This frankly insane idea for a marathon began in  1980 in a pub in Wales, when a landlord overheard two punters arguing over whether a man could beat a horse in a race of significant distance.

The landlord decided to put the man’s theory to the test in a public competition with a cash prize for any man who could beat a competitor on four legs.

As you may have guessed, the horse won the first year and continued to do so over the next decade as more and more runners joined each year to take on the victorious horses.

In 2004 the race finally got its first human winner, with the man walking away with 24 years of prize money and finally proving  a man in the pub correct.