GUINNESS WORLD RECORD HOLDER

K Veerabadran is a simple and unassuming man, with a slight frame. One cannot help but wonder whether he is the one who holds the Guinness record for walking backwards for a distance of 137 kms, over 24 hours!  A truly commendable feat for a man who was in his early 40’s at the time the record was set.  A Handloom officer in the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Handlooms and Textiles, he has set several records in the country in ‘non-stop’ walking and ‘backward walking’. He is at present, the Manager of the Loom World Showroom in Anna Nagar.

Veerabadran has taken part in the IX World Veteran’s Championship, in Finland and won the bronze medal in the marathon running event, where he covered a distance of 42 kms in two and half hours.  He was also a bronze medallist in the mini-marathon event in the 6^th Asian Athletic Championships at Kuala Lumpur in 1990.  Father of three children, Veerabadran says, “I have had no sports background or exposure to games or sports at school. It was only during my early 40’s that this urge to do something different came up and fired me to attempt this. After that, I couldn’t stop”.

Speaking about some interesting incidents that occurred while he achieved those records, he said, “While running from YMCA to Thoothukudi, when I was nearing Maduranthakam on the fourth day, I developed cramps and the doctor accompanying me said that I would not be able to continue, but I just did a few stretching exercises and continued running.  On the fifth day while nearing the end, I began to feel sleepy because of the lack of rest and food for the five days of physical exertion.  At that time I was running by some fields where onions and chillies were growing.  I must have plucked close to about half a kilo of these onions and chillies and I ate them raw.  The result was that whatever sleepiness I was feeling went away with the fiery taste. With eyes streaming with tears, I completed the run.  I kept eating these onions and chillies and (laughing) it was like petrol for me, at the end of which my mouth itself was blistered.  Another instance - while attempting for the third time to break my own backwards walking record, this time to Kancheepuram, while nearing Sriperumbudur, I was knocked down unconscious by a lorry coming from Bangalore and that was the last time that I attempted to break my own record in backwards walking”.

The records

In continuous backwards walking, Veerabadran has broken American David Arnold’s record of 130 kms in 24 hours by walking backwards continuously for 137 kms in 24 hours.

He has broken Englishman Tom Benson’s record for walking 571 kms over 121 hours continuously by walking 573.4 kms in the same time.

He has broken the record of Sweden’s Jolkar (of running 572 kms) by running 612 kms in 121 hours.

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