...when my little brother walked my Marathon with me!

My proudest moment is when my little brother walked my Marathon with me.

In 2016, I was 10 years old and my little brother Damien was seven. I was going to walk my third Marathon and Damien was going to attempt his first. During my past marathons, Damien would sit in the support vehicle and only walk for little sections. On the Marathon day we were all excited and Damien started out strong, I was extremely proud. Finishing a Marathon doesn’t just take physical strength though, the hardest battle is with your mind and body telling you it can’t go any further.

Around two hours into the walk Damien realized that walking a long distance was not for him. He was finding it really tough to keep going and while he wanted to stop, he also didn’t want to give up. Damien couldn’t keep up with my pace so I had to decide if I was going to slow down and give up on beating the previous years time so he had a chance at finishing. I decided it was more important for Damien to try and finish than it was for me to beat my time. Damien didn’t want me to walk next to him, he wanted his own space as he battled on so I walked a few meters ahead of him.

It took 12 and a half hours for us to cross the finish line together and knowing how much he struggled over the 42.195km crossing that finish line together was the proudest moment of my life and it’s the proudest moment of his life too. Damien wanted to keep helping but knew he didn’t want to walk a Marathon again so every year since he’s ridden his push bike out the front setting the pace for me and he loves it.

My motto is “it’s easy to make a difference, what can you do?” and Damien says “I think that if things are hard and people are going to give up they should try and think of another way they could do it. It’s ok to be different or see things in a different view. We all have the ability to do something.” -Scott

You can follow Scott’s journey at:

Instagram: @scottsgreatwalk4telethon