He Ran A Full Marathon While Knitting, The Scarf He Made Was As Tall As A Giraffe
Simon Fannon, a builder and former Royal Marines Commando from the UK who goes by the name Veteran Knitter on social media, ran all 26.2 miles of the TCS London Marathon this April with knitting needles in hand, finishing in five hours, 48 minutes, and eight seconds while simultaneously producing a multicoloured scarf measuring 5.59 metres, roughly the height of an adult male giraffe, and officially setting the Guinness World Record for the longest scarf knitted whilst running a marathon. The previous record stood at 3.7 metres, set by a university professor in the United States more than a decade ago, and Fannon beat it by nearly two full metres while completing the race well within the required six-hour limit. He told Guinness he first had the idea when he mentioned to his wife that there might be some kind of knitting-related world record he could attempt, she found this one online, and he immediately thought of it as a wonderfully bonkers way to raise awareness for causes he cares about. He ran in support of the Huntington's Disease Association and Reorg, a charity that works with veterans and emergency services personnel dealing with the physical and psychological effects of their jobs.
Fannon has built a following of over 60,000 people on Instagram by doing something that still surprises many people who encounter it: openly and enthusiastically encouraging men from all backgrounds to pick up knitting for the sake of their mental wellbeing. He has appeared on Channel 4's knitting competition show and has spoken widely about how the craft gave him a way to process the demands that came with his career in the military. The scarf attempt, he said, was a way to take something people already found surprising about him and use it to get noticed for the right reasons. He was one of 37 runners who set Guinness World Records at the 2026 London Marathon, a race that also saw a woman with multiple sclerosis dip under three hours, a runner with a double mastectomy finish in under three and a half hours, and a man complete the course blindfolded. Fannon crossed the line, scarf trailing magnificently behind him, and said the whole experience was exactly as bonkers as it sounded.
