Matt recently finished the Great Ocean Road Ultramarathon – a 60km suffer-fest of pavement pounding, hill climbing, blisters and…well, chaffing!
Even more remarkable, however, were Matt’s pre-race fundraising efforts for BPM. In order to motivate himself (and hopefully others), Matt set himself a target of raising $2000 to support BPM’s future work- reaching the total just hours before he set off.
“The run itself went really well,” said Matt. “I hadn’t previously run the distance, so my plan was to do the first 35km at a quicker pace to buy myself a little time before the first hill climb. There was a 6.5hr cut off time because they had to re-open the road, so the way I planned it I would get across the line in 6hrs. It all went to plan and I completed the 60km in 6:00:44.”
“The other thing I was happy with was I didn’t use any caffeine gels or pain killers and I did 98% of my training solo all off the back of a permanent night shift.” (…told you the guy is a legend!!)
“Raising money for Backpacker Medics… it just made aaaall the training worth it. The icing on the cake as we say!”
“I guess what I did takes a lot of dedication and was, at times, completely exhausting. But talking to Strunky [BPM Logistics Manager] and hearing first hand the scenarios that the BPM teams face on deployment was all the inspiration I needed when I hit a rough patch in training or during the race”.
Congratulations Matt on a mammoth and outstanding effort! Your support and dedication means the world to us!