64-year-old Leighton Buzzard runner smashes 2 marathons in 2 weeks


Mark Kleanthous says he has “no plans to stop now” after smashing two marathons in just two weeks.
Mark, who has an incredible 125 marathons under his belt, clocked 3:36:26 at the London Marathon on Sunday (April 27) – just 35 minutes shy of his personal best set all the way back in 1981.
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Hide AdSunday’s London Marathon was held in unseasonably warm spring conditions. Mark said: “So many runners were forced to stop, walk or drop out. I didn’t. I finished ahead of 48,668 runners.”
It was his 10th London Marathon run – after he first took part in the original London Marathon held in March 1981.
And incredibly, he completed the marathon just two weeks after running the Newport Marathon in Wales with a time of 3:21:30.
His London marathon time shows he’s only slowed by 33 minutes over 45 years – averaging just 48 seconds of added time per marathon annually.
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Hide AdAnd that’s not all – in the past few months, Mark has also set a personal best at the Cambridge Half Marathon, set a 5k personal best, won the Bedfordshire Cross Country Championship (60-64 age group) – on his 19th attempt, and completed 14 park runs since Christmas.
He reckons a New Zealand blackcurrant extract is the secret behind his stamina.
Mark said: “I’m running like I did 15 or 20 years ago. CurraNZ undoubtedly helps me recover faster and perform stronger. My wife Clare, who’s seen me race for over 40 years, told me I looked the strongest she’s ever seen me.
The endurance coach’s astonishing lifetime stats read like a Guinness World Record entry: over 283,000 miles swum, biked and run – the equivalent of circling the globe 11 times.
“I’ve covered more distance than it takes to reach the moon,” he added. “I’ve got no plans to stop now.”
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