Home Jenny Thomas: The Road to Queenstown Marathon

Jenny Thomas: The Road to Queenstown Marathon

Wednesday, 24th January 2024

If you are a regular PEAK athlete at our New Farm arena, you may have noticed the name Jenny Thomas above one of our treatment rooms. The room nomination process is one that is undertaken each year, to celebrate the achievement of our athletes and their growth and journeys. Each athlete who is successfully nominated to have their name above a treatment room at PEAK must be aligned with our values and vision at PEAK and Jenny is certainly no exception to this rule.

Jenny started her PEAK journey in 2019, initially seeing Podiatrist Lachie for some foot concerns. Since this time, her journey has taken her from strength to strength and has seen her achieve her goals and have experiences not felt possible.

In the early stages of her PEAK journey, Jenny made the rather spontaneous decision to sign up for the 2020 New York marathon. Having previously had little experience with long distance running, this decision in itself demonstrated a high level of courage. Initially having little idea how she would go about training for a marathon, Jenny embarked on her journey to New York with the help of a running plan created in collaboration with podiatrist Lachie. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic had other ideas and the 2020 New York marathon was ultimately cancelled.

Despite this setback, Jenny’s resolve and determination to one day complete a full marathon did not waver. While this may have discouraged some, Jenny stayed disciplined with her training and eventually set her sights on the Queenstown Marathon in November 2023.

Over the course of 2023, Jenny exemplified significant tenacity in her training, completing three outdoor runs per week, as well as a long run on the treadmill on Sunday, which normally lasted between 2 and 5 hours in duration. In the lead up to race day, she completed 604km of running, which approximately equates to the distance from Brisbane to Rockhampton. Jenny also calculated that she spent about 78 hours running on her feet, which is approximately 2 weeks of full-time work! During her training, Jenny also completed the Gold Coast Asics Half Marathon during this time, improving on her previous half marathon time by approximately 15 minutes.

Alongside her running, Jenny diligently completed three prevention classes per week to work on overall body strength to support her increasing running loads and manage and prevent injury risk. Not only this, she also dedicated time to having regular massages with our massage therapist Clare, in order to assist with recovery and keep her on track towards her goal.

Finally, on Saturday the 18th of November, Jenny was one of 2305 runners to line up at the starting line for the Queenstown marathon. Some initial nerves and trepidation only served to spur her on, and Jenny ultimately completed the run in a time of 6:14:47!

We are so proud of Jenny and would like to congratulate her on this massive achievement! Jenny’s journey is a true example of what it is possible to achieve through hard work and dedication and we are very excited to see where this journey takes her next! If you too have some running goals in mind for 2024, our coaches here at PEAK would be more than happy to assist you in this journey!

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