Dan Jarvis is a colourful character, as his profile picture above shows. The 2:32:00 marathon runner has been training hard for Sunday's (4th December) Valencia Marathon, where he looks certain to take a huge chunk off his PB.

But not all of Dan's race preparation has been conventional, to say the least. Just over a month ago (Wednesday, 26th October) he narrowly missed his best of 1:07:09 set in the Chester Half Marathon in September 2021 when he won the Heathrow Half Marathon in 1:07:30 – inside Terminal 5 of Europe's busiest airport!

Jarvis had responded to a call put out by mischievous British YouTubers, Josh Pieters and Archie Manners, who planned to put on the race to fill the time we have often spent in the departure lounge thinking to ourselves: "I wish I was running somewhere, rather than wasting my money in the shops."

With a prize purse of £500 for the winner, plus a free trip to Belfast on offer – because it was the cheapest flight available – there was a powerful incentive and a field of six athletes was quickly assembled for the 'bandit race'.

The world-class competitors, listed in personal best time order were: Josh Griffiths (Swansea, 1:03:08), Ross Braden (Blackheath & Bromley, 1:05:41), Dan Jarvis (Bedford & County, 1:07:09), Matt Dickinson (Clapham Chasers, 1:07:11), Chad Wolpert (London City AC, 1:11:14) and Jack Halsey (Rugby & Northampton, 1:13:15).

The cheeky social media pair had put a lot of thought into planning the event, with financial support from Revolut, and had worked out that a course of 10 laps of the tunnel between A Gates and C Gates would account for 20kms, and four laps of the aforementioned shops would add the additional 1.0975kms necessary for the half marathon.

They even brought a measuring wheel to ensure an accurate distance and a finish line tape, an outsize cheque for the winner, and race numbers as the whole event had to take place beyond the security gates in order to have sufficient space. The start line was the opening of the lift doors and naturally, there was no starting pistol.

You can see how the event unfolded in this YouTube video by the pranksters, Josh and Archie......

Obviously, runABC distances itself from unofficial distance races held inside airports but it seems no harm was done and a lot of fun was had by those involved.  

Image courtesy Dan Jarvis on Power of 10