Father and son Tim and Oliver huddled together

A reignited interest in his dad’s running goals sparked a discovery of endurance events for teenager Oliver Kacprzak. Now, the father and son from Bannockburn in Victoria, Australia have become each other’s athletic inspiration, and their incredible achievements at the recent Dead Cow Gully Ultra Marathon are testament to the rewards of this shared passion.

In our latest Side by Side feature, Tim and Oliver explain how training together and competing in ultramarathons has strengthened their relationship and become a major source of motivation and discipline for them both.

Tim holding Oliver as a child after just completing Ultra Marathon

OLIVER: Dad has always been very active. As a young kid I’d be playing a video game and he would ask me if I wanted to go for a run. Sometimes I’d go, sometimes I wouldn’t. We did a little bit of running together before COVID but then I stopped and got into other things.

Then I decided to get back into it in late 2022. I saw my dad doing it a lot and one time I said I wanted to try this backyard ultra marathon because it looked like a really cool format. You have to run a 6.7-kilometre loop within 60 minutes every hour until there’s only one runner left.

I started training around December and it just stuck with me. I’ve gone to support my dad at events before and saw lots of athletes pushing themselves to their limits, and I wondered what my limit was. I never really paid much attention as a kid because I thought it was a bit boring, but now I find it really cool to see how he’s going and check up on him and help. At the event I ran six laps in six hours. At the time I was happy with it but afterwards you feel like you could have gone that little extra. He did 55 laps.

It’s cool to bounce off each other about running as I don’t generally talk to other people about it. We have always had a very close relationship, but now we have a lot more to talk about. We can relate. It can be frustrating when I’m struggling and in pain and he’s telling me to keep pushing to do one more lap, but it’s a good thing that he does. I really respect his motivation and discipline towards running. I admire the achievements that he has made, and I hope that one day I can get up to the same standard.

TIM: I’ve been running for 11 years. When we had kids, I ended up sitting around at home most of the time and I put on some weight. I got to a point where I thought it was time to get moving again, so I got into jogging, running, obstacle racing and then ultramarathons, and it’s just become my thing. I like the mental challenge. I feel amazing when I do this stuff; really motivated. I thought I wanted my kids to feel like that too, but there’s an element of suffering involved to get to that point.

Oliver was about four when I introduced him to running. When we went camping to places like the Great Ocean Road, I’d take the opportunity to get up early and go for a long run, then I’d see if he wanted to go for a run. He doesn’t remember, but he’d be running up and down the beach as a four or five-year-old. He didn’t stop the whole time. He just had that determination.

He ran a half-marathon with my wife when he was 10. Then he got into basketball, but he would still do park runs occasionally. He really took it up seriously just under a year ago and he’s just thrived. He’s told me that when he used to run he did it for me, which was nice but I felt a bit bad, but now he says he does it for himself. It makes him feel good and he wants to do it. I think that’s why this time it’s stuck.

He ran a half-marathon with my wife when he was 10. Then he got into basketball, but he would still do park runs occasionally. He really took it up seriously just under a year ago and he’s just thrived. He’s told me that when he used to run he did it for me, which was nice but I felt a bit bad, but now he says he does it for himself. It makes him feel good and he wants to do it. I think that’s why this time it’s stuck. Now it’s pretty much.

Tim and Oliver at the finishing line of marathon
Tim and Oliver at the finishing line of marathon

"Sometimes he says: ‘That was really, really hard, but now I feel a lot better’. I say that’s like life – sometimes there’s hills you need to climb, and then it’s easy again."

TIM: He doesn’t realise how proud I am of him.

It takes a fair bit for a child of that age to have that resilience and understanding of what delayed gratification is. If you gave a kid a lolly and told them not to eat it for an hour, they’d probably eat it straight away. But he has that understanding that a bit of pain now is worth the achievement later on. When we’re training, we talk about stuff that we might be going through. Being able to have those conversations for an hour or two when you’re going for a run brings you closer, and you have a better understanding of each other.

Listen to their interview on ABC here