Timeout said:
Once a year, hundreds of primates take over London's streets for the Great Gorilla Run, an annual charity event that features people dressed up as monkeys. The run is organised to raise money to protect the endangered gorillas of Rwanda.
Dave did:
Well first things first...I didn't so much watch the run as participate in it! I mean come on, it hardly seems fair to go and watch a charity race, when you can easily sign up to raise some money yourself and in the process get back some of your long lost fitness! ...or so logic would dictate.
Unfortunately my life is far from logical (as this blog has probably illustrated far more than I can try explaining here!), so having trained for all of 2 weeks back at the start of August, and then gone on holiday for 2 weeks, and fallen ill with man-flu for another two weeks after that...the fitness part of it was out of the question! I did, however, manage to raise around £250 in sponsorship, so not all was lost!
So today was the day of the run, and after a lovely sleep on my couch (my visiting parents had occupied the bed) we headed over with my gorilla costume in tow. I arrived to find around 300 gorillas in various costumes all warming up for the big event.
Among these gorillas were some celebrities as well...Phil Tufnell with the BBC crew beside him, and Bill Oddie! My reliable (if not a little pushy) mother managed to get good ol' Bill to even sign my 1000 Things book as proof that I completed this task before me!
For my fancy dress I opted for my oversized Chicago Bulls shirt (a momento from my job training out there last year...that same shirt managed to get me onto the big tv screens during the game, so it must have some good luck - and might get me on BBC tv!).
Stages to becoming a Gorilla
Stage 1: Stepping into some gorilla shoes
Stage 2: Become a gorilla that wants to be noticed!
The run itself was actually pretty good fun, and the first 5km were pretty straight forward too! At first I was determined to keep my gorilla mask on throughout the whole run, and I survived up until that 5km mark when the sun suddenly came out in full force and I suddenly felt like I was breathing in a sauna!!!
I managed to keep pace with a number of fellow gorillas, including a scuba-gorilla, a Baywatch-Pamela-Anderson-Gorilla, and a pair of hawaiian apes! The crowds quickly gathered around the central London course, and what with wearing a mask the freedom of expression was very liberating - running up to random tourists and posing for photos, high fiving passers by, and attempting to convert other people out for their daily run to join us as it "wasn't too late!".
Coming into the last 2km, an old man who must have been around 60 passed me on the run in his gorilla outfit. The guy looked half dead but had his 12 year old son playing pace maker for him. The second he passed me I knew the gauntlet had been thrown down....there was no way this pensioner was going to finish ahead of me in the race! And so it was I would run ahead, and then slow again to a walking pace (the sun-effect meant I couldnt last all gorilla'd up for more than a few hundred meters at a time) and then the old man would jog past me a few minutes later, at which point I'd start running again to pass him and slow once more...
In the final 1km the spirit of the moment took me over and I went for broke, giving out the high-fives, making gorilla chants as loud as I possibly could, and making sure I kept my anonymous mask on at all times!!
Crossing the finishing line with Bill Oddie waiting with a broad smile probably wasn't the most rewarding of experiences, but the medal he passed on to me, and the water and bananas being offered on a table behind him made up for that!
Overall it was a fantastic morning, and given my lack of training, relatively poor health, and the very warm day, completing the 7km in 47 minutes was a very modest time (my 5km practice runs without costume usually took me 30minutes...and that was in the late evenings!!)
Will I do it again? Well the 47min benchmark has been set, and I've got my own gorilla costume now so hey...maybe!
35 down...965 Things to go!
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