Ambassadors

Charlie was one of the four members of the inaugural Indigenous Marathon Project team in 2010, and became the first Indigenous Australian runner ever to finish the New York Marathon, finishing in a time of 3 hours 32 minutes. Following is success in New York; Charlie continued his training and completed the world-famous Boston Marathon just five months later, running a 10 minute personal best and raising close to $2000 for the Western Desert Dialysis Unit in Alice Springs. After a taking a break from running to pursue his love of AFL football, Charlie put his running shoes back on in 2012 to run a personal best time in the Sydney Running Festival half-marathon. Charlie’s focus on 2013 will again be running, with his sights firmly set on the Gold Coast Marathon in July. Charlie works for the Clontarf Academy, and is currently mentoring young Indigenous men and women at Yirara College in Alice Springs. Charlie lives in Alice Springs with his wife and his young daughter Frankie.

Mark has been a long-time runner and supporter of the Indigenous Marathon Project from its inception in 2009. Mark ran his first marathon in 2010 at the Canberra Running Festival off very little training, finishing the 42km course in 3 hours, 48 minutes. This sparked Mark’s passion for the long-distance event, and in 2011, while undertaking the role of Sports Minister in the Federal Government, he signed up to run the New York Marathon with the IMP squad. Some structured training saw Mark run a personal best of 3 hours, 11 minutes, and shave a whopping 37 minutes of his time the previous year. Living in Sydney, Mark’s passion for running continues, although he has no immediate plans to run another marathon!

Ben St Lawrence is one of Australia’s leading distance runners, specialising in 10,000m events and currently holds the Australian 10,000m record at 27 minutes, 24 seconds. He is also the current Australia Champion for both the 5000m and 10,000m events. St Lawrence represented Australia at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, and 2011 World Championships. In 2012, he represented Australia at his first Olympic Games, placing 20^th in the men’s 10,000m event. Based in Sydney, St Lawrence spends the majority of the year travelling the globe and competing in different running events, but still has time to support the IMP squad at domestic events throughout Australia.

Kurt Fearnley took up wheelchair racing at the age of 14 and became an elite competitor by age  17. Fearnley represented Australia at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, winning a silver medal in the 800m and the 4x100m. He won his first Olympic gold medal at the 2004 Athens games in the marathon and the 5000m. These performances earned Fearnley an Order of Australia medal. He picked up another gold medal in the Marathon at the 2008 Beijing Games and a Bronze in London in 2012. Fearnley’s other achievements include taking out the world-famous New York Marathon four, competing in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and finishing the Kokoda Trail. Fearnley is a regular competitor in the New York Marathon and has been a long-time supporter of the Indigenous Marathon Project, and regularly meets with the team at domestic and international events. He currently lives in Newcastle, where he works as a teacher.

Lara, aka the ‘pocket rocket’, has been running since she could walk (according to her parents!), starting her career at her local Little Athletics club when she was 7 years old. Since then she has steadily built up a list of athletic achievements that have enabled her to travel the world as she was catapulted onto the international running stage. Some of her biggest achievements to date include two City to Surf titles (2010, 2012), as well as representing Australia eleven times on national teams, becoming a Junior world Mountain Running Champion (2007) and achieving a 14th place finish at the World Half Marathon Championships (2012) in the process. Lara has been a keen follower and supporter of the Indigenous Marathon Project since early 2011, during which time she has meet, supported and run with many of the project team members. She is very honored to be named an Indigenous Marathon Project ambassador, and looks forward to further supporting and fundraising for this worthy cause

While Dan is probably best known for his career as an Australian actor and TV presenter, he is also an accomplished triathlete, ironman and marathon runner. Growing up in the Sydney beachside suburb of Cronulla, MacPherson began competing in the sport of triathlon at age 11. After finding success at the shorter distance event, MacPherson went onto tackle the challenging Ironman events, and has competed in five Ironman events including the world famous Hawaiian Ironman in 2009, finishing the gruelling course in a time of 10.5 hours! MacPherson has been a long-time supporter of the Indigenous Marathon Project, and met up with the team at the Gold Coast Running Festival in July, where he ran the marathon.