Deborah DeWilliams

We had the most inspiring day today and it all happened before 10:00am. About 3 days ago, we were staying in a caravan park called August Moon...very disco 70s with an awesome pool when we noticed 2 pink caravans advertising a woman who was running around the whole of Australia...yes, the entire circumference of Australia...and for the second time to boot. As it was late, Alex forced me to walk on by and not interrupt this woman to meet her and have a chat...I guess that was the polite thing to do, but she must have left before 4:00am the next morning, as she was already gone when we awoke at sunrise (5:13am). We were so upset, but decided to check out her blog and website and realised that she was blogging her movements each day, which made stalking her totally easy...and so the stalking commenced. We realized that she would be heading from Tully to Cardwell yesterday, so we made it a point to drive from Cairns to Cardwell and stop at every single caravan park until we found her. On a side note, Cairns was lovely and we were able to do a hardcore workout up a mountain, go to the movies and see Love and Other Drugs (kinda cheesy, but we got the student discount due to my ultimate powers of persuasion and just overall ability to bullshit, as Alex calls it) and we were able to plot our next stalking move. Oh, and we took the Jucy in for a bit of a fix up look sharp moment, as she had a huge crack in the windshield from a Road Train (which is a big rig with 3 to 4 more rigs attached to the back...a very scary monster of a machine), the refrigerator was on the fritz, the sink needed to be glued down and we needed to switch out our DVD collection, as we had finished all of them. A few hours later, we got a brand new Jucy back and she was looking sharp and ready for the road...and this gave us ample time to plot our stalking of Deborah DeWilliams and her little dog too...Maggie! Luckily, she was heading south down the east coast so this was in the direction we needed to go...we just could not bare having another back tracking moment on this road trip, though we would have backtracked a bit to meet this woman. We headed down to Cardwell...just a few hundred kilometres from Cairns and it is seriously as if G-d wanted us to meet this woman...the first caravan park we stopped at was housing her and the lady at reception gave us the un-powered caravan spot right next to hers...talk about luck! So, we mustered up the courage to speak to the first person to emerge from one of the pink caravans and it was Deborah's mother, who told us that Deborah's grandmother had just died that very moment...we were crushed for her. What a blow and according to the 'run around Australia' rules, she cannot stop which means she cannot even attend the funeral. What a terrible blow for her and selfishly, us too, as we were dying to talk to her and maybe give her a little cuddle...OK, that was more me because Alex is very cool! So, we headed to the mosquito oven, I mean tent, for a refreshingly sweaty sleep not knowing if we would ever meet her...
Next day, hot morning, bowl of bland in hand we started plotting the next level of stalking and how we would find her again. Due to our very sophisticated calculations, she would literally be running on the road at the time we would pass by o our way down to Townsville to see Janet and Lee. See, Alex saw Deborah leave this morning at about 6:45am and we left the caravan park at about 9:00am and according to her blog, she was running 60km (that is more than a marathon, by the way) today so we could catch her up...and catch her up we did. Alex saw a very tanned lady dressed in all pink, dripping with sweat running on the side of the Stuart Highway and we pulled over to the left. I jumped out of the Jucy before it even came to a complete stop! I just don't know what came over me, but I ran up to her and started clapping. Honestly, I got a little choked up for some reason...I know, I am a very strange girl. Alex hung back a bit, but this is her theory with kids and animals and famous people too. If you hang back and don't force them to love you, then they will come to you of their own regard and love you genuinely. I subscribe to a different theory...stalk, follow, obsess, freak out and force them to love you and they might...or they might fake it and talk a bit of shit about you later. Either way, you get a cuddle and photo...maybe! My theory actually worked and running up to Deborah was like a breath of fresh air...bless her, she was running her little heart out, sweating under the blanket of moisture that hangs in the air, in all pink with a coat of sun block on her skin! She actually stopped running and stood with us for about 30 minutes telling us her story, which is utterly inspiring and just puts our lives and everything really into perspective. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her milk ducts in 2006 and after having the lump removed, the doctors found more cancer in that breast so she had it removed. She was already an ultra-marathon runner (that means you run either 50kms or 100kms, depending on which ultra-marathon it is) and had already walked around Australia once when she decided to run around the country to raise money for breast cancer with her dog Maggie...oh, and did I mention that she tripped over Maggie at one point during a run and broke both of her feet and then continued to run for about 857km on broken feet until she reached a doctor. She is the ultimate warrior and so humble and modest as well. This year, she has been nominated for the Australian of the Year award and we really hope she gets it. She is not being sponsored by anyone so she rents out her home while she is running around the country and survives on the money from that, as well as many people giving her free food and places to stay along the way. After running each day, she replies to emails from various cancer survivors and those going through chemotherapy as well. I am not sure when she finds to the time to rest, but she is probably one of the most interesting and motivating people we have ever met. It puts life into a different perspective when you meet someone like Deborah DeWilliams and all that she has been through and overcome...it makes both Alex and I feel so blessed about our lives and our health and our fitness...even my fitness. We want to wish Deborah and Maggie all the luck in the world in their run around Australia and in raising money for breast cancer and thank Deborah for being such a gracious and motivating individual when she may not even realize that she is touching people...even two random girls in a Jucy van travelling the world for a year.