There are easier ways to break a Guinness World Record. Louis Misplon and Gudrun Hespel chose to do it by running 21 kilometres through Gentbrugge, East Flanders, dressed as bananas.
It worked. On March 8, at the Bashir’s Run half marathon, Misplon finished in 1:09:28 — slicing more than six minutes off the previous men’s record of 1:15:35. Hespel ran 1:32:17, blowing past the women’s mark of 1:48:36 by over 16 minutes. Both wore Fairtrade banana costumes. Both are now officially in the Guinness World Records books, under the category of fastest half marathon dressed as a piece of fruit — which is a real category.
They were not alone. More than 40 runners turned up in banana suits for the occasion.
There’s Actually a Point to All This
Before you write this off as a Belgian quirk (though it is, a little), the Banana Run was organised by Gent Fair Trade and Fairtrade Belgium with a deliberate goal: to get people thinking about the supply chain behind the fruit they shove in their pockets before every long run.
Bananas are practically the unofficial food of distance running. Cheap, practical, easy to digest, available at every race finish line. Most runners eat several a week without a second thought. The question the organisers wanted to raise is whether the people who picked them can afford to.
“Although we consume bananas en masse — the ultimate sports snack — we rarely ask ourselves whether the people behind the banana earn enough to live on,” said Benjamin De Gols of Fairtrade Belgium. The answer, for millions of workers in the sector, is no.
The Fairtrade label changes that equation, De Gols explained, by guaranteeing fair purchase prices, paying premiums directly to workers, and supporting collective wage negotiations. The cost to consumers? Less than five cents extra per kilogram. For a community that regularly drops €200 on running shoes without blinking, that’s a pretty manageable ask.
The Records Themselves
Misplon was recruited for the men’s attempt by the organisers, who were apparently looking for someone meeting a very specific brief.
“Gent Fair Trade and Fairtrade Belgium were looking for someone who was fast, crazy, and committed enough to attempt this record,” he said afterward. “Eventually, they found me.”
His time also carried a symbolic punch. The previous men’s record had stood for nearly six years, held by American Melvin Nyairo — who ran in a Chiquita-branded banana suit. Misplon took the record wearing a Fairtrade banana suit. You couldn’t have scripted it better.
On the women’s side, Gudrun Hespel — sports coach, former Kamp Waes competitor, and apparently someone with a very high threshold for public spectacle — surprised even herself.
“I am kapot,” she said at the finish, “I had not expected that I would run so fast.”
1:32:17 in a foam banana costume. Neither had we, Gudrun.
While the banana costumes were drawing most of the attention, Bashir Abdi — the two-time Olympic medallist and Belgian half marathon champion who created the race — quietly ran a 59:28, a personal best by 23 seconds. For the record, that is a very fast time without a costume of any kind.
For Ghent, which became Belgium’s first Fair Trade municipality back in 2004, it was a day that felt in keeping with the city’s identity. “We are proud that this record is being broken here,” said Hafsa El-Bazioui, Ghent’s Alderman for Global Solidarity. “The initiative truly underscores what Ghent stands for.”
