'Eight for a Mate!' Jack goes flat out now to the next one!

Jack Hewitt is pictured with girlfriend Tate after he completed the Brooks Adelaide Marathon in South Australia on Sunday (4th May). It was the second in his ‘Eight for a Mate!’ series through which he’s raising money for the ME Association and ME/CFS Australia.

He ran the course in 4:17:55 which is remarkable as he only had six weeks to train for Adelaide after recovering from a torn tendon in his left ankle.

“Well, that was quite hard work! A marathon six weeks after returning from injury is not advised. But it was ok! I did it, that’s what matters”, he told us after the event.

And he told followers on his Instagram:

“My top tip for running a marathon: train for more than six weeks.

“That was, as expected, quite hard work. The first half actually felt good. The third quarter was quite hard. The final quarter was very hard. I’m just so happy that I was able to come back from injury for the Adelaide marathon and finish it. That’ll do me.”

Jack, a Brit who went to live Down Under in January 2024, has promised to run eight marathons – one in each state and territory of Australia – in the space of a single year to raise money for both the ME Association and ME/CFS Australia.

He’s taken on this huge challenge because he was utterly shocked by the condition he found his best friend from university, Freddie Denison-Smith, was in when he returned to Britain to pay him a visit in June last year. Freddie has very severe ME and needs round-the-clock nursing at his home in Buckinghamshire.

Pictures show Jack and Tate – he'd taken his running shoes off after the Adelaide marathon to let his feet breath!, Jack collecting his running bib for the Adelaide event and the route of his next marathon in the state of Victoria on 18th May

So far,Jack has raised well over £12,000 for us since launching the first of his epic series of marathons in Hobart, Tasmania, on 11th January.

The next one is coming up very quickly. Jack has booked himself into the Melrose Great Ocean Road Marathon in Victoria on 18th May – running from Lorne to Apollo Bay.

The event bills itself with typical Oz understatement as “Australia’s most stunning running event” and warns entrants that the views are so great that “You’ll be pinching yourself the whole time!”

If you would like to donate to Jack’s fundraiser for the MEA, please visit: