Vegan Runner Breaks Guinness Record in Cow Costume

The Guiness Book of World Records recently crowned vegan runner Fiona Oakes as the fastest woman to complete a half marathon wearing a costume. Outfitted in a cow costume, Oakes ran the Tromso Half Marathon in Norway, which started at 10:30pm, in unforgiving conditions such as rain and more than 20-mile-per-hour winds. “I have trained massive mileage and hardly any speed but I wanted to do something for the animals and to promote veganism,” Oakes told media outlet Great Vegan Athletes. Oakes was training for a series of “ultra stage” runs—an ultramarathon that spans 250 km (approximately 155 miles)—in four deserts around the world before deciding to complete the Tomoso half-marathon for the record. “The cow suit acted like a kite at some points and I feared being whisked off into the Arctic Ocean and ending up as Polar Bear breakfast!” Fiona said. “Holding my ears and horns on was another challenge as was the weight of a wet, soggy, freezing cold cow suit clinging to you.” Oakes finished the race in one hour and 32 minutes, 14 minutes faster than the old world-record time. “The suit did hamper me considerably and was very uncomfortable but not nearly as bad as [it is for] so many animals—human and non-human—[who] suffer every single minute of every single day of their horrendous existences,” Oakes said. The runner holds multiple world records and recently purchased new land to expand her farmed animal sanctuary Tower Hill Stables in the United Kingdom which she may attend to in lieu of completing the ultra stage Gobi Desert run next month.