Go Ape

The 2011 Virgin London Marathon is now less than five days away…Fellow Gorilla (literally), Martin Palmer, talks us through the build up to his latest adventure:

Hi, I’m Martin, and I’m a gorilla…well I will be for the London Marathon. Best to start at the beginning, it all started in 2009 when I took part in the Great Gorilla Run where over 700 people dressed in gorilla suits to run 7K around London for a charity called ‘The Gorilla Organization’.

As soon as I discovered I was in the London Marathon I decided to create a blog to record my antics as a virtual scrapbook – if you wish to find out what I’ve been up to then go to http://marathongorilla.blogspot.com  or follow me on twitter @marathongorilla (http://twitter.com/#!/MarathonGorilla)

I joined in as part of the ‘Go Ape! Tribe’ and still have the t-shirt and bandana upstairs. It was an exciting and amusing day – the sight of 700 gorillas running over Tower Bridge is not to be missed. The charity works in Central Africa supporting both the human and gorilla populations and helping them to co-exist. Projects include agricultural training for the people, Ranger Patrols to protect the limited number of gorillas, and tree planting to help both.

Last July I was chatting to a friend who was planning to run the London Marathon in April this year – and I thought that’s great, I wonder if there are any places for the Gorilla Organization? In October the answer to my question was announced.

Two things I forgot to mention i) This would be my first ever marathon; ii) I plan to run the full 26 miles in a gorilla costume. So, for the last six months my world has been filled with running and gorilla fur. I have taken part in numerous different races including ‘Hell Runner’, ParkRuns in the snow as a gorilla and recently the ‘Reading Half Marathon’ where I ran in the ‘full suit’ and completed the race in under 2:30. In January this year I decided to make a short humorous film ‘mISSING pIECES’ of a gorilla running around Basingstoke noticing the changes to the human habitat – which in the last few days I discovered has been accepted for an international short film on April 16th (One day before the big race!!!).

From all of us at Go Ape we’d like to wish Martin the very best of luck and hope he ‘zips’ through the 26 miles of the Capital. If anyone is going down to watch on Sunday keep your eyes ‘peeled’ for Martin and maybe take a banana?

Finally you can support Martin by visiting www.justgiving.com/GorillaMan and I’m sure he’d love to hear some words of support and advice – So feel free to comment guys!