Two weeks after missing his goal at the 2025 London Marathon, Hugo Fry showed up to the Copenhagen Marathon dressed as Super Mario—and ran 2:26:47.
It wasn’t just for laughs.
The 29-year-old Brit broke the Guinness World Record for fastest marathon dressed as a video game character by more than 26 minutes. And he didn’t just jog it in, either—he negative split the race and finished 33rd overall.
“Why take yourself seriously?” Fry posted on Strava after the race. “Sure, a running purist might not enjoy this, but when you can run a marathon dressed as a video game character—you just do it.”
Fry went all-in on the costume: red cap, blue overalls, white gloves, and the iconic mustache (fake, not grown). It wasn’t a particularly functional outfit—no pockets for gels, no breathability—but that didn’t seem to matter. He ran solo the entire second half and never slowed down.
The record Fry broke belonged to another British runner: Simon Killen from Lincolnshire, who ran 2:52:57 at the 2024 London Marathon, also dressed as Mario. At 46, Killen had taken five minutes off the previous video game character record and gone all-out on the look, even dyeing his mustache black to get into character.
“I tried to do it properly,” Killen said after his run. “Try and make it as ridiculous as possible and the crowd loved it.”
That record lasted all of 12 months.
This wasn’t Fry’s first record-breaking run in costume. At the 2024 London Marathon, he dressed as Santa Claus and ran 2:33:23, setting the Guinness record for fastest marathon dressed as Santa. He raised over C$8,000 for the British Heart Foundation in the process.
Outside the costumes, Fry is a serious runner. He ran 2:20:03 at the Berlin Marathon last year, and while the London result this spring didn’t go his way, it’s clear the guy has range—from elite times to novelty record chases.
Running in costume is fun for spectators, but it’s not exactly comfortable. Guinness has strict rules: costumes must be worn for the full race, be recognizably accurate, and in many cases, include approval and evidence before and after the event. And unless you’ve specifically engineered the outfit for performance (which few do), you’re dealing with heat, chafing, and some degree of sensory chaos.
Fry didn’t carry any fuel during the race, which makes his performance even more impressive. “I took some souls out on the course today,” he wrote. “Next time, I’m running in a dress.”
Whether that’s a joke or not remains to be seen. But if recent history is any indication, there’s a good chance Fry’s next race will involve another costume—and maybe another world record.
