River City, Scot Squad and Edinburgh panto star set to double his King's fund-raising effort by running first full Marathon

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Talking exclusively to the Evening News the 42-year-old King's panto favourite reveals with a grin, “This is a world exclusive, so brace yourself, I've been having a think over the weekend and I'm going to do the full Edinburgh Marathon and not the Half Marathon.”

He explains, “After I did the press launch I came home and was chatting to my wife when she said, ‘Why are you not doing the Marathon?’

“Now I've done Half Marathons in the past but I've never run a Marathon before so I thought, ‘At a time when the cost of living has gone through the roof, we are asking people to sponsor the redevelopment of a theatre, maybe I should push myself a bit further’, so I'm going to do the Marathon, all 26.2 miles of it.”

The Edinburgh Marathon, on May 29, will find Jordan running what is believed to be the fastest Marathon route in the world. Starting at the Commonwealth Pool the event will take runners past Surgeons Hall, down the Royal Mile, east towards Musselburgh, then back along the coast to the finish line.

“It's only eight weeks away, which means a lot of training,” the actor says, adding, “and it's not just me running, there are about 20 others too, a lot of the King's front of house and Duncan Hendry, the ex-Chief Exec, will all be running the Half Marathon.”

​Running ​as part of a​ £40,000​ Crowdfunder to raise money for the transformative ​King's ​project​, Jordan is n​o stranger to fundraisers, in November ​he jumped out ​of ​a plane for the Beatson Cancer Charity.

He admits, “That was scary because I'm terrified of heights but actually quite thrilling in the end. That got postponed five times because of bad weather but for the Marathon, being the end of May, there's a decent chance it could be warm. Running on a hot day is a killer, so I'm hoping for a wee bit of chill in the air.”

So, how might his alter-egos, Scot Squad's PC Jack McLaren and River City's Alex Murdoch, react to the challenge of running a Marathon?

Jordan laughs, “Jack would be doing the Half Marathon and the full Marathon in a deep sea diving suit and, having finished the full, would probably run all the way back to the start line giving high fives to everyone finishing behind him.

“As for Alex, he'd get a chit under his name and pay a professional athlete to do it for him so that he'd look good and come in with a good time. If anybody said anything, he'd get Lenny onto them.”

On hand to help launch the Crowdfunder were Jordan’s panto co-stars, Allan Stewart and Grant Stott, although his attempts to rope them into the run proved fruitless.

“I asked Grant the other day, but he said, ‘Oh no, not with my knees,' and Allan just looked at me as if I was insane,” he laughs.

You can donate towards Jordan's Marathon here

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