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John Dobson remembers feeling shattered as he staggered across the finish line of his first Melbourne Marathon, 47 years ago.
“I was that dog tired. My body was screaming. I could hardly walk,” he says.
Raring to go: (left to right) Wayne Thompson, John Dobson and David Foskey training for the Melbourne Marathon.Credit: Joe Armao
But Dobson was back at the starting line the following year, drawn to the crowd’s cheers, running with mates and the sense that an “ordinary bloke” could achieve something extraordinary.
There’s a steely resilience, too, about Dobson and the two men who are the only people to have run every Melbourne Marathon since it started in 1978.
In March 2021, Dobson was diagnosed with prostate cancer and told he needed surgery within months.
But that might mean missing that year’s marathon. And that wouldn’t do.
John Dobson in the 1999 Melbourne Marathon.Credit: Melbourne Marathon
Given the cancer was in the early stages, Dobson’s doctor agreed to move the operation to four days after the run. “I won him over – he’d run a couple of marathons himself,” Dobson says.
Now 74, the Eltham marathon man is preparing to go around again in the 2025 Melbourne Marathon, on October 12.
“The first day of the year is the marathon,” is how he describes its importance in his life. “And all year, you’re waiting for that day.”
Dobson, a retired bricklayer, suffers osteoarthritis in the hips and back spasms.
David Foskey, pictured in the Melbourne CBD towards the end of the 1981 Melbourne Marathon.
But David Foskey, the eldest of the running trio, has faith in the mate he trains with – 30 minutes of jogging, two hours of gas-bagging in a cafe in Malvern East – every Tuesday.
“John will do it. We will all do it,” Foskey says. “It’s very important to us.”
Foskey, 79, ran the 1978 Melbourne Marathon with a then-undiagnosed stress fracture in his leg, but today is in good nick.
“I think my family would be secretly relieved if I chose not to run,” Foskey says. But he adds: “It’s something we do which is pretty unique, and it’s the only way I’m going to achieve that, particularly at this age.”
The youngest and fastest of the group, Wayne Thompson, 72, of Seaford, wants to be like American legend Johnny Kelley, who finished 58 Boston Marathons, and winning it twice.
“I’m competitive, not that crazy competitive, but if I’m doing something, I’m focused on that thing.”
In 1986, Thompson fell on to concrete a month before the Melbourne Marathon and suffered a hairline fracture in his kneecap. Of course, he ran in the marathon.
“It just hurt, the whole way,” he said, as did his time, slipping from two hours 40 minutes the previous year, to three hours and 30 minutes.
Wayne Thompson crosses the finish line outside Melbourne Town Hall in 1980.
Thompson says the marathon gives his life a reassuring focus.
Also inspiring the trio are the plaudits from other runners.
John Dawson-Wink, 54, who has done 14 Melbourne Marathons, says: “They’re amazing. I think about me in 20 years time and go ‘how have they been able to achieve it?’ I guess we all aspire to be like them.”
The 2025 Melbourne Marathon starts at 6.30am on October 12 in Batman Avenue and finishes at the MCG. Spectators are welcome.
Entries for the five-kilometre Chobani Fit Walk are still open, to register go to melbournemarathon.com.au
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