THE godfather of marathon running, Steve Edwards, has finally broken a staggering world record.

After 24 years, the 49-year-old Moreton man has completed his amazing lifelong dream – to run 500 marathons, each in a time of under three-and-a-half hours.

His comfortably ran his record-breaking run, the Fox & 40 Marathon in Milton Keynes, on Sunday in three hours and 14 minutes in front of his wife Teresa and family as well as members of the running community who had travelled to share in the historic occasion.

He said: “Once I settled down into my run I was okay. It only started to get to me in my last mile. It was in that final mile I started to get quite emotional.

“It was nice to cross the line with everybody cheering and taking pictures. Bourton Road Runners (BRR) presented me with a plaque. That’s something that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

“I would like to thank my club colleagues at BRRs, the 100 Marathon Club and the 10in10 club. Most of all my wife Teresa.

I couldn’t have done it without her support and understanding.”

It has been an incredible journey for the grandfather-ofthree, who ran his first race in 1981 when he was just 18 – the Coventry Marathon – and since then has run 577 official marathon races.

His marathon running has taken him to 27 countries including the USA and New Zealand and he has run the London marathon 17 times.

Record breaking is in Steve’s nature – at the age of 28 he broke a world record for running 87 marathons in a year.

Then in May 2008 he broke the world record for running the Brathay Ten Marathons in Ten Days Challenge – ten consecutive marathons around Lake Windermere in Cumbria.

Steve, who works for Campden BRI, said that his running career was far from over and he was setting his sights on his next challenge – he is only 23 marathons away from reaching 600.

“All being well I could do that next year,” he said. “From there I could see how many sub-3.30 marathons I could get in total.

I’ve got the hunger and desire to keep training hard.”

Steve’s record-breaking runs have seen him travel the equivalent of John O’Groats to Lands End 15 times and if he had started running from his home, he could have run beyond New Zealand by now.