36 year old Kate De Kleuver has been running on and off since her early 20’s. She started before the days of running watches, apps and parkrun. Although there’s been periods of hiatus, running has been very much a part of Kate’s daily life for the last few years.
Kate is an avid parkrunner. She first discovered parkrun in 2015 when she lived in Sydney. Kate like parkrunners across the globe can’t wait to be running again on Saturday mornings. Meanwhile she and husband Ben are running a virtual “not parkrun” every Saturday. In usual times parkrun is like an anchor in her week, she looks forward to seeing people she knows and enjoys the coffee with family and the parkrun community afterwards. Kate has ran parkrun in various locations 121 times and regularly puts her hand up to volunteer.
In November 2017 Kate earned the title of ultra marathoner when she completed the 50km ultra trail course at Marysville Victoria. This day was the culmination of many hours of training, determination and discipline. At the time Kate was living in Hastings so she did a lot of her training along the Peninsula, with a focus on hill training. She would train 3 or 4 times a week with one long run on the weekend.
The Marysville ultra was a weekend of surprises. On the trip over Ben (who she met on Valentine’s Day 2017) surprised her showing her his T-shirt sloganed “Go Kate”. The next surprise was spotting some of her family at various points along the trail also wearing the t-shirts.
Kate enjoyed her run though amazing scenery and although the 50km distance was daunting and exhausting in the heat, she kept her focus. As she got closer to the end her watch told her she had run 50km but to her dismay at that point she still couldn’t see the finish line.
As she expected Ben was waiting at the finish line. However he had swapped his “Go Kate” T-shirt to one asking the question “Will you marry me”. While Kate was momentarily stunned she said yes! They were married five months later in April 2018 and in late 2019 welcomed baby Leo.
Kate has continued to run, although she had a break while pregnant. She is now slowly building her distance and is enjoying running again with Ben.
Kate reflected that not so many years ago running more than 5kms was just incomprehensible. However, following a training plan and with consistency she has completed half marathons, marathons and her first and forever memorable ultra.
Running has helped Kate through good times and bad. It currently provides relief from the isolation of working from home during the pandemic. Kate has always found that running helps her mental health as at times she can become quite stressed and anxious. Running helps counteract this, and is a good reminder that she is a person outside of all of life’s responsibilities.
Congratulations Kate on your running achievements. It won’t be long until Leo is also in his running gear and joining you at parkrun!
