Mark Scarborough

2019 Ambassador

Mark Scarborough is the founder of My Gungahlin, a local news and information website for the Gungahlin region.

Mark started his running journey at Gungahlin parkrun regularly attending from 2015 as a way to improve his fitness so he can be the best he can, not only for himself but for his young family. 

Starting from a low fitness level Mark started attending parkrun walking the 5km course and through interval training introduced a walk/run regime and over time managed to run the whole 5km course without stopping. “Seeing my parkrun times come down and feel my fitness improving was a great motivation to keep going to parkrun each week.” Mark is now approaching 150 parkrun events across multiple locations in Australia.

In 2016 Mark challenged himself to double the distance he usually ran and took on the 10km event at the Australian Running Festival. “Achieving this was a huge buzz and I think where I got hooked on to running and wanting to take on big events.” 

“One big event I always dreamt about taking on was City2Surf. Every year I would see City2Surf on the news and think I would do it the next year but never did.” In 2016 Mark took on his first City2Surf and from that point was hooked. In 2019 Mark completed his fourth City2Surf and his third raising money for Dainere’s Brain Tumour Research Fund of which Mark is the Ambassador. 

Since 2017 Mark has taken on seven half marathons in Canberra, Sydney, Gold Coast and Melbourne and plans to run his first full marathon in Melbourne this year. “On the drive to Sydney for my first City2Surf in 2016 I was talking to my running buddy about us taking on a half marathon at the Australian Running Festival the following year, I remember struggling half way through City2Surf thinking I am struggling with 14m how am I going to do 21km! I must admit I do wonder how I’ll do 42km later this year but so far I have achieved everything I set out to do.” 

Usually running road events, in 2018 Mark attended Stromlo Running Festival completing the 10km event as his first trail run. “This was a tough event physically and mentally. In the lead up I had been suffering from some knee pain and on the up hills couldn’t apply any pressure to my left knee. The flats and downhills were ok but overall it was a struggle. It was awesome to know that I was running the hills that Rob de Castella used as part of his training back in the day.”

This year Mark has challenged himself to take on the Lightning Strike 30km course “I am looking forward to a different challenge on the trails and the views that this course offers and as long as I come in before the course cut off time I’ll be happy!”

Follow: @mygungahlin