By BRIDGET SCOTT
A CRANBOUNRE North resident said he felt like he was Gary Ablett Junior when he did the MCG Stadium Stomp last Sunday.
Jeremy Riley took part in the debut event of the MCG Stadium Stomp – a fitness challenge which includes two stages involving running the stairs of both level one and level four of the MCG.
While the first stage of the event takes about 20 minutes to complete, the second stage can take anything from 45 minutes to two hours.
But Jeremy ran for a lot longer than this.
The father of one, who competes in obstacle course races most weekends, said the event and the charity which it fundraised for really appealed to him.
All proceeds from the event went to Reclink.
“When I saw it, it looked like a good challenge,” he said.
Signing up for the event, Jeremy was eager to participate but decided he would do something a little different.
After hearing about the event via facebook, Jeremy emailed the event organisers to see if they would allow him to run up and down the stairs for the entire day.
“I emailed stadium stomp and asked what the possibility was to see if I could do unlimited laps,” he said.
With the support of his wife Amanda and nine-month-old son Hudson, Jeremy said the plan was ‘to get six laps in between 8am and 2pm’.
However, Jeremy may have underestimated the challenge which lay before him, when he started his sixth lap right on 2pm.
This wasn’t a problem for the runner, who said by the time he was on his final laps nearly everyone in the stadium knew his name.
“The best thing for me was I was the only one doing unlimited laps and by the time I was on my fifth and sixth lap everyone was cheering for me,” he said.
“I felt like Gary Ablett Junior.”
“Everybody knew my name.”
While Jeremy is still in recovery mode from the challenge, he said he “definitely wants to be involved again”.
