A world record holder will be hoping the force is with him when he takes on the London Marathon again this weekend.

Philip Powell will be donning his Darth Vader helmet and costume when he lines up with thousands of other runners on Sunday.

Last year the Maidstone hairdresser broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon dressed as Mr Potato Head, but this year's run has far more serious tones.

The 34-year-old is running for Anthony Nolan, a blood cancer charity that helped his brother secure a stem cell transplant to treat his leukaemia.

The Vincent Park father-of-one said: "It's at least 10 times harder to run in the costume than normally. If I don't regulate my breathing the mask fogs up and I can't see.

"I also can't really see below my nose.

“The people at Guinness World Records are quite strict about the costume and it has to look like the actual thing. There are restrictions on how I can modify the costume so I couldn’t change it to make it easier to see or breathe.

“I was going to have to run in boots because Darth Vader wears boots but they’ve allowed

me to wear black trainers.

“If I remove any part of the costume and take a step it won’t count as a world record.”

The current record for fastest marathon dressed as a Star Wars character is four hours 59 minutes.

So far Mr Powell has raised more than £5,000 for Anthony Nolan via JustGiving, as he prepares to run his third London Marathon.

He said: "My brother is a man of few words but he’s very pleased that I’m doing it. He would never tell me that directly but when I’ve been and visited in hospital he seems very keen to tell every nurse what I’m doing which is not something I’ve known my brother to do.”

"He intends to come and watch the race, if he’s well enough. It will be the first time he is aiming to be around a large crowd since his transplant.”

Kirsty Mooney, head of events at Anthony Nolan said: "The funds raised by Philip will contribute to our life-saving work helping to find more donors, just like the one who donated to Philip’s brother."