Ten Years To Process It

By October 2025, I had spent almost five months retracing HAA day by day for its tenth anniversary.

It was wonderful. It was emotional. It also helped me understand that it had taken ten years to process the damned thing.

I had genuinely felt sad when it ended. Reaching familiar territory on the Gold Coast added to a huge sense of displacement. For four months I had lived around one task. Every day had a purpose, a direction and a finish point. Then it was done.

Unlike a marathon, the answer was not to book the next one, however tempting that sometimes felt.

I had taken voluntary redundancy to make HAA possible and believed I was heading towards a different life. There were plenty of coffee chats. Public speaking seemed possible. So did writing a book, or building some kind of motivation or coaching business around everything I had learned.

I did a few talks and enjoyed them, but none of those ideas quite lined up for the long term.

Eventually the redundancy money ran low enough that I had to return to work. Delays before the contract began made the transition particularly difficult, and a small number of very good friends helped me through it.

The job itself involved working on an upgrade to reporting databases and solutions I had designed and built over the previous decade. I was back in the same building, working on the same systems and dealing with the team I had previously been part of.

At first, that felt like failure.

I had spent eighteen months building towards HAA, crossed Australia on foot, raised money, met extraordinary people and proved that this formerly very fat bloke could do something enormous. Then I ended up back where I had started professionally.

It hit hard. Some days I barely functioned beyond autopilot. After four months outside with little more than sore limbs, aching feet and fatigue, I was suddenly getting sick from all the usual office germs and air conditioning.

Over time, my view changed.

I regained permanent employment in the same team and went on to manage it for eight years. The marathon, the walk to Brisbane and everything involved in processing those experiences had changed me. They gave me more perspective, a more positive way of approaching problems and a much better understanding of what I could endure.

HAA did continue in different forms. It became an incorporated association. There were running teams, challenges and more fundraising. In 2020 I estimated that HAA and the London Marathon team had brought in about $27,000 in direct donations, without attempting to put a number on the awareness raised or the effect the story had on other people.

But HAA did not become the annual organisation I had imagined in May 2016. Returning to work and ordinary life took over. The public speaking stopped. The book remains a fantasy. It took me until 2026 to finally build this website properly.

For a long time I saw those things as evidence that I had not made enough of the opportunity.

I do not see it that way now.

HAA became something truly special. It was more of a one-off than the permanent organisation I once imagined, but it created a million wonderful memories. It brought people into my life who are still there. Some of its energy now goes into Runners Gateway and Walk Run Achieve. Perhaps some of the other flames are still burning too.

Most importantly, replaying the whole adventure ten years later finally gave me closure on that chapter, in a very positive way.

I have immense gratitude for every experience, and for every person who played a part in making it all become reality.

Thankyou.