They dance and cheer and do so much for Memorial Marathon. Meet the Gorilla Hill Bananas.
Carter Cole’s preparation for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon isn’t like most.
He doesn’t train for months. No running miles. No building endurance.
Instead, he gets ready for race day by helping fill hundreds of balloons with helium and stake them along the street. Then, there are thousands of bananas to cut and a 50-foot-tall gorilla to inflate.
His last bit of prep: putting on a banana costume.
And Cole isn’t the only one with that race routine.
He is one of The Bananas, a group of nearly a hundred people who wear banana costumes and cheer Memorial Marathon runners as they scale Gorilla Hill. That’s what the part of the race course on Shartel Avenue has become known as it climbs through the Crown Heights Neighborhood.
More: Running is 'stronger than it's ever been' in the OKC metro thanks to OKC Memorial Marathon
“Just cheering on the runners Sunday during the marathon is the most fun and most rewarding part of it all,” Cole said.
“I look forward to it every year.”
All along the Memorial Marathon course, different groups have stepped forward to support the runners. Some are small, a few neighbors on a street corner with homemade signs and noisemakers. Others are bigger productions. A gospel choir. A jazz band. Native American drummers. Asian dragon dancers.
“It shows Oklahoma City, the fabric of Oklahoma City,” said Kari Watkins, Oklahoma City Memorial & Museum president and chief executive officer, “and I love that these folks have gotten involved.
“They love showing their culture, their influence, their personalities, their love for the city.”
Every group, big or small, that shows its support is important for runners. Who wouldn’t appreciate some encouragement while running 26.2 miles or a little boost while going 13.1 miles?
Still, nothing is quite like Gorilla Hill. It has become such an institution that the Memorial Marathon actually put it on the map. Yes, the course map includes a little gorilla that looks a lot like the Hill’s giant one.
“My view is that runners probably think that we’re out there for them, but the secret is they’re out there for us,” said Steve Cole, whose yellow (yes, yellow) house at the corner of NW 40 and Shartel is the epicenter for Gorilla Hill. “It is so crazy inspirational.”
He calls race day electric as 20,000-plus runners pass by his house.
“And everybody’s high fiving each other and screaming,” he said. “It’s super cool.”
The Bananas are often doing the most high-fiving and screaming.
More: Shoe geeks? Sneakerheads? The shoe culture is alive and well in OKC's running community
‘A special feeling that you really can’t replicate’
Gorilla Hill has always had Bananas.
From its start in 2010, there were people dressed up in banana costumes, but that first year, you could count them on two hands.
“But it has bloomed over the years,” Steve Cole said.
He traces the growth of The Bananas to his children, daughters Jordan and Elaine and son, Carter. The girls got involved first, but since they were already in high school and college when Gorilla Hill started, they were soon out of the house.
Carter, on the other hand, was still in elementary school. Even though he didn’t participate much in the early days — “It’s hard to get a 10-year-old out of bed to do anything on a Sunday morning,” his dad said — Carter soon started inviting friends to join the fun on race day.
Then came kids from the neighborhood, as well as extended family.
That’s how Cole Corley got involved.
He is Steve’s nephew and Carter’s cousin, and even though he lived in Texas when he was younger, his family always made the trip to Oklahoma for the Memorial Marathon. Corley loved everything about being part of Gorilla Hill.
“It’s one of the more special days of my life,” he said.
He loved doing something a little crazy with family and friends. But as he got older — his family moved to the Oklahoma City metro and he is now a senior at Heritage Hall — he came to appreciate the deeper meaning of the day.
Corley was part of his huge community event honoring those killed, injured and changed forever by the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
“It’s a special feeling that you really can’t replicate,” Corley said.
He took the connection a step further this year. One of his electives at Heritage Hall is a class called Peer Leadership, and the biggest part of the class grade is a passion project.
“It was a no-brainer,” Corley said. “The marathon.”
His uncle helped him make contact with folks at the memorial, and last month, Corley and a group of Heritage Hall students spent a morning assembling signs that will be placed on the race course. They had the photos and names of those killed in the bombing.
