Sydney lawyer Matthew Whitaker, 25, ran the 42-kilometre Sydney Running Festival dressed in a suit – and broke a Guinness World Record. Credit:Robin Nagy The inspiration came after seeing someone achieve the record for fastest marathon dressed as a jester at last year's event. But it wasn't quite as easy as he thought. "The first half was fine, but the last 15-20 kilometres were really, really horrible," Mr Whitaker said. "It got really heavy and restrictive and slowed me down a fair bit." Leading up to Sunday's race, Mr Whitaker trained wearing the suit, but the furthest he ran while wearing it was 14km – far less than the 42km required to break the record.

"The last 15-20 kilometres were really, really horrible," Matthew Whitaker said. Credit:Robin Nagy "I did a few training runs around Centennial Park and Bondi and got a fair few looks. People were just a bit confused as to why I was running around Centennial Park at 6am in a suit," he said. "It was a wool three-piece suit. It was one size too big so the pants weren't too restrictive. "If it was like the weather on Tuesday or Wednesday, we would've been stuffed." To achieve the record, Mr Whitaker had to complete the marathon wearing a vest, jacket and tie. The top button even had to remain done up, but crucially, running shoes were allowed.

"I think the three different layers caught up with me by the end of it. I was expecting the pants to be pretty horrible, but the top half was worse in the end." Mr Whitaker said this was his "first and probably last" Guinness World Record attempt. "I'll see if anyone else has a crack at it. I probably won't be doing that same one again." On the day, Mr Whitaker beat Michael Tozer, who was also kitted out in a suit, to the record. Mr Tozer was running to raise awareness for the Fragile X charity. "We knew each other were doing it, but we didn't know each other well," Mr Whitaker said.

As for the suit, Mr Whitaker says it has run its race. ​"I'll see how it pulls up after getting dry-cleaned again but it's not looking in great shape. It's drenched in sweat. The more I think about it, that one might be done." Mr Whitaker's time of two hours, 44 minutes and 29 seconds saw him finish 27th fastest, just over 29 minutes behind the winner, Japan's Shota Hattori who finished in a time of 2:15:16. Mr Whitaker easily broke Joe Elliott's 2013 record of 2:58:03.

Running in the suit cost Mr Whitaker a personal best, with his Sunday effort about eight minutes short of his best time. Makda Harun Haji won the women's race in a record time of 2:28:04.