Ahead of the publication of the infamous Norfolk personality’s new book and “journey journal”, Nomad, we share an extract for a taster of what’s in store.

Already a “broadcaster, writer, motivational speaker, sports fan, thought-leader, businessman, and consummate professional,” (according to his press notes), Mr Alan Partridge can now add “rambler” to his list of epithets, with the publication of his new book Alan Partridge: Nomad. A follow up to Mr Partridge’s 2011 autobiography, I, Partridge, this heartfelt tale (which uses “over 10 per cent of all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary”) tells the story of the author’s quest to connect with the memory of his late father, by recreating a journey the elder Mr Partridge once planned (but never made), from Norwich to Dungeness nuclear power station for a job interview. Though he “can’t remember why”, he decides to travel the 160-mile distance on foot, naming the enterprise “The Footsteps of My Father Walk”, and taking the opportunity to ruminate on life, success and sandwiches. In the below excerpt, he explains how he maintained the motivation to keep himself going throughout:

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I’m so close I can almost smell the hill’s brow.

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Ten seconds, five seconds. Three seconds. One second. Half a second. A quarter of a second. A fifth of a second is all that stands between triumph and disaster. Ten metres to go. A sixth of a second remains. Five metres. Exactly one seventh of a second left. Two metres. My calves are so distressed they’re almost mooing, like their farmyard namesakes. Just one-hundredth of a second and then… YES! I’ve done it. I’ve done it. East Anglia is saved. I look down from the hilltop at Norfolk, silently weeping for the lives that were so close to being snuffed from us. They shall never know how close they came to death. For I have reached a roadside bench atop a hill, from where I can look down on Suffolk, literally as well as metaphorically.

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Right on cue, the clouds give way and beams of sunlight fire through them, as if God is trying to laser off an unsightly tattoo (Suffolk). Having saved so many souls, I am overcome with a full-body euphoria and I realise I’m celebrating, jumping up and down, arms aloft, like Rambo on the steps of Philadelphia town hall.

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And then: sandwiches.

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As the tuna-and-sweetcorn filling explodes in my grateful mouth, I reflect on what has just happened. In reality, of course, no lives were at risk. And even if they had been I could have done little or nothing to help them. So what gives?

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Well, what I’ve just been describing was little more (little more!) than a stunningly effective motivational technique. I’m attempting a long walk and I find I’m able to cover great distances by dividing the journey up into chunks, telling myself they have to be completed in a certain (arbitrary) time frame, and attributing grave consequences to failure.

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It’s a technique I pioneered in primary school. “Climb to the top of this rope or Grandad kills himself.” “Catch the ball three times in a row or you contract herpes.” And in this case, “Get to the brow of that hill in four minutes or Norfolk is destroyed by an insane billionaire who is ready to detonate a subterranean munitions dump hidden beneath the country and blow the landmass sky-high.”

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And it’s working. Yes, I sometimes have to artificially elongate the final second by splitting it into half, a third, or hundredths of a second and counting them slowly, but I’m chipping away at the walk. And God Christ, it needs chipping away at. The Footsteps of My Father Walk is 160 miles long.

Alan Partridge: Nomad (Trapeze) by Mr Alan Partridge is available now