Cambridgeshire woman gears up for London Marathon record run while carrying fridge
She aims to become the fastest female to do this
A woman from Cambridgeshire is setting her sights on becoming the fastest female to run the London Marathon with a 25kg fridge on her back.
Laura Bird from St Ives aims to set a new world record for the quickest time while carrying a household appliance at the event in exactly four weeks.
Last year, Royal Marine Sam Hammond completed the marathon in the same way in just under five hours.
"You've had to learn how to run with that"
Laura is an experienced runner but this will be a new challenge:
"This will be by 22nd marathon, not my 22nd London Marathon but I've run the distance numerous times so I'm quite experienced with that, but this is the first time with the fridge," she said.
"There's been a lot of training and preparation since around June last year.
"I usually lift the fridge onto something like a chair or a bin, and I use a harness to put it on my back; once it's on my back and I've tightened the harness, it's very sturdy and stays on for the entire run.
"It makes running very difficult and you've had to learn how to run with that; when you get very hot and you've got a massive weight on your back, losing skin is a big issue but we've managed to combat that."
Fridge run can inspire people 'to push comfort zone'
Laura's running the Marathon for charity Rays of Sunshine, which aims to improve the lives of seriously ill young people and their families by granting wishes and support within hospitals.
She hopes doing something like this will act as a way for others to get inspired.
"There's lots of young boys and girls that will watch the London Marathon, and hopefully they'll be inspired by someone doing something totally out of their comfort zone.
"That doesn't mean you have to be inspired to run a marathon; it could be being inspired to push your own comfort zones at work, home, in one of your hobbies.
"I'm quite tired as you can imagine, but I feel physically and psychologically empowered by taking this on."