Romesh Ranganathan, Rosie Jones, Ivo Graham, and Joel Dommett are all set to take part in the London Marathon, running for 26.2 miles all for different charities!
Romesh Ranganathan
Romesh absolutely dreaded running before. Even as a kid, he had to run for PE classes and because he wasn’t very fit, he developed a negative association with the exercise.
Running was even constantly being recommended to him and still didn’t click – he’d be running for a few minutes, get winded, start walking, run more, get winded again, and overall wasn’t a fun experience for him.
It wasn’t until he had a helpful tip of getting on top of his breathing and slowing it down that he was able to see all the benefits of running and is now running 15Ks and even more!
According to Romesh, the real motivator is that he’s now a patron for CALM, a charity doing incredible work for suicide prevention, a cause dear to him as when he was young he came close to taking his own life, and even had a good friend of his take his own life a few years ago.
You can donate to the cause and contribute to CALM’s literal life-saving work HERE!
If you told me a couple years ago that I’d be running a marathon, I’d have told you to f*ck right off – but CALM’s work is so important that I’m going to break a lifelong promise to myself
Rosie Jones and Ivo Graham
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Rosie wouldn’t be running physically, she would be pushed around in a buggy by Ivo Graham! Rosie wouldn’t just be enjoying the sights, during this run as she has the important task of shouting with her megaphone at Ivo whenever he slows down too much.
The pair are getting ready to take on 26.2 miles of running for two charities that are very important to them, The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement and Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Rosie has incorporated her cerebral palsy to her own comedic style and has done multiple charities and fundraisers for the disability.
As for Ivo, he has opened up about his mother’s own MS and was named as an MS Society Ambassador – last November he spearheaded a fundraiser event for research on the disease.
The pair are now training (and charging megaphones) for the event, so donate to the cause HERE!
Joel Dommett
Comedian, author, TV presenter, is also running for charity, taking on the London Marathon, but this time, he’ll be running in a piranha costume!
He is running for the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, a charity that supports babies, children, and young people with life-limiting conditions and their families. Joel has supported this charity for 6 years and has hosted a lot of fundraising events for their cause.
He was named as a patron last year where he visited the children in a panda costume (it was a Masked Singer Contestant’s costume), and then later joined them in a mask-masking and crafts session.
The impact of Shooting Star Children’s Hospices is unbelievably important for people who feel like there are no other options. When you are presented with something as horrific as what the families are having to deal with, just feeling like you have some form of hope in that world of darkness must be unbelievably helpful. I am proud to become a Patron and look forward to helping to create further awareness and spending time meeting more families.
Training for the marathon is going fine for the comedian but he needed a bit more ‘oomph’ so recently Dommett and Masked Singer winner Danny Jones visited the charity where they gave him lots of encouragement, an afternoon of fun activities and even created loving marathon bib artworks for him!
I decided to run for Shooting Star Children’s Hospices because it’s a charity that is very dear to my heart. I’m a Patron of the charity and I know how much every tiny bit of money matters and I’m really proud to be running for them – dressed as a fish! My training’s going well and our visit to Shooting Star was exactly what was needed to give me a bit of fuel on the fire. Whenever I’m finding it difficult on the day in the costume, I can dig deep and think of the families, the children and all of the staff at Shooting Star and that’ll push me through
Pretty sure you can’t miss Joel running during the marathon, so he asks to those who are not in a position to give anything yet, to come down and cheer him on! You can support Shooting Star Children’s Hospices cause HERE,
Esther Manito
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Esther is running for World Animal Protection, and has taken her training to the next level by literally running to gigs while on her ‘Hell Hath No Fury’ tour! She says the time pressure helps her in not being late to the venue because she needs to be on-time so she can’t stop for breaks.
As a mother of two she tries to balance out her training and looking after them but she says that,
Occasionally I get the kids to run with me, but the moaning can counteract the de-stressing effects of the run!
Although she is no stranger to running, the coming London Marathon would be her first ever marathon and isn’t taking it lightly. She has been doing long and short runs consistently and with weight training mixed in.
She has been wearing a World Animal Protection t-shirt while training to focus on why she’s running in the first place. Not only that she’s also made a lot of lifestyle changes to better reflect the cause in the humane treatment of animals,
I’ve recently reduced how much meat I eat, as I know factory farming has a huge impact on climate change, and incredibly cruel practices like teeth clipping, tail cutting and birthing crates that animals in the industry are subjected to throughout their lives.
You can donate for World Animal Protection’s cause HERE!
These comics are stepping out of their comfort zones and are running for super important causes, so check out the links attached and please donate! Speaking of marathons, feel free to ‘run’ (see what I did there?) right on over to Big Belly Comedy Club! We’ve got tons of great comedy shows and comedians 7 nights a week so join in the fun!
Romesh Ranganathan
Rosie Jones
Ivo Graham
Joel Dommett
