WASHINGTON — If Bobby Gill ever dreamed of gracing the cover of a national magazine as a child, he probably didn’t see it like this.
Wait, let’s back up.
Gill is only in this position because of his own creation, an event in which thousands of otherwise decent and professional people strip down to their underwear in the middle of winter to run around the middle of the city.
“People start showing up at noon, the drinks start flowing, people start taking their pants off …”
Alright, hold on, let’s go further back.
Gill, a Beltsville, Maryland native, was living a fairly normal life as a 20-something in the D.C. area after graduating from the University of Maryland. He had a good job working as a biomedical engineer for the Food and Drug Administration. He had picked up an interest in ultrarunning in his spare time, but had an otherwise commonplace social life.
Then one of his roommates’ younger brothers came down with a rare and debilitating disease, neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow on the nervous system (if you’re a Nats fan, it may sound familiar — Ian Desmond has actively campaigned to raise money for research as well). Working with his friends, he decided to create a fundraiser for the Children’s Tumor Foundation to support the cause. They wanted something more than a simple race, and more than a simple happy hour.
“The idea kind of just came to us randomly, that why don’t we run around in our underwear in the freezing cold?” says Gill. “That sounds like a fun thing to do, and people would probably pay to do that.”
They expected maybe a few dozen would join them in their first endeavor, right after Snowmageddon, when powder was still piled high on the sidewalks around the District. Completely unprepared in their first year, they didn’t even secure the proper permits. 650 people showed up, and they raised about $10,000.
“It blew all of our expectations out of the water,” says Gill, whose Cupid’s Undie Run has since expanded to 39 cities in the U.S. and Australia and is on track to raise $5.5 million this year. It’s become a big enough deal that two years ago Gill left his day job to run the foundation that organizes the race full time.
And that’s why he’s on the cover of a national magazine, the December issue of Runner’s World, after wading his way through an open submission process, 100 initial candidates and 10 finalists.
“It’s something we never would have expected, but we’re hoping it really gets a lot of exposure for us,” says Gill.
About that exposure. The folks at Runner’s World told Gill to bring along regular running clothes in blacks, whites and grays when he flew out for the shoot. Oh, and by the way, go ahead and pack your undies, too. They took plenty of photos in regular gear, but took a few crazy ones, too. Gill never figured they’d actually use one of those.
But when the cover was revealed on The Today Show, well …
“It’s normally really fit people,” Gill says of magazine cover models. “If it’s someone who’s wearing a little bit of clothing, it’s going to be someone who’s really jacked or super toned, which I am not.”
But for anyone who might be a bit timid about the idea of running in one’s underwear, the race’s founder certainly walked the walk or, as it were, ran the run. He’s just praying nobody thinks the event is named after him.
“I hope they don’t associate me with like a fat little baby,” he laughs.
The event is named after the cherub of love because of when it occurs, close to Valentine’s Day. The 2016 edition kicks off at noon on Feb. 13, with the pre- and post-party taking place at Asia DC and Eden in Farragut West. The course moved from its original run down by the Capitol Building, where it was run the first six years of the event.
That’s why we decided to run the run (albeit fully clothed) with Gill around the new layout, a roughly mile-and-a-half loop from I Street down to Constitution Avenue and back. If you want to sign up, the event usually fills up sometime in the month of January. And make sure you dress appropriately.
“We have absolutely had to turn people away,” says Gill. “Our limit is PG-13 max — this is for a children’s charity. We had a group of guys who wanted to streak the first event. We sent them to Rite-Aid to buy Depends. They actually looked like cupids out there running around in their big diapers.”
See our in-motion interview below and find out more about the next Cupid’s Undie Run here.
