Bryce Alford wants to set the fastest marathon time while looking like a body part.
Mr Alford is no stranger to extraordinary feats of endurance and has previously held the Guinness World Record for the fastest time run on a treadmill for 50 miles and 100km – completing the distances in eight hours 44 minutes and ten hours 37 minutes respectively.
The fundraising manager at Headway Jersey will be generating money for the charity when he takes on the marathon on 3 October inside the 7kg brain costume. He is attempting the challenge in memory of his brother, Vaughan, and his father, Malcolm, who both suffered brain injuries.
He said: ‘It has been a really tough 18 months for the charity, as we have lost £150,000 due to ongoing Covid restrictions which prevented us from fundraising. So I thought I would try to do something a bit different and the idea of the brain costume fits in with the charity.
‘I have done a lot of extreme-long-distance running events and so people know that I can complete a marathon. So I thought: “How could I make this more difficult?” A 7kg brain costume does exactly that.’
Mr Alford said he was hoping to complete the marathon in under 4½ hours.
He added: ‘I have been training for the event and I have completed some of the parkruns in the Island in the brain costume. This week is also Brain Injury Awareness Week and so I have been running up and down the high street in my costume to help raise awareness for the charity, while clocking up to 10km a day running in the costume.’
Anyone wishing to donate to Mr Alford’s challenge should visit ‘Bryce’s Follow The Brain JSY – Guinness World Record Attempt’ on justgiving.com.
