One marathon is hard enough for some but try doing seven marathons in seven days.
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That was the task in front of dozens of athletes who descended on Queensland this week for the Bravehearts 777 Marathon with Mount Isa one of the venues.
Bravehearts' 777 Marathon challenge, which seeks to raise awareness and funds for Bravehearts, a charity for the prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The Isa marathon took place on Wednesday at Lake Moondarra along the bike track with locals invited to join national runners in distances of 7km or 14km or 21km or 42km.
The Covid lockdowns had forced the first two marathons of the seven to be held in Toowoomba (after the second one in Brisbane had to be cancelled due to the lockdown) with Mount Isa the third on the list
One of the national runners Jess Peil from Canberra said the warmer conditions in the Isa took a little getting used to after the cool and wet days on the Darling Downs.
The North West Star caught up with her as she took a break at the halfway mark of her marathon which she hoped to finish in four hours 30 minutes.
"I feel pretty good but it will be interesting the next three laps as the day gets hotter," Jess said.
"Mount Isa is great, we only got in late last night but this is a really beautiful place."
Jess said she was doing 120km a week training with help from a coach.
She said Bravehearts was a cause worth supporting.
"It is an important subject for people to think about and deal with," she said.
"To have one in five kids potentially assaulted by the age of 18 is not right."
Fellow runner and mother-of-three boys Jen Bell from Melbourne was doing the half marathon seven times in seven days and she too had a running coach, who helped her finish the Mount Isa course in under two hours.
"There's not a lot of recovery time, you're literally running then jumping on a plane," Jen said.
"The heat plays a bit of a factor here, but you know what the surroundings are incredible."
It was a pleasant contrast from the day before.
"We were in Toowoomba yesterday and we were in six degrees and rain," she said.
"This is my first dig at it but I'm loving it."
From Mount Isa the runners hop on another plane to Cairns for the fourth marathon.
Lockdowns mean the Townsville event has had to be cancelled.
They were supposed to finished at the Gold Coast marathon but that cancellation has left organisers scrambling to change another venue.
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