Family of six get ready to take on the Toowoomba Marathon
A promising young family of athletes have taken their Covid-19 lockdown hobby and ran with it, and are now getting ready to take home more medals in this year’s Toowoomba Marathon.
News
Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Like many during the lockdowns of Covid-19, Toowoomba’s Magarey family took up a new hobby.
For Mel, Phil and their four young kids, their activity of choice was running. Now, years on from the pandemic, the family has very promising futures in the sport, as they follow in each other’s footsteps.
The Magarey family is getting ready to take on the Toowoomba Marathon for the second year in a row, and the family trains together three or four times a week.
Mel Magarey and her son Judah, 11, both train six days a week and Ms Magarey runs 140km a week on average.
The family of six are each competing in different categories at the Toowoomba Marathon on May 3-4.
“It is the best community and everyone is so supportive of each other,” Ms Magarey said.
“One might be training for a marathon, the other one a 1500m race and even though our goals might be different everyone is really supportive of each other.”
Ms Magarey was the first female runner to cross the finish line in last year’s half marathon and she is back to defend her title.
Ms Magarey’s husband Phil is running in the 10km.
Layla, 15, and Harper, 13, are running the 5km, and Judah, 11, and Ava, 8, are doing the runway mile.
Last year Judah won the 2km run and Layla came second in the 5km run.
All of the Magarey kids run in cross country and track events throughout the year and Judah came fourth in cross country at a national level for his age group last year.
The competitive 11-year-old loves being a part of the running community and being able to travel around Australia to compete.
“Something I love about running is where we go travelling,” he said.
“Especially like when I go to like bigger competitions like at states and nationals.
“Last year we went down to Sydney and got to race at Olympic Park.”
Layla is training to hopefully make nationals this year.
Mr Magarey said when the family started running during Covid-19 they didn’t have much experience, but look at them now.
“During Covid we couldn’t do a lot, but we could run,” he said.
“For an individual sport its actually very community oriented.
“We love the lifestyle too, like the fitness and how you feel when you run, but there’s definitely a bit of competitiveness around us as well.
“It’s really inspiring for the running community to see people just get out and have a go.”
Harper and Layla both said being part of the running community is how they have made some of their closest friends.
“You create lifelong friendships from running,” Harper said.
“It’s fun travelling with friends and I love the community and most of my friends also do running. It’s very motivating,” Layla said.
With races for everyone, you can sign up for the Toowoomba Marathon at https://toowoombamarathon.com.au/
More Coverage
Originally published as Family of six get ready to take on the Toowoomba Marathon
Cops’ fears after human remains found in vicinity of missing mum’s vehicle
Police have located human remains about 1km from the location on a remote Queensland property where her ute and some of her belongings were found.
Man suffers ‘significant’ head injuries in rollover
A man has suffered “potentially life-threatening” injuries in a crash in the Western Downs region.