Harper Quinlan

 

Yes, I finished my law degree a year ago. The last year has flown by. The first six months of 2024 were 50% wedding, 50% honeymoon planning (all while having a full-time job!). I was working as an Associate at the Court of Appeal – I was luckily given a six-month contract, which fitted in perfectly with our wedding and honeymoon timeline. Josh was still doing his Masters (in Predictive Analytics) at the same time.  He was really busy so I took control of all the planning, which I probably would have done anyway!

I was able to finish at 5pm on the dot every day, so I still had the nights available to work on the wedding and our trip away. I also got my weekends back for the first time in five years, so I was able to use that extra time to work on the planning.

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Josh and I talked about this, and we keep going back to Switzerland. The scenery is just out of this world. It doesn't even look real – it looks like a painting. We went at the perfect time of year as well - sunny, but still snow on the mountains. Everything was amazing. Austria was another big standout for us. Salzburg was beautiful. We would love to go back to Italy too, take our time there relaxing on the Cinque Terre.

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A few things really. I had a couple friends who had signed up to run the New York marathon. Josh and I really wanted to do that, so we joined the NY Marathon lottery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get in – it’s such a popular event.  I had a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) - which is just crazy because who has FOMO for a marathon? But we were going to be in New York already and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to watch my friends finish the race having not done one myself. So, I decided I was going to have to do a marathon before I got to NY and that I was going to have to do it on the honeymoon!  

 

Probably my biggest motivation was a serious knee injury around three years ago. I tore my meniscus which took me out of my other great love, netball, and stopped me from running completely for around two and a half years. I had previous knee surgery and knew I didn’t want to go down that path again, so I decided I’d give up netball and running for a while and just focus on rehab and strength training to get my knee back into working order. I think it was 2022, Josh and I thought we might try the City to Surf 4km event. We went for a 2km run one afternoon and it was SO hard!! Two kilometres!  It took us a ridiculously long amount of time and the concept of even doing the 12km City to Surf event was out of this world for us. The fact that a few years later I ran a marathon in under four hours is crazy. I never thought I would be able to run a full marathon. But soon that very hard 2 kms built up to easy 10 km runs and then that 10km run became a half marathon. It all seemed unfathomable a few years ago.

 

That’s the really cool thing – setting myself these challenges throughout my life, putting one foot in front of the other, and then finally reaching that goal. That's a good thing. I’m so proud of myself

 

I started serious training when our honeymoon began in July. I was doing a fair bit of running six months before that; I did the HBF half marathon in May. Training for a full marathon is another major step up.

 

Exercise is a huge part of my life. I loved the structure and routine the training gave me during our holiday.  It was also an incredible way to see each new city we went to. I never planned my run route, I would just start running and wind down streets and roads, run along the rivers or the canals. I’d come back from the runs and tell Josh about the cafes, restaurants and all the cool spots I’d seen on my way and often we would go back to those places for brunch, lunch or sightseeing. Places we may not have found or known about otherwise.

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It was tough to keep going once my training runs were over. In Perth I would do a long run and then take the rest of the day off! Obviously, that was not an option when we were travelling and only in places for three or four days. We wanted to see and experience as much as we could with our time there.

 

That was probably the hardest thing - having to come back from a big run, get ready to go out and sightsee with no recovery time. Josh would want to come home for a nap and I was always the one to say no naps - we've got places to be, places to see!

 

It's so funny, immediately after the race, I told Josh I was never doing another marathon ever again!  We went to Paris that night, so we had to get a bus two hours after the race. We were on that bus for nearly eight hours! I was sitting down, not being able to move, muscles seizing up, in pain from foot blisters – it was a nightmare!

 

I think it took me about four days to completely recover, which I thought was pretty fast for my body to be completely back to normal. As soon as that muscle soreness went away, I said all right, which marathon are we doing next? Let's sign up! Let's go! Josh had to pull out of competing in the Amsterdam marathon due to injury so it’s an extra incentive for us to do a race together.

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