Tighe
My story begins at the start of grade 12 and my brother had just begun cross country for a couple of months and had already built up a pretty good rep. Now I thought to myself ‘bugger this I can’t let him take all the glory,’ so I started running cross country too. Due to the natural order of life and us being twins everything was competitive, yet no matter how hard I try he’d thrash me day in day out. To those who don’t know me, my brother and I aren’t the most talkative sibling. However as time passed and the sessions got harder and harder we bonded more and more on a very subliminal level. Until one day after a race in Tasmania he first exuded significant signs of the detrimental effects of leukaemia and from there things didn’t get better. By the time athletics season came around I was unexpectedly hit with the news that the man that I looked up to, my inspiration and my running partner had gone. Now that was a bit of a shock to the system. Anyway at the time I only knew one way to help him and that was to run for him and do the things that he couldn’t because he always had a goal and always knew what he wanted, which was the complete opposite to me until now. So I began to run his favourite event, the 800m. Every training session I’d run till I couldn’t stand, for him. Surprisingly enough, it made me happy and evidently I continued to train for my brother and to keep me going. In that time, because of the new found inspiration that he gave me, I achieved milestones I never dreamed of. So for me running is like the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s something that I can rely on to always cheer me up. This is why I’m involved in this run because I’m able to do something I love, for the person I love and the people I greatly respect for their courage in the darkest hours.
