“You know, struggled to get out of bed and just do the simple things to take care of myself.”

But swapping suburban Sydney for the streets of Manhattan is still a daunting prospect to Griffith, who has no prior long distance running experience.

‘Run, sweat, inspire’

Within a year of its inception, four racers had already created history as the first Indigenous runners to compete in New York City.

In 2010, Andy Warton, Joseph Davies, Juan Darwin and Caleb Hart made history as the first Indigenous runners to complete the New York City Marathon. Credit: Indigenous Marathon Foundation

The operation has only scaled up since then.

“Pain makes you strong, pain’s an opportunity to draw on your purpose and your why, to come up with a reason to endure a little bit of discomfort and a little bit of pain.”

A vehicle towards change

“IMP isn’t like a traditional marathon training program where you’ve got 12 or 18 months to get ready for the marathon distance,” said Stevens.

Jack Stevens started his marathon journey in 2023 and completed his first 42km run in New York that year. He said he hasn’t stopped running since then. Credit: Jack Stevens

“We take people with no running experience whatsoever to train up and complete their first marathon in under six months too.”

“Understanding that burdens like chronic disease and also just a range of other health factors that affect our communities and … if we walked towards change, we wouldn’t get there fast enough.

“We can set big goals. We can run marathons. We can do pretty much anything we set our mind to.”