TWO Islanders have got the sweet taste of victory after claiming an unusual world record.
Alan Falle, head of sixth form at Victoria College, and Scott Welsh, a personal trainer at Funktion, first explored their shared love of ice cream when they started the Coneheadsje challenge, which saw the duo travel around the Island to find Jersey’s best soft scoop.
But in October, they took their love of the sweet stuff a step further by completing the Jersey Marathon dressed as ice-cream cones.
And this week, Guinness has confirmed that their time of three hours, 48 minutes and 12 seconds is a new world record for completing a marathon dressed as a sweet food.
The marathon formed part of Mr Falle’s challenge to run 2022 miles in 2022 in an effort to raise hundreds and thousands for the Grace Crocker Family Support Foundation, a charity which provides financial and emotional support for Jersey families when a child requires medical treatment in the UK.
In Mr Falle’s 2022 running challenge, Mr Welsh was instrumental in helping out with training and rehabilitation when the teacher ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament.
As he neared the end of his challenge, Mr Falle decided to invite Mr Welsh to join him in running one of the last marathons, dressed as their mutual favourite snack, and secretly applied to Guinness World Records.
Mr Falle said: ‘I felt that it would be nice to involve Scott in what was almost the final component of my year-long challenge. He had played a huge role in getting me into a position, physically, to be able to take something like that on.
‘It’s quite an achievement to have done it wrapped up in that outfit. Someone else was trying out for the record on the same day, but he was a bit slower than us. He was dressed as a Mr Whippy.’
The record for the fastest marathon dressed as a sweet food (female) is currently held by Anna Bassil who ran the London Marathon in four hours, 12 minutes and 18 seconds in 2021. She was dressed as a 3D cupcake.
By the end of his challenge, Mr Falle had raised £12,500 for the Grace Crocker Family Support Foundation.
He added: We will tell people that we are the fastest men on earth, but what we won’t tell them is that it’s for running a marathon while dressed up as an ice cream.
‘But obviously it means a lot to me as a bit of a personal climax to the whole event.’
