The record books will need changing after Grange Farm and Dunmow Runners’ James Bosher obliterated the best time for a biennial 26-mile challenge.

The Braintree Boggle Marathon starts and finishes at Black Notley Village Hall and follows a tough, mainly off-road route.

And on the fifth staging of the event Bosher belted around the course to finish in a time of three hours nine minutes and 57 seconds, a whopping seven minutes quicker than the previous standard,

The race attracted a total of 70 runners with GFDR represented by six runners in total.

Matt Bainbridge made it a one-two finish when he came in almost 40 minutes later while Karen Pickering was the third female and 16th overall, alongside Ashwin Shah, in 4:37:09.

Ian Lawson came 18th in a time of 4:37:15 while Maxine Seward finished in 5:55:32 for 47th place.