A few minutes before the 2023 London Marathon began, Richard Stoate was getting into costume on the side of the road.
It was a two-person job: the 43-year-old wasn’t just wearing trainers and sportswear for the 26.2-mile run. He was raising money for the young people’s charity WellChild, so – with his partner’s help – he climbed into a 10ft (3-metre) purple nurse costume.
As the race started, his pace was a little too fast. He said: “If you overtake someone, they’re like: ‘Oh God, I’ve been overtaken by the guy in the massive nurse uniform.’”
Towards the end, with all the extra weight, Stoate was running out of puff. Five hours and 47 minutes later he crossed the finish line. “It was a relief to get the thing off,” he said. “I was pretty hot and tired by that stage.”
Towering nurses, magic fairies, stocky rhinos, mighty oak trees, colossal chocolate bars, well-known monuments – marathons attract their share of wacky characters each year. But what’s it really like to drag these weird costumes over 26 miles?
Whether it’s outfits that chafe and scratch, amusing comments from spectators, costumes falling apart mid-race, or the sheer heat and sweat inside heavy foam suits – completing a marathon in a novelty costume brings a somewhat unique running experience. Scores of people got in touch with the Guardian to tell their tales.
Rhinoceros costumes from Save the Rhino International have been a feature of the London Marathon since 1992. But the temperature inside can be punishing. Former chief executive Cathy Dean last donned the suit in 2022.
She said: “The costume develops its own microclimate – it’s incredibly hot and sweaty inside. You need to wear a sweatband around your forehead to stop your eyes from stinging.
“And after a while you begin to smell the sweat of all the previous runners that has soaked into the plastazote over the years.” The rhino suits get sprayed after each run with furniture polish, but it doesn’t actually clean them.
Then there’s the weight. About 10kg, the rhino suit is attached to a frame worn like a rucksack – with straps at the shoulder and waist – but the head bobs annoyingly. “So you start holding on to the sides to stabilise it,” Dean said, which causes stiff arms “as if you’re holding a tea tray out in front of you”.
This year, 14 people will run the London Marathon in Save the Rhino suits. “They’ll be pounding the streets of London, that’s a proper crash of rhinos,” Dean said.
Ann Beardsley, 73, and her sister have completed the “Disney Dopey Challenge” more than 10 times. It’s a fancy dress event of four races: a 5k, 10k, half- and full-marathon across four days in Disneyland Florida.
The sisters ran as matching pink flamingos one year. But, Beardsley said, the headwear kept blowing away – so she “became a decapitated flamingo”. Another time they were rainbow fairies. The wigs itched, the tutus scratched, the hats kept falling off, but “it was all part of the fun”, she said. The annual races gave the sisters – one living in North Carolina, the other in Oregon – a happy excuse to get together.
When Kellie Clark decided to run the London Marathon as a large Marathon (the old name for Snickers), in an effort to win a Guinness World Record, she deployed cardboard, fabric and her sister’s help to build the outfit. They had to follow guidelines – on the chocolate bar’s length and rigidity – which made it heavy and awkward to run in.
“It was a very short stride,” she said. But even so, on her third attempt in 2022, Clark’s Marathon bar won the women’s world record for “fastest marathon dressed as a candy confectionery item”, clocking 4hrs 26mins. The record was stolen the next year by a pack of Haribo.
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Clark, 42, who lives in Morecambe, has also completed York Marathon (as a Yorkie bar), a pandemic marathon in a beer garden (as a pint of ale) and the London Marathon (as a pea-shaped superhero).
She does it to inspire her children – aged 11, 10, eight and four – that they can achieve anything, and to follow their dreams, while raising money for charity. “They love the silly things I do,” she said.
But running in a novelty outfit isn’t without risk. George Bingham, a 64-year-old in West Yorkshire, ran the London Marathon raising money for Sue Ryder in 2010 as the Angel of the North, the 20-metre sculpture by Antony Gormley.
His running outfit, 3.5 metres tall and 4.5 metres wide, was constructed from glass fibre rods, stuck together with marine glue and covered in a rust-coloured skin. It was light, but “the slightest breeze threw you,” he said. “You’ve got to just try scurrying along.”
When Bingham was running over Tower Bridge, he said a gust sent him perilously towards the edge. “I had to be rugby-tackled by two stewards to stop me from being blown over,” he said. “They really were life-savers.”
But above all, running a race in a novelty outfit can be emotional: people are raising money for charities close to their hearts, and the encouragement from fans can be overwhelming.
Robert Duncombe, 57, ran 2022’s London Marathon as a tree, raising money for the Oak Cancer Centre at Royal Marsden hospital, where he is chief pharmacist. He said the 8ft bespoke suit, made by a company that constructs football mascots, was “bouncing up and down on my shoulders”. The foam insulation meant Duncombe was “sweating buckets” – but the “electric” crowd atmosphere powered him through.
He said: “Coming over Tower Bridge, you take a right, it’s eight or 10 people deep, and that wall of noise hits you – even slightly muffled through the costume – you could hear these chants of: ‘Tree! Tree! Tree!’ It was just so special.”
Dean said running in a costume was “like being on a red carpet. The crowds go absolutely bonkers.” After her marathon, she said, the most overworked muscles weren’t her legs. “I remember my cheek muscles aching because I was smiling so much.”