It was such a meaningful experience, Corley, who is headed to college in the fall, hopes other Bananas will continue it in the future.
Such a move would continue the growth that already has happened with Gorilla Hill.
More: OKC Memorial Marathon guide: 26 things to know, see and love about race weekend
‘Something that’s bigger than ourselves’
Steve Cole is a bit sheepish to admit how big Gorilla Hill has gotten.
In order to store the inflatable gorilla that goes in his front yard and the tables that hold all the bananas for runners, he had to rent a storage unit. But then he bought an inflatable arch that goes over the street and more banana costumes, and it got to the point he had to rent a second storage unit.
He is to the Memorial Marathon what Clark Griswold is to Christmas lights.
“I feel a little bit like Chevy Chase,” Cole admitted with a chuckle.
But he’s proud, too, of what Gorilla Hill has done for the marathon and the memorial.
Gorilla Hill merchandise has been created and sold for several years, and a few years back when Cole bought the inflatable arch, he started selling spots on it to businesses and advertisers. All the money goes to the memorial.
The total is nearing $200,000.
Cole calls it a community effort.
“We’ve got a lot of helpers and people that pitch in from a lot of different directions,” he said.
The Bananas are near the top of the list.
Cole calls on them to do all sorts of things. Help with the inflatables. Pick up food and beverages for race weekend. Work the Gorilla Hill booth at the marathon expo. Inflate balloons. Cut up bananas.
“Everybody pitches in and wants to be part of something that’s bigger than ourselves,” Cole said. “It’s the bigness of the whole event. I think that’s what brings along the following.”
Wearing a banana costume on race day is pretty fun, too.
More: See OKC Memorial Marathon route map, road closures and weather outlook for the 2023 race
‘It’s so random and it’s so genuine’
No Banana has an assigned banana costume.
Instead, on race day, the massive tubs that they’re stored in are placed in the middle of the Coles’ living room.
“It’s a free-for-all,” said Carter Cole, who is a junior at OU. “You grab whatever banana costume you can. I think it might be about time to get some new ones, though, because some of them are pretty old. I think there’s some that some people don’t really want to grab anymore.”
Are they kind of, um, ripe?
“They’ve gotten a little brown and a little bruised,” he said.
(Rim shot.)
It’s easy to understand why. The Bananas are in costume for four or five hours on race day, and they spend lots of time dancing and cheering. Some of them will even repeatedly go to the bottom of Gorilla Hill and run up it with runners.
“Just being their cheerleader for that 20 seconds,” Cole Corley said.
Even though runners only see The Bananas for a short time, a small fraction of the time it takes to run a marathon or half marathon, the connection is strong. Runners stop for selfies. They say thank you.
But The Bananas feel connected, too.
A few years ago, Carter Cole told fellow Banana and longtime buddy Grant McLain that the family had decided to sell the house.
“And I freaked out,” McLain said. “I was so upset. All of our friends were so upset because of Gorilla Hill and whether the new owners would be OK with something like that.”
Carter Cole eventually confessed that it was a prank. Neither the Coles nor Gorilla Hill was going anywhere.
McLain was so relieved. He couldn’t fathom the Memorial Marathon not having Gorilla Hill or The Bananas.
“It became something huge,” he said. “I think it’s because it’s so random and it’s so genuine.”
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon
When: 5K, 7 a.m. Saturday; senior marathon, 8 a.m. Saturday; kids marathon, 9 a.m. Saturday; marathon and half marathon wheelchair, 6:25 a.m. Sunday; marathon, half marathon and marathon relay, 6:30 a.m. Sunday.
Where: Downtown Oklahoma City
Weather: Slight chance of showers after 7 a.m., high near 65 on Saturday. Sunny, high near 69 on Sunday.
Registration: All races still have open spots, but race officials say the marathon, half marathon, kids marathon and senior marathon are approaching their participant maximums.
More information: OKCMarathon.com
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 2023 OKC Memorial Marathon: Gorilla Hill Bananas wacky on race route
