Roast chicken from Tadworth at Sunday marathon

John Melbourne, 33, from Tadworth, completed the London Marathon dressed as a chicken in a magnificent 3 hours 39 minutes, just eight minutes short of the Guinness World Record.

While the brilliant sunshine pushed the temperature up to 16C during the race, it was almost unbearably hot inside the suit right from the start.

Mr Melbourne is no stranger to marathons, having clocked up 30 in challenging environments such as Rwanda and Jordan plus 10 ultra marathons including 74 miles through the French Alps.

But he reckons Sunday was his most gruelling challenge yet.

He said: "It is probably the hardest thing I have done in terms of running. The heat was unbearable. I was sweating even before I set off.

"The costume is really heavy and fluffy. It just got heavier and heavier with sweat. By the end I was really, really struggling.

"Because there are only little eye holes you can only see straight in front of you. It’s very claustrophobic."

"There was lots of cheering from the crowd and a lot of people shouting ‘you’re a chicken’."

But he still managed to run faster than retired footballer Michael Owen who came in at 3 hours and 45 minutes.

And so far he has raised £1,250 for the British Hen Welfare Trust, from which he has adopted six ex-commercial laying hens.

Marie Tippet, communications and marketing officer for the British Hen Welfare Trust, said: "It’s just incredible, absolutely amazing.

"When he told us what he was going to do, we all said ‘wow’. Running a marathon is hard enough, but he ran it dressed completely as a chicken in that warm suit."

To sponsor John visit: www.justgiving.com/John-Melbourne2.

TODAY'S TOP STORIES

Tweets by @epsomguardian