Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Darwin’s Allirra Jennings has become the first Aboriginal woman to complete the world’s six major marathons having just returned from a run in Boston

Transcript

Darwin’s Allirra Jennings has become the first Aboriginal woman to complete the world’s six major marathons having just returned from a run in Boston · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now you might recall a couple of weeks ago we
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: caught up with our next guest. She was about to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: embark on a marathon in Boston. Learah Jennings joins me
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  Speaker 1: in the studio right now, Lea, good morning and congratulations,
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  Speaker 1: thank you, well done, completed that marathon and now you've
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  Speaker 1: smashed out the six stars. You are indeed the first
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  Speaker 1: Aboriginal woman to complete all six major marathons.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh you must feel absolutely stoked.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's been a long journey and I'm glad
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  Speaker 2: to be able to retire after this.
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  Speaker 1: How the legs, I think is the question on everybody's lips.
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  Speaker 1: Are they hurting? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: It was a really tough course and a lot of
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  Speaker 2: hills in there, so that was really taxing on the legs.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, Darlin's quite flat, so not a lot of
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  Speaker 2: space to train for hills here and the it took
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  Speaker 2: thirty six hours to travel back from Boston, from thirty
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  Speaker 2: six hours from wheels up to wheels down. So my
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  Speaker 2: skinny little Aboriginal culfs and ankles were like sausages.
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  Speaker 1: Yesterday. Did you have compression socks? And we like, now,
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  Speaker 1: let's I did?
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  Speaker 2: I did? On one side on my sore foot. But
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  Speaker 2: even the even the bands on the back on the
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  Speaker 2: bottom of my trackie pants were making crease marks in
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  Speaker 2: my sausages. Oh, your poor thing.
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  Speaker 1: You must have been saw and tired.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, saw and tired.
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  Speaker 1: It was.
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  Speaker 2: It was a tough day. It was a tough day
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  Speaker 2: in the office on the marathon, and then the of course,
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  Speaker 2: the long travels back always out on top of that.
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  Speaker 1: Was it emotional? How did you feel when you cross
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  Speaker 1: that finish line?
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  Speaker 2: I actually thought that this would be the first marathon
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  Speaker 2: that I might cry in, But it appears that I
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  Speaker 2: have an ice cold heart and I still haven't cried.
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  Speaker 2: It must be the German in me.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows. You probably just relieved once you got across
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  Speaker 1: that finish line, because you're telling me all that it
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  Speaker 1: was it called Heartbreak Hill, that it's an absolute well,
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  Speaker 1: it's a heartbreak.
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  Speaker 2: Gun, Yes it is. They I feel like the course
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  Speaker 2: coordinators in Boston just thought about a course where they
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  Speaker 2: could put as many hills as possible into it. And
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  Speaker 2: at the thirty three kilometer mark there's the Heartbreak Hill,
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  Speaker 2: and that wasn't even the last hill. There's so many
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  Speaker 2: spectators were there and they were saying this is the
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  Speaker 2: last hill, and then the next person at the bottom
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  Speaker 2: of the hill would say that, and I was like,
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  Speaker 2: you're lying.
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  Speaker 1: You're all lying. For you a hard mental game that
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  Speaker 1: you're playing and telling yourself all right, you've only got
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  Speaker 1: a bit further to go. Yeah, yeap.
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  Speaker 2: It is one of the mental games I play. And
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  Speaker 2: also in the States, their mileage is it's one point
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  Speaker 2: six miles to a kilometer. So I played mind tricks
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  Speaker 2: on my head and just say, if it's five miles
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  Speaker 2: to go, I pretend it's five kilometers.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So anything to get yourself through. Hey, once you
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  Speaker 1: get to, you know, to more than forty kilometers of running,
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  Speaker 1: I think whatever you can tell your brain to keep
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  Speaker 1: going off the way to go.
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  Speaker 2: To be honest, Katie, the first ten kilometers just kind
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  Speaker 2: of flew by. It was a lot of a lot
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  Speaker 2: of happiness there. Getting up to twenty twenty one you
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  Speaker 2: start to kind of feel it slow down a bit.
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  Speaker 2: I had a knee blowout at twenty eight kilometers. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: just my knee just wasn't good on the heels. My
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  Speaker 2: hip went out in sympathy because I've got a dodgy
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  Speaker 2: hip flexer from a car accident and yeah, so anyway,
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  Speaker 2: from thirty to forty two, the brain just looks like
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  Speaker 2: scrambled eggs in there. There's not a lot of brain activity,
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  Speaker 2: to be honest.
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  Speaker 1: No, there wouldn't be. It'd be really hard. It'd be
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  Speaker 1: hard going. Now, how's your family? What did they say?
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  Speaker 1: You know, I want you want your completed the marathon?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's really proud. Everyone wants to catch up with me. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: it's it's yeah, just trying to make the time. I've
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  Speaker 2: just got back yesterday afternoon, so trying to make the
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  Speaker 2: time to catch up and see everybody. But everyone's really proud.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet they are. And how are you feeling?
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  Speaker 1: How'd you go, like timing wise and all that kind
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  Speaker 1: of stuff to go?
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  Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, I'm quite I I got five hours
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  Speaker 2: eleven minutes, so that's smack right bang in the in
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  Speaker 2: where I am usually.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, good on you, and tell me, I mean, we
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  Speaker 1: know that we've spoken about the fact that you are well,
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  Speaker 1: that you were set to become the first Aboriginal woman
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  Speaker 1: to complete all six major marathons. You've now done that.
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  Speaker 1: How are you feeling.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's sunk in yet, Katie. I think
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  Speaker 2: I Yeah, I'm not sure if it's said settled in
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  Speaker 2: quite yet. Yeah, one day it will probably hit me,
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  Speaker 2: probably on like Tiger Ben and Drive or something. I'll
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  Speaker 2: just be sitting in the car crying. You see me,
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  Speaker 2: just keep going. Yeah, So I'm just waiting for it
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  Speaker 2: all to sink in.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, good on you. I think it's an incredible feast
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  Speaker 1: and such a wonderful thing to have done. I love running,
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  Speaker 1: so I think the fact that you've run that level,
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  Speaker 1: at that level, you know, and that number of marathons,
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  Speaker 1: and to be the first Aboriginal woman to do that
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  Speaker 1: is a really wonderful thing to do. You should be
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  Speaker 1: so proud of yourself.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Katie.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful to catch up with you. Thank you so
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  Speaker 1: much for coming in and also bringing those metals in
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  Speaker 1: as well so we could have a look at them.
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  Speaker 1: I love that the Boston Marathon it's a unicorn. Yes me, yes, yes.
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  Speaker 2: Anyone who knows me knows that my favorite color is glitter.
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  Speaker 2: So I was just grabbing all of the merchandise. Frank
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  Speaker 2: was there aimlessly trying to get me to not max
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  Speaker 2: the card out. That did not work. So yeah, unicorns
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  Speaker 2: are great.
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  Speaker 1: Good stuff. Well, Alera, thanks so much for coming in,
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  Speaker 1: thanks so much for bringing those metal seen and a
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  Speaker 1: massive congratulations to you.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.