Meet the Perth man who started running in thongs – and never stopped
It must be the most unusual epiphanies in sporting history, a eureka moment right up there with Roy Hobbs inA sun-kissed ironman steps out of the front door of his City Beach home in Perth, looks down at a pair of thongs sitting on the steps and is hit by the thunderbolt of inspiration to slip them on and go for a 10-kilometre run.
So what inspired the Melbourne-born madman – is there any other way to describe him? – to crawl out of the ocean, where he is most comfortable, and hit the footpath along the beach and go full Forrest Gump?“One afternoon I had too much energy and I thought, ‘Let’s give ten kay a crack’. I’m not a runner – look at the size of me – and I don’t own good running shoes. So I put on what was available at the time – a pair of flip-flops,” Hensen-Thompson says.
While Hensen-Thompson was born in the Victorian capital his gaze was always pointed north. As a kid, he idolised Australian ironman greats such as Trevor Hendy, Grant Kenny and Shannon Eckstein, and dreamed one day competing in this iconic Australian sport. “We are a coastal country, so it is important for people to understand that the ocean is not a safe place. You need to learn about the dangers before you go in,” Hensen-Thompson says.
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