LUKE’S LOFTY HEIGHTS
FORGET wild horses – Ross River virus couldn’t drag Luke Bradnam away from the starting line of Sunday’s Gold Coast Airport Marathon.
The TV and radio presenter will run his 17th full marathon – and 10th Gold Coast event – even though he’s just tested positive to the debilitating mosquito-borne virus.
Bradnam, who battled glandular fever this year, said he most likely contracted Ross River in March while he was in North Queensland reporting on Cyclone Debbie.
“It’s tough. I’ll be lining up with Ross River Fever to do it but there’s no way that I’ll be the person on the start line with the hardest task,” he said.
“I had a mate last year, Perry Cross, who did it and he’s in a wheelchair and you see these guys who line up and do it – without getting too wanky about it, that’s the sort of thing I love most about marathons. Everybody’s running for a different reason. Everybody has got a story to tell.”
Bradnam will be joined by fellow Channel 9 presenter Andrew Lofthouse, a Gold Coast race debutant competing in his third full marathon.
A keen runner, Lofthouse completed his first full marathon in New York in 2015 on a Youngcare/team that helped (and pushed) wheelchairbound Brisbane man Tim Martin realise his dream of completing the storeyed event.
“Having done one, I thought as a runner, now I know I can do this,” Lofthouse said.