Richard Jeffery is a successful Traralgon businessman who has been heavily involved in the endurance sport of marathon running. Richard is a longtime member of the Traralgon Harriers Club, acted as a boundary umpire with the Traralgon Football Club during the 1950s, and currently enjoys long distance cycling and walking - whatever the weather!

In 490 B.C. there was a Battle of Marathon in ancient Greece. When the battle was won, a soldier or messenger named Pheidippides was enlisted to run somewhere from 25 to 100 miles to Athens to tell them that the battle was over and upon arrival, dropped dead. Nothing more happened for about 2,000 years until 1896 when, at the Athens Olympics, the legend of Pheidippides was honoured with a 24.8 mile race from Marathon Bridge to the Athens Stadium, which is used in modern times.

At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the distance of the marathon changed to what we know it as today - 26 miles and 385 yards or 42.195 km; decided upon because it’s 26 miles from Windsor Castle to White City and a further 385 yards to the Royal Box, in front of which the run was made to finish. Until the 1980s the event was for men only. In the late 1960s a Traralgon Harrier, Sue Walker, went to Werribee to run the Victorian Marathon. Upon lining up she was advised by the officials that she couldn’t participate, to which she responded that it was a public road and they couldn’t stop her; so she ran it. Times for men and women are getting closer now - the world record for men’s marathon is about two hours and four minutes, and the women’s time is about two hours and 20 minutes.

Richard’s experience as a runner started as a football boundary umpire (in the days when Traralgon’s greatest fullback, Ron Hore, was playing) which he stopped doing in 1963. He kept running in the mornings for the next five years before taking on competition. The late Barry Thompson suggested Richard compete and kept persisting in a subtle sort of way until Richard eventually agreed to participate in a three mile race in which he enjoyed moderate success. That was around 1968 and it kept him racing in the races held by the Traralgon Harriers, who were formed in 1966.

In August of 1968 the Traralgon Harriers decided to hold a marathon. It was Barry Thompson’s idea and was modelled upon Boston Marathon and was a pretty tortuous course. It started outside the St Paul’s campus (now Lavalla) and went to the Mill Road, up the hill and through the Mill, along the Old Melbourne Road, back to Alexander’s Road to Crinigan Road, up the Crinigan Road Hill to the Maryvale Road, along Holmes Road, into Latrobe Road, back to the Old Melbourne Road, up and down ‘chook hill’ back to Maryvale Road, out to Thom’s Bridge Road to Thom’s Bridge, then around through Tyers.

Richard was doing well for about the first 15 miles, which was as far as he’d trained in one go at that stage, but he then fell in a bit of a hole or ‘hit the wall’ as they say. He jogged and walked and came to the cemetery hill after crossing the Latrobe River, which he thought might be a good place to die! Max Harding was taking photos and got out of his car to jog with Richard, although it’s illegal in marathons to be paced. Just at that time, before they got back to Grey Street (to finish the run where it had started), the late Geoff Watt was catching up to Richard and said to Max "you stop pacing him, I’ll have him ruled out if you don’t", and so Max promptly did stop. Geoff was a lovely person but a very serious runner and stuck strictly to the rules.

After finishing that marathon Richard thought "never again!"; little did he know he’d run another 68 or 69 over the next 21 years - "It gets you in and it becomes addictive," he said "and there are a lot worse addictions than marathon running." He would run 20 km before work every morning and ran as many short races as he could. He would go out to Koornalla during marathon season and run a 36 km course, which was a lovely circuit - "We’re lucky here," he said, "it’s God’s own country." The Traralgon Marathon is now the longest running country marathon in Victoria. The first event had 34 entries and this number peaked in 1982 with about 150 entries - the year that De Costella came from behind to win the Commonwealth Games marathon at Brisbane.

The Traralgon Marathon has had a few different courses over the years. The first one was considered too difficult and elite runners like to run good times. The next year, which was a particularly wet and cold day, they adopted a course straight out to Toongabbie and back and that was used for about the next 10 years. A new course, which Richard thinks was the best they ever had, was tried that went from the High School to Flynn and back; but a violent hail storm in the second year seemed to put people off. It was changed again, though still starting and finishing at the High School, and did a 5 km loop of Traralgon before going along the Traralgon Creek Road to Traralgon South and back - another nice course without being too taxing. After a couple of years it was changed again and started at the Tyers football oval and headed towards Yallourn North before turning to head across to Glengarry, up towards Glengarry North and back to Tyers. However being the ‘Traralgon Marathon’ it was decided that it should start and end at Traralgon and so it changed to the present course, which has been used for the last 10-15 years at least. It’s a good flat course and is thought to be the most popular.

The fastest time recorded at a Traralgon Marathon is two hours and 13 minutes, run by Derek Clayton who, when he won it in 1970, was the current World Champion. At that time it was the fastest marathon ever run in Australia. In the last 10 years, quarter and half marathons have been added to the programme. Everyone starts together and it’s boosted the number of entries. Richard gave running away about six years ago after falling off his bike and breaking his hip - he is now ‘confined’ to cycling, which he enjoys and does most days.