May is always a fit and healthy month for Chris as he dusts off his trainers for his 'last ever' Binfield 10k race. Over the past 5 years he has put his dignity aside and donned a fancy dress costume to help out a number of great charities. This year he decided to bring some colour and life to his local village by dressing up as a big banana. When quizzed as to the sentiment and meaning behind the outfit choice, the response was profound... "I just fancied it".

Naturally doing an event like this in an outfit like that is always going to get plenty of attention and that's exactly what Chris planned on. Early on he asked himself..."what's better than a banana running round a village?". The answer it seems was "two bananas...being chased by a monkey!!" And that as they say, was that! Chris was joined on the day by Andy Moorcroft who is a Senior Client Relationship Manager at Shoosmiths and Natasha Farr who works for the Police in the Hampshire Constabulary. The banana suit was kindly donated by someone Chris used to work with and who kindly drove it over just to ensure that Chris suffered benefited from this kind gesture. Sukhi, we all owe you big time for bringing this vision to life...😊

At the event it started a little overcast in the build-up but the sun burst through just in time for the warm up and was there to ensure the yellow of the banana could be seen for miles around. 65 mins after the starter pistol fired, Chris crossed the finish line, which in fairness, considering the conditions and the attire, was a good result. You can choose whether to believe him or not, but he also claimed to have stopped off for breakfast, otherwise in his own words..."I would have won it easily."

The trio raised over £1,800 together plus gift aid which is the key result Chris was focused on and he had this to say at the end:

"This is always such a great event and when you arrive at the field in fancy dress, you immediately alienate 99.8% of the other runners - I mean no one wants to be beaten in any sort of race by me, let alone looking like this!! All jokes aside though, everyone was very encouraging, one runner even asked for a selfie as she overtook me so I guess I'm some kind of influencer now? The support you get in this race is phenomenal all the way round - from the kids soaking you with water pistols to the adults soaking you with cups of water, it's great fun and so well organised. The fundraising went really well too with an incredible number of generous people who were happy to support our efforts. So, I'd just like to say a massive thank you to everyone for the support in any and every capacity and if you're thinking about doing an event to raise some funds for a good cause... [insert the Nike slogan here]."

Here's the link to my sponsorship page for Cancer Research: