An athlete from Croxley who ran the London Marathon dressed in a skeleton costume on April 21 has been awarded a Guiness World Record after beating her predecessor by just two minutes.
Claire Casselton finished the race in three hours, 51 minutes and one second, winning her the award for Fastest Marathon Dressed as a Skeleton (female).
Speaking to Croxley News the next day, Claire said: “I knew what pace I had to do to break the world record and I started out well. But then we got to Canary Wharf and I lost signal, and from that point I had no idea whether I was keeping pace.”
Despite being a seasoned athlete, breaking the world record still posed a huge challenge. To beat the previous record of 3:53:43, Claire had to beat her own previous marathon by a whole hour all while wearing a full-body costume.
To make matters even harder, Claire realised only a few days before the race that to qualify for the world record, she’d have to wear a mask as well as a skeleton costume.
“It was hard to see, slightly hard to breathe and I had to pour water over myself to drink water!” explained Claire. “Now I can imagine what people with tunnel vision experience – there were loads of people I knew cheering me on but I couldn’t see them at all because my vision was so reduced.”
As reported in the April edition of Croxley News, Claire chose to tackle the race in her spooky outfit to raise awareness of the Bone Cancer Research Trust. So far, Claire has raised more than £1,800 for the charity that has supported her sister-in-law since her diagnosis last year.
“I know it sounds cheesy but I just kept thinking that whilst my body hurt, the people I’m raising money for experience chronic pain on a daily basis,” she added. “I’ll get to take off my costume at the end of the race but other people don’t have that luxury.
“I still don’t quite know how I got over that line in the time that I did and it was high tension to the last minute – over the course of a four-hour race, I’d made the cut with only 162 seconds to spare.”
The Bone Cancer Research Trust is the leading UK charity dedicated to fighting primary bone cancer. Find out more at www.bcrt.org.uk/information
To donate to Claire’s fundraiser, see www.justgiving.com/fundraising/claire-casselton-2024
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