Quarantine Marathon - Jackson Fitzpatrick (Aurora, Alice Springs)
This report first appeared on the ABC website.
Run Date: May 27, 2020
Jackson Fitzpatrick completes 42.2 kilometres whilst in mandatory quarantine in his Alice Springs hotel room.
Key points:
- Jackson Fitzpatrick was in mandatory hotel quarantine in Alice Springs in May 2020
- The keen runner decides he will do an indoor marathon
- He does 4,500 laps of his room in three and a half hours
Click on the link below to watch Jacko's video in Facebook. It's very entertaining.
Running a full marathon in the confines of a small hotel room may seem like an impossible task, but for Jackson Fitzpatrick it was a welcome distraction from his mandatory 14-day quarantine in Alice Springs.
After approximately 4,500 laps of the room, the enthusiastic runner completed the marathon in three hours and 34 minutes.
Mr Fitzpatrick had been living in the remote community of Yuendumu, north-west of Alice, but earlier this year he his wife left on their honeymoon.
Upon returning to the Northern Territory, Mr Fitzpatrick had to abide by NT Government policy and do two weeks quarantine in a hotel room.
He paid $2,500 for the accommodation.
He passed the time talking to family, playing games and celebrating his birthday, but wanted to do something more.
After three and a half hours Jackson Fitzpatrick totals approximately 4,500 laps of his hotel room for the marathon.
"I really enjoy running for my own mental health, and I thought about doing it for a bit of a laugh [and] I thought I might build up to it," Mr Fitzpatrick said.
"But I just woke up one morning, I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep and the body was feeling good so I [thought] 'let's give it a crack' and if it's too hard I'll stop but [I] just kept going.
"There's been a great reaction to it, it's been fun."
Though the experience was hard on his ankles and feet, Mr Fitzpatrick said he would consider doing it again if he had to spend a longer time in quarantine.
"Physically I found it a lot easier than a lot of other long-distance runs, but I guess you've got just a flat surface, no steps or rocks or roots," he said.
Mr Fitzpatrick completed the first 34 kilometres inside, doing laps of his eight-metre-long hotel room.
He then opened up the balcony, which allowed slightly longer laps for the remaining distance.
With one night of quarantine left, Mr Fitzpatrick said he was very excited about leaving isolation tomorrow.
