Mark Avery

Endurance Athlete, Mental Fitness Speaker, Gotcha4Life Champion, Outrun Cancer Champion, Hoka Ambassador, Proud Father, Average Husband.

UK born Mark Avery only started training for his first marathon in 2016 in an attempt to bring him out of his depression following the death of a close family friend and neighbour. This first step has turned into a journey that has since seen him run close to 20,000km, running from Tweed Heads to Sydney, attempting to break a Guinness World Record, and raise over $90k for charity whilst advocating and raising awareness for mental health issues and cancer prevention.

In late 2015, Mark’s close family friend and neighbour Frank was diagnosed with Cancer. Frank unfortunately passed away a few short months later. Mark was really struggling but like most blokes kept it in and started drinking heavily. To try and combat his depression and gain some control back over his life he signed up for his first marathon in Sydney in 2016.

Running helped bring Mark out of the darkness, and it was in training for his first marathon that the idea was first born of running from Brisbane to Sydney. Although he didn’t tell anyone, he gave himself 3 years to prepare for this challenge as he wanted to finish at the Opera House on his 40th birthday on June 18th 2020. Over the course of 3 years mark completed a number of 100km events, including Oxfam Trailwalker (in which they came 3rd in mixed teams in 2019) and the world-famous Ultra Trail Australia 100km in the Blue Mountains.

A few months prior to what should have been the start of this big challenge covid hit and put everything on hold. During these uncertain times building mental fitness was more important than ever, and so he decided to run 21 half marathons in 21 days, running virtually and interviewing someone each day. He interviewed a wide range of people across the ultra-running and mental health scene including charity founder and tv/radio personality Gus Worland, Vodafone CEO Inaki Berroeta, and Australian International Cricketer Steve Smith. He even managed to sneak in a marathon on the second to last day completing it in 3 hours 16 minutes and raised $20k for the mental health charity Gotcha4Life.

When covid restrictions finally eased up in October 2020 with the support of the NRMA and Thrifty, Mark drove up the coast with his wife Vicki and 2 young kids Lily and Alfie ready to take on his next challenge. Due to border restrictions, he couldn’t start in Brisbane and so kicked off his 1000km adventure just before the Queensland border in Tweed Heads. Mark ran 45km on average each day, meandering down the coast following the old Pacific Highway with his family following in the car acting as his support crew. They made it down to Sydney 20 days later to finish at the Cruise Bar in Circular Quay on a beautiful sunny day with the Opera House in the background. He was also joined by over 250 in a virtual team challenge that he created and collectively raised a further $30k for Gotcha4Life.

In early 2021 Mark then decided to take on his biggest challenge to date in partnership with Outrun Cancer…attempt the Guinness World Record for the furthest distance run on a treadmill in 24 hours. He clocked up over 5000km on a treadmill in 2021 leading up to this attempt with training runs all hours of the day and night. In training he ran too many marathons to mention and completed 5 x 6-hour runs, 2 x 8-hour runs, and 1 x 12-hour run…and broke 4 treadmills in the process. This challenge was again delayed due to covid, however in March 2022 he was finally able to kick things off at Concord Bowls Club in front of his family, friends, and community. Unfortunately, Mark had a bug that put him in bed 2 days before the attempt but still managed to clock up 207.9km on a Technogym Treadmill in those 24 hours raising over $30k, with a big support from the TPG Foundation.

Mark is a regular podcast guest and has appeared on Paper Fox Radio, Aussie Runner, The Betar Project, To Be Human, Smurf and Smurfette Endurance, and is due to appear on Ultra Habits and Running Deep in the next month. He has shared his story to raise awareness for mental health, inspire, and build mental fitness with companies such as TPG, the NRMA, AMP, Hello Sunday Morning, and Oz Harvest. Mark is a community champion for Gotcha4Life and is working with the Canada Bay Club to set up and facilitate mental health workshops in the Inner West with the money raised.

Mark’s website contains links to all his interviews, podcasts, and his short documentary showcasing his latest world record attempt. He lives in Sydney with his wife Vicki, his 2 children Lily and Alfie, and dog Marlow.