A marathon effort in New York
JOHN Hill is the youngest ever squad member of the Indigenous Marathon Foundation, and he’s done Dubbo proud.
On Monday last week the 18 year old was sitting in a classroom at Dubbo College Senior Campus working on his HSC, then in the early hours of last Monday, Australian time, he completed the New York City Marathon in a time of 5:10:31.
“It was such an unreal experience traveling all the way from Australia to the big Apple to compete in one of the six major world marathons – the New York City marathon – which I smashed in a decent time,” John said.
“Comfortably ran the first 25km then the body decided to throw a few temporary problems at me – as Mentor @ deek207 (Australian’s Olympic marathon legend Robert de Castella) says, the marathon starts at 30km – which it did!
“Was such a struggle from there on until I hit what they call 'the wall' in which thoughts begin to enter into your head which tell you to give up and stop, but that wasn’t an option as I wasn’t just running for myself but for family, friends and the rest of indigenous Australia,” he said.
There were moments when he wanted to stop and just sit down and give up.
“(But when you) continue to push on through the pain is when you learn more about yourself and who you are as a person,” John said.
“Can’t thank the Indigenous Marathon Foundation enough for this opportunity.” A NEW exhibition called “Upon a Broken World”, curated by Western Plains Cultural Centres’ Jessica Moore, examines the First World War to show it is perhaps the most significant event to have taken place in the modern world, and our current society can’t be explained without it.
In the war’s aftermath monarchies fell, replaced by communist utopias, proto-democracies and independent ethnic states; and the role of women, the class system, medical expertise, poetry, drama and art, and what we like to drink were all upturned.
The official opening with a talk by Jessica Moore will be held on Saturday, November 10, at 2pm at the Western Plains Cultural Centre.