PC: University of Oxford
Betts used the race to raise awareness and funds for the organisation, raising more than £3,300. Professor Alexander Betts completed the 2026 London Marathon in 2 hours 55 minutes while dressed as an academic.
He ran in support of Helen & Douglas House, an Oxford-based children’s hospice charity that provides hospice care for local children and young adults with life-limiting conditions, according to the University of Oxford. His effort combined the marathon with a fundraising campaign for local families receiving specialist care. He set a Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon in this costume category. Guinness World Records officially recognised the achievement after the race. Betts is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for External Engagement, Sport, and Community at the University of Oxford, and Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs at the Oxford Department of International Development. His reasons for taking part also connected the marathon with life at Oxford and the relationship between the university and its wider community. Betts’s marathon achievement brought together his role at Oxford, his interest in sport and his support for a local children’s hospice charity. As Pro-Vice-Chancellor for External Engagement, Sport, and Community, he used the event to highlight the role academics can play beyond university life. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.