The Denver Gorilla Run took place at 11:30 am on a warm fall afternoon, the temp was close to 70 degrees. Let me tell you something, running in a Gorilla Costume is hot. When I went to pick up my Gorilla Costume the lady told me that they fit rather snug and that I would need an extra large, since I am “tall.” It’s a good thing that I got the extra large, because for the entire 5.6k race distance it felt like I was running with a wedgie.

The race started in front of the Wynkoop Brewery, I was sporting my Gorilla Outfit with a Hawaiian Shirt and an Orange Head Band. Under the Gorilla Outfit, I had on some running shorts and a tech shirt and was “racing” in my Mizuno Elixirs. Right before the race, I had slugged a Joint Juice, which later turned out to be a mistake, as I ran most of the race with a side ache, but that could have been caused by a number of factors, with the first of those being the Gorilla Costume.

At the start of the race, I was about five people deep from the start line. I think everyone was crowding the start line hoping to get into any pictures that were being taken. I hadn’t even thought about this race, I didn’t warm up and had not planned on running hard. The gun went off and a lot of people took off sprinting, it took me about 15 seconds to get around the other runners, cyclist, skateboarders, etc. Once I got around the pack, I could see five other Gorillas in front of me.

I passed all but two of them by the time we turned onto the Platte River Trial. My first mile was in 6:43 and by then I was in second place and gaining on the leader. I started to pick it up, thinking it would be fun to win the race, so I came through my second mile in 6:30. With about a mile to go, I caught the leader. Let me say, at this time, sweat was beading up in my mask and I was sweating something fierce inside of that costume. I would have taken my mask off, but the leader still had his on, so I would have felt bad if I won the race and had removed my mask, regardless of the fact that most of the other runners removed their mask during the race.

The reactions that I got running around Denver were rather funny, I also passed a handful of runners out for their daily run. I’m sure they felt weird, running in their shorts and t-shirts and getting passed by an adult running in full ape gear on a 70 degree day.

The showdown, so there we were, one mile to go, race on the line. The other guy hung tough and started to pick up the pace with about .75 miles to go. I thought it would be stupid to battle him in full Gorilla Costume, so I conceded the race early and started slowing down due to the massive heat. I also didn’t want to take the chance of racing him and having to try to run my last mile in six minutes, if in fact he was a fast runner, so I thought it would be better for my post race marathon recovery to cruise into the finish. The third mile was a 7:04 split. I finished the race in 24:32, good for second place!

At the finish, I removed my mask and I am quite sure that I have never sweated that much in my entire life. I was a wreck, in hindsight that effort was probably tougher than running an all out 5k. It was a lot of fun though! Also, check out Half-Fast on Monday for a much funnier racing account and picture of his sweet Gorilla Ice Costume.

If you ran this race and would like to review it, stop by the Colorado Running Forum.