Stories we would’ve expected from Milwaukee: 400-pound man to run L.A. marathon for Guinness World Record

Mar 19, 2011, 9:15 AM EDT

First the McRunner. Now 405-lb man and professional sumo wrestler Kelly Gneiting. Who says running marathons and questionable health habits don’t mix?

Mr. Gneiting, who lives in Albuquerque, NM is a statistician by day (presumably specializing in addition) who wants to break the Guinness World Record for the heaviest person to finish a marathon, a distinction so American it should explode with fervor every first Saturday in July.

Gneiting claims to have finished the 2008 edition of the Los Angeles race in 12 hours, but since it wasn’t documented, it didn’t count for the record (sort of like that one night in college with that whiskey sour Slip n’ Side and half the sisters of Kappa Beta Phi). However, based on something else that he claims about himself, the guess here is it took the Sumo man 3 1/2 days and a moped.

“I honestly think I’m one of the best athletes in the world,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

If by world, he means all that lies within his own gravitational pull, then sure, maybe. Otherwise he sounds like everyone’s least favorite uncle after half a bottle of gin and an uncomfortably wistful game of two-hand touch.

More power to Mr. Gneiting as he attempts to finish the 26-mile test of endurance, a task most of us (yours truly assuredly included) have never even thought to venture. Then again, there’s no world records on the line for most of us, unless they’ve crafted some sort of metric for laziest blogger to ever finish the race, and, even then– not interested.

Records are made to be broken though, so start eating, kids. And maybe run a little. But not too much– there’s no time limit here after all, and too much exercise will make you a boring, normal sized person that Guinness won’t give two world record-sized damns about). But play it right and one day you too can gain Internet fame for your earnest conquest of oxymoronic athletic feats while providing contradictory life lessons to the children of your day, completing the Circle of Life prophecy foretold by the prophet Elton John in the yesteryear.

Here’s hoping Kelly makes it, whenever he damn well pleases. In the end, everybody loves the underdog.