Meet Kelly Gneiting: The Fat Man That Wants To Run The Los Angeles Marathon

This should be very sweaty and interesting, Kelly hopes to make the Guiness world records next Sunday when he becomes the heaviest person to cross the finish line at the marathon – he’ll tip the scales at over 400 pounds before he starts running.

With a trace of humor and no small amount of pride, Kelly Gneiting, 40, calls himself the Fat Man. He weighs 405 pounds and is not embarrassed by an ounce of it. He stands out. He is one of a very few white people on the reservation. He is 6 feet tall with a 60-inch waist. That makes him 5 feet around the middle. His fleshy body is devoid of angles.

Even so, he is an athlete, and he is hardly shy about saying how good he is. “I honestly think I’m one of the best athletes in the world,” he says. Bold overstatement, maybe, but this man who weighs nearly a quarter ton can do the splits, then bend at the waist and shoulders until his forehead touches the ground. He can reel off four consecutive sets of 25 pushups.

Think he’s going to make it through those 26.2 miles???