New half marathon in a suit record holder announced!

This weekend the Guinness World Record folk updated their website with the new record holder for the Fastest half in a suit. And it wasn’t me.

The new record holder is Scott Forbes, who ran at the Reading Half marathon, in a time of 1hr18:13. Hats off to Scott who did his marathon in a 3 piece suit which adds to the impressiveness of his attempt.

I’ve been expecting that this day would come since I crossed the line in my attempt on May 15th in 1hr18:40. Although Scott had run before me his time had not been verified by the time I ran. But in practice I still had to beat his time.

I can still say that on the day I beat the official world record of 1hr24. But I couldn’t claim to be the new record holder until all recent attempts had been verified. I still gathered all my evidence together and waited to see if Scott had all his evidence together.

There’s a video of Scott at the finish line when he is interviewed. This video gave me a glimmer of hope because there are 3 ways to gather evidence and it wasn’t clear whether Scott was going to be able to tick one of the 3 boxes.

You must either have video of the race, or two people running with you the whole time or photos every 2km. Scott mentions a friend who ran with him, but didn’t say he had two runners, so he must be using video or photo evidence. He doesn’t seem to have a GoPro or other camera on him so I’ve been holding out to see if he gets the official nod. And now he has. My guess is that a friend had the camera which is why Scott isn’t holding it.

I’ve been asked a number of times whether I will be making a second attempt. Looking at my awful race execution with my way-too-fast first 5k, it looks like I can go a minute quicker. So it makes sense from that perspective to give it one more go.

It sounds like a few folk will be attempting the record in Canada in October. So it would have to be before then as they will likely take the record outside my reach.

I’ve also found a race that is an official IAAF/AIMS course. And the weather should be cooler than my last half. Watch this space for more on my next attempt!