Having known these lads for the best part of life, I was at the London Tree-Athlon 2008 event to support East London's spartans, James Russo, Alvin Cousins and Jonathan Barquilla, and in turn report on how the UK's biggest cities are bettering our environment with some good old active community fun. Read on, and check out the sweat and tears (of joy!) in my Ctrl.Alt.Shift review:
Feature: London Tree-Athlon 2008
The beaming sun was a pretty good sign of the aura at this year’s London Tree-Athlon in Battersea Park. Each and every runner crossed the finish line with sweat, a little strain and a big smile.
Nearly 2000 people took part in the 5km charity race for Trees for Cities. The company’s Press Coordinator Inna Constantini was ecstatic with everyone’s commitment to the cause, telling Ctrl.Alt.Shift; “Our aim is to raise awareness, to plant more trees and beautify deprived parts of our cities with projects in London, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, and Reading as well as in some international cities. And it’s worthwhile seeing so many happy glowing faces like today, as we’re having fun and creating social cohesion whilst tackling global warming.”
Enthusiasm and passion swept through the park as the fourth London Tree-Athlon welcomed family and friends of all races and all ages. The dynamic trio of university graduates James Russo, Jonathan Barquilla and Alvin Cousins epitomised what attitude was expected of the day’s participants.
The most experienced runner in the group, 21-year-old James, ran an incredible time of 19 minutes and 19 seconds.
But the result was of little relevance to the marathon boy. “Of course I’m very happy, but it’s not really a race. Everyone just enjoys it; we’re all wearing the same top so we’re all on the same team. I'm just running because I want to contribute to re-forestation in London and other places where natural resources are continuously being threatened. We ourselves threaten places like Peru, Ethiopia and Kenya with the high commodity we put on timber to fuel with our consumer life-styles, so it's only fair I do something to help.”
Twenty-one-year-old architect Alvin left his drawing board at home to set a great time of 25 minutes and 40 seconds.
He said: “I’m quite chuffed. I got a personal best and had a really fun day. Also I like to think I made that little bit of difference. I raised money through my local parish in East London, so I believe in the process I managed to raise some kind of awareness about ‘green life.’”
With a sprint finish, 22-year-old musician Jonathan passed the line at 31 minutes and 46 seconds, despite injuring his knee half-way through.
Limping towards me, he took a positive note from the event. “It was enlightening to run with several others by my side rooting for the same cause. I hope that all of us running in such a mass group made some kind of difference.”
Read the full article here
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