When you're going that slowly and your turns are so small, you don't have to fly the 45 degree PT exactly along a line. You just have to stay in the protected airspace.
You probably have the winds at the field. You checked the upper winds before departure (you can't GET that far from your point of departure on one load of fuel in a C152). You know what the wind was doing to you tracking outbound (you don't do a racetrack if you have strong winds and are uncertain of the required correction). So you make the 45 degree turn (or maybe you make a greater or lesser turn in a strong wind. You fly for a minute (or a bit more or less, depending on the wind).
You calculate to yourself, "The winds are not greater than the speed difference between me and the other aircraft that fly this PT, so I must be good for a minute on this heading." You use DME, a known radial or other local knowledge to watch your boundaries.
I don't know anyone who flies IFR in C152, but I watched two C172s in a row appear out of the overcast on the ILS at KBLI the other day. It's a LOT cheaper to keep your IFR current in an ubiquitous single than by renting a twin.