KATE De Kleuver, 36, has been running on and off since her early 20’s.
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She started before the days of running watches, apps and parkrun.
Although there has been the odd hiatus, running has been a part of Kate’s daily life for the past several years.
Kate is an avid parkrunner.
She first discovered parkrun in 2015 while living in Sydney.
Like parkrunners across the globe, Kate can’t wait to be running again on Saturday mornings.
Meanwhile she and husband Ben are running a virtual “not parkrun” every Saturday.
In usual times parkrun is like an anchor in Kate's week. She looks forward to seeing people she knows and enjoys the coffee with family and the parkrun community afterwards.
Kate has run parkrun in various locations 121 times and regularly puts her hand up to volunteer.
In November 2017, Kate earned the title of “ultra-marathoner” when she completed the 50km ultra trail course at Marysville.
This day was the culmination of hours of training, determination and discipline.
At the time Kate was living in Hastings so she completed a lot of her training along the Peninsula, which included lots of hill runs.
She would train three or four times a week with one long run at the weekend.
The Marysville ultra was a weekend of surprises.
On the trip over Ben (who she met on Valentine’s Day 2017) surprised her by showing her his T-shirt which said, “Go Kate”.
The next surprise was seeing family members at various points along the trail also wearing the T-shirts.
Kate enjoyed her run though with the amazing scenery.
Although the 50km distance was daunting and exhausting in the heat, she kept her focus.
As she got closer to the finish line, Kate's watch told her she had run 50km but to her dismay at that point she still couldn’t see the finish line.
Ben was waiting at the finish line.
However, he had swapped his “Go Kate” T-shirt to one asking the question: “Will you marry me?”.
While Kate was momentarily stunned, she said yes.
They were married five months later in April 2018 and in late 2019 the couple welcomed baby Leo.
Kate has continued to run, although she did have a break while pregnant.
She has been slowly building her distance and is enjoying running again with Ben.
Kate reflected that not so many years ago running more than 5km was just incomprehensible.
However, following a training plan and with consistency she has completed half marathons, marathons and her first and forever memorable ultra.
Running has helped Kate through good times and bad.
It currently provides relief from the isolation of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Kate has found that running helps her mental health at times when she is stressed and anxious.
Running helps counteract this and is a good reminder that she is a person outside of all of life’s responsibilities.
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