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I’m a Runner: Matt Doran

I’ve been running since I was seven. My dad was a bit of a fitness freak, so he used to take me out for runs as a kid.

In high school, I competed in state events in the 800m and 1500m. Now I run for state of mind and fitness rather than competition.

I participate in a lot of fun runs in Sydney. Last year, I did City2Surf [14K], the Sydney Harbour 10K and the Bridge Run [9K].

I’m going to run my first half marathon in Melbourne in October. It’s sort of a gradual progression towards the marathon, which is on my bucket list.

I do a lot of soft-sand running because I live near Bondi. There’s an annual 10km soft-sand race which I’ve done a couple of times and it’s excruciating. It feels like you’re pushing your body to bizarre extremes. After 5 or 6km on the soft sand, it really starts to test you.

MattDoran-Motivation

I run between 40 and 50km a week – it’s just a matter of fitting it into my irregular hours at Ten. I work across a number of programs, hosting our late news and our weekend news, so it can be hard to achieve any consistency in my training.

I don’t get off the air from our late news program until about 11:30pm, so if I haven’t been diligent enough to get my run in before work, I’ll find myself going for a midnight run.

Running is a form of meditation for me. My background is as a crime reporter, so I was often out on the road seeing some pretty confronting things. Being able to get out there for a run and thrash it all out of my system is a cathartic process.

I feel like I have more control over everything else in my life when I’m fit and I’m running more. I have more clarity and feel so much better about myself. I do a lot of my thinking and philosophising and life planning when I’m running.

 

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