Across 25th – 26th September, coinciding with The Lord Mayor’s Appeal’s City Giving Day, we (four players from London) will be attempting a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the Longest Marathon Playing Padel. 36 hours of consecutive fun and competitive padel will be played in central London (Tower Hill and picture above), and I look forward to attempt this record for a seriously good cause.

As the padel ball keeps the rally alive, every second also contributes to raising crucial funds for The Lord Mayor’s chosen charities – National Numeracy, MQ Mental Health and the Duke of Edinburgh.

More about the attempt:

As many of you know, I’ve come to love padel and the great community that surrounds the sport – usually in a competitive setting, but always with the main objective of having fun.

I am not sure it will be as much fun toward the end of the planned 36-hour match (we will be allowed 5 minutes break per hour) as it will be in the beginning, but the only way to find out is to try. The four of us participating in this challenge (there is no rotation of players) will, undoubtedly, do our best to enjoy and keep up the fun as well as intensity, but as you probably can imagine: loads of things will test the enjoyment (especially as we are playing outdoors…in London…late September).

The event will be recorded, but not livestreamed, so please pop by if you have a chance between 07:30 (25th September) and 22:30 (26th September) – address: 100 Minories EC3N 1JY, London (1 minute from Tower Hill tube station). Bring a smile, cheer, booming music, or whatever else you can think of to spur us on.

To stay true to myself and who I am, below some things I’m expecting from the event:

• No fewer than 53 sets won

• At least 50 balls smashed out of the court

• More than 200 spontaneous “vamos” or “allez” (pretty much the only Spanish and French I know)

• Loads of laughter and the occasional grunt

• Too many smug faces after hitting Hollywood shots (the stuff I can’t help myself from doing)

• More than 20 000kcal burnt (according to my fitness tracker)

• A minimum of 10 t-shirts to be worn (not a single one will be a plain white/black/grey)