A former powerlifter and a gym owner are preparing to run 100km to raise money for a nine-year-old suffering chronic illness.
Damien O’Sullivan and Thomas Melling will be completing the ultra-marathon on Saturday, September 21, to raise money for Mason Wade via GoFundMe.
Mr O’Sullivan was inspired to help Mason after seeing Facebook posts from his father, Phillip Wade.
“I used to be a competitive powerlifter in my younger years and so was Mason’s father Phil, so we sort of ran in the same circles,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
“I used to see on Facebook that Mason ended up suffering all of these seizures from a chronic illness, an autoimmune disease, and ended up having 150 seizures and had to be hospitalised.
“He’s in and out of hospital, and he ended up getting some brain damage from the seizures as well.
“Being a father myself and seeing that little kid going through it, it tugs on my heart strings.”
The race will start in Beerwah and end in Noosa Heads.
“We’re not doing it over a week, we are not doing it over a month, it’s one day,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
“I myself have already put in 1100km of training in six months just to do this 100km.”
The race has a cap of 24 hours but Mr O’Sullivan is hoping they are able to complete the distance before that.
“We’re hoping to finish in around 12 hours,” he said.
Mr O’Sullivan was hoping the 100km effort would draw the interest of the public and help the fundraising cause.
“I’ve done a fair few marathons and I am always running,” he said.
“I just came up with the idea in my head of a long-distance run.
“It sounds kind of shocking to the general public so (I thought) maybe there is some way I can tie that into doing a fundraiser for the family in some way – give them a bit of relief.”
Mr O’Sullivan, 40, is a mining superintendent for BHP, while Mr Melling, 36, owns CrossFit True Phorm in Landsborough.
So far they have raised more than $12,000 of a $50,000 goal for Mason.
“There’s a partner company with us here at BHP, Downunder Group Solutions, and they donated $1000 on their own,” Mr O’Sullivan said.
To donate to the GoFundMe click here.
Kelsey Reid is a journalism intern with Sunshine Coast News.
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