A Teddington based Guinness World Record holder plans to travel from the Artic Circle to Trafalgar Square in 2024.
Stuart Levett, 34, owns Foundry Fitness in Teddington and plans to push his limits even further as he aims to address the world’s biggest issues.
He said: “We’re going to go from Norway – just inside the Arctic Circle – back to Trafalgar Square by self-powered means.
“It’s all about climate change and looking at the impact that global warming has had on the Arctic Circle.
“We plan to snowshoe out of the circle, sail, cycle and run a bit.
“We just want to prove that actually the world is very accessible if you’re prepared to put a bit more time and dedication into the planning.
“If you go to the Arctic Circle you want it to be cold, so this is hopefully going to happen at the latter end of the year, we’re in the planning stages at the moment.”
The personal trainer and ultra-runner, who has history with Sir Mo Farah, will look to build on previous success.
In 2016, Stuart – with the help of brother Martin, cartographer friend Ed and other charity runners – set a Guinness World Record.
The team went from John O’Groats (the most northern-east park of the UK) to Lands End (the most southern-west).
They ran over 600 miles, beating the previous record by over 17 hours.
“It’s something I’ll never forget, it was the culmination of lots of hard work and a year of planning” he said.
“I came into Lands End, the whole team had made an archway and all the other runners were there.
“We had someone on the support team whose younger brother was at Shooting Star Children’s Hospice and he sadly passed away.
“Seeing something like that, if I can give them some sort of vehicle to help with grieving that loss, and to help raise money, that’s one byproduct of it all.”
Stuart credits his community, creating a legacy and helping charities as motivations to his challenges.
He said: “I’ve always been sporty, a bit of a frustrated adventurer but there was never any end product to it.”
“I didn’t want to get to being a grandparent and my grandkids saying to me, ‘what did you do when you were really fit?’ and I say, ‘oh I went for a run’.
“I wanted to add a bit more flesh to the bones.
“As a human you want to leave some sort of impact on the people around you, so I thought, well rather than just race, why don’t I design my own challenges, and raise some money too.
“In the very first challenge I did, I was raising money for the south-west Thames Kidney Fund and a client of mine, her husband, needed a kidney transplant.
“After my penultimate day of running, I was knackered, absolutely out on my feet and I had one more day to go.
“I got a text message from my client saying, just so you know, the money you’ve raised has just been used to bought a dialysis machine.
“When you hear that, you think, ‘Wow I better get up and finish this run then’, because people had donated money for me to do it, that was my motivation.
“So it’s sort of that legacy, not only in terms of my reputation but more in terms of actually inspiring other people by your actions.
I always want to try and do some good, whether it’s raising money or actually forcing people to look at their own lifestyle.”
Stuart started his fitness journey at Hounslow Athletics Club, the same place where Mo Farah started his.
“Right from a young age when he came to Hounslow you could see that he was phenomenal.
“I think I sort of said to him once, ‘Keep going, you’ll do well!’ and obviously, he did.”
