RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As he start­ed his jour­ney to set the Guin­ness World Record as the longest marathon play­ing steel pan play­er, 27-year-old Joshua Re­grel­lo gave thanks to God, say­ing "prayers and pam­pers" were all he needs to com­plete this jour­ney.

Up­beat and en­er­getic, Re­grel­lo told Guardian Me­dia he needs pub­lic sup­port to com­plete his jour­ney.

Fa­ther Jayson Grell from Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church prayed briefly with Re­grel­lo be­fore he start­ed at dawn.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Fire Ser­vice and time­keep­ers from the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion mon­i­tored him as he be­gan the marathon.

His first song was Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up".

Re­grel­lo be­gan his epic jour­ney at ex­act­ly 6:28 am and is seek­ing to break the 30-hour world record. He is en­ti­tled to a five-minute break for every con­tin­u­ous hour he plays.

He told Guardian Me­dia that he wants his marathon to be an in­spi­ra­tion to youths, and to show the world that it is pos­si­ble to make a suc­cess­ful ca­reer out of mu­sic.

Re­grel­lo has been tour­ing for the past year, and has vis­it­ed Chi­na twice, as well as Guyana, Bar­ba­dos and the Unit­ed States sev­er­al times in one year. He al­so has a huge fol­low­ing on Tik Tok.

Sev­er­al cor­po­rate bod­ies have come out in sup­port of his epic ven­ture.

Re­grel­lo al­so wants the pub­lic to come out and sup­port him as he plays at the Wack Ra­dio stu­dios at Cof­fee Street, which over­look the south­ern city of San Fer­nan­do.