WARRINGTON'S Mr Marathon Man is confirmed this week as the country's endurance king.

Former running World Cup Marathon bronze medal winner Andrew Green, pictured above, is now the United Kingdom record holder over the same distance on an indoor rowing machine.

The 41-year-old knocked almost three and a half minutes off his previous best time and 29 seconds off Scotsman Willie Brown's record when he rowed the 26.2 miles non-stop for 2hrs 44mins in the garage of his Stockton Heath home.

Green's successful record attempt was witnessed and the computer reading has been sent to machine manufacturers Concept 2 for the formality of verification.

He is delighted to have reached this goal after demanding long term effort in training.

The logistics manager for a Flint-based company said: "It went really smoothly but I was feeling tired and dehydrated at the end. Salt became all congealed on my face and I looked like a salt desert. It was a tough mental effort but rowing is something I thoroughly enjoy."

He surprised himself by the size of his achievement and said: "I thought I'd knock a couple of seconds off the record, but not 29 seconds."

The indoor rowing marathon endurance equated to doing almost 5000 sit-ups without a break for two and three quarter hours.

His pace was 1min 56.6secs for every 500m and there are 84,500 metres in a marathon. Anyone who goes to a gymnasium and rows on one of the Concept 2 machines will recognise this measure and his outstanding feat.

He said: "It is quite a big sport now. Loads of people train on them every day in gymnasiums up and down the country. For conditioning the machine is a general good all round piece of kit. Running gets to your legs, heart and lungs but a whole bunch of muscle groups take a thumping when rowing.

"Like in any endurance sport, to train for a record attempt is very tough and demanding all over the body."

For training, Green, who has never rowed on water, rows 60 to 70 miles per week in his garage and at 6am most mornings, including weekends. He also runs about 30 miles per week.

The father of two was the inaugural winner of Warrington Sports Personality of the Year in 2003 and took up rowing six years ago after running several marathons, which included gaining representative honours and a team bronze medal in the World Cup.

He also competed in the European Championships and marathons in America, Australia and Europe.

And Green confirmed: "I have the unofficial world's best combined rowing/running marathon time of 4.56.12 and became the first person ever to go under five hours."