Deborah Byrne among 2000 runners competing in the Cadbury Marathon
A 60-year-old woman taking part in her first ever marathon is one of 2000 competitors who will be pounding the pavement on Sunday. Why she’s doing it.
Tasmania
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At the age of 60, Deborah Byrne has decided to run in her first marathon.
“The obvious answer is because I’m crazy,” she said when asked why she entered the 42km marathon.
Ms Byrne is one of an expected 2100 people who will take part in the Cadbury Marathon on Sunday.
The race starts and finishes at the Cadbury factory at Claremont, but competitors also given the option to run a half-marathon, 10km, 5km or 1km competitions.
Ms Byrne is part of the Tasmanian Road Runners Group and has been training for the event in its ‘Make Me a Marathoner’ program.
“We were given a three-month program where we gradually build up the distances,” she said.
“If it wasn’t for the group or the program I wouldn’t be able to have done the marathon. If you set a goal and set your mind to doing something, then you have to give it a go.”
Ms Byrne said she aimed to simply finish the marathon.
“I hope I am still upright by the end of the event. I’m not looking to break any land speed records.”
Mathew Bedford is also part of the Make Me a Marathoner program and was competing in his fifth Cadbury event in a row.
“When I ran my first marathon in 2020 at the 30-kilometre mark, I didn’t think I was going to finish, and I said I would never ever do another one ever again; that was the worst pain I’d been in,” Mr Bedford said.
“Then, a couple of months later, I couldn’t wait to do another one.”
Mr Bedford said he had become accustomed to the long-distance runner lifestyle, describing it as “quite addictive”.
“It teaches you a fair bit about yourself, not so much on the race day, but the training. But the race itself is just so enjoyable.
“Everyone’s not competing with each other, but competing when themselves and we’re all on the same team.”
Cadbury Marathon race director Blake Steele was excited for the race.
“It is wonderful to have already exceeded last year’s numbers in terms of participants in the Cadbury Marathon, and it just shows that this event continues to show its prominence on the Tasmanian and Australian Running Calendar,” Mr Steele said.
“We still have entries open up to Saturday so, depending on where we land with those late entries, we are pretty confident we will eclipse most of the past years and it will be one of our biggest events ever.”
Money raised from the marathon will go to the Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation.
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