 runners in what is a serious competitive race.

It's possibly the record time for a Star employee.

But while Matthew had limped home to lick his wounds, Helen got straight back to work, finishing a raft of stories and a feature for our sister paper, the Bucks Free Press Midweek.

After working all Sunday, she was in bright and early at 8am on Monday to file all her work.

I don't know what this girl's on, but I reckon I could make money if I could bottle and package it.

Meanwhile, Matthew still managed to feel quite pleased with himself after finishing in 2:18. This was quite a commendable time considering he hadn't trained, didn't have proper running shoes and had a long-standing dodgy knee.

Matthew's lack of preparation did scare me, especially when I told him I couldn't attend the race because I was going to the memorial service.

"It might be my memorial service you're going to next week," he glumly informed me.

But he did better than my expectations, although he still fell 14 minutes short of my best time, 2:04 a year ago. And that's pretty shameful considering he's 13 years younger.

Matthew's only real comment about the race was that "it was boring". He was beside himself with tedium after two miles and never recovered.

Risborough reporter Kris Hall did slightly better, coming in at 2:15. He also did little training.

Finally, my web page designer Audrey Wixon came in at 2:33. She was the only one to undergo a disciplined training schedule, but suffered agonies in the sun and did well to finish.

The little matter of the burning sun did nothing to deter Helen though. I tried getting more information out of her about the race but she was too busy working.

So expect to hear the refrain in the next few weeks from the good people of Marlow: "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's only the Marlow reporter in town to get some more stories."