At the start of this year, Catherine Ralph couldn't run more than a few hundred metres without stopping for a breather.
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But just a few short months later, the 15-year-old from a remote town in Kakadu National Park can run 5km in about 35 minutes, and hopes to beat that time on Saturday when she lines up at the Australian Running Festival in Canberra.
Her love of running began in the Northern Territory when she joined Deadly Running, an Indigenous Marathon Foundation initiative to get Aboriginal people more active.
"With all the people helping me throughout the year to push myself, I’ve worked up to where I am now," Catherine said.
"Now, I can do 5km without stopping. I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to do that."
Indigenous Marathon Foundation director Robert de Castella greeted Catherine and five other teenage runners from rural Indigenous communities at Old Parliament House on Friday morning, when they arrived in the capital ahead of the weekend's running festival.
The two-time Commonwealth Games marathon champion said the youngsters were perfect examples of why a new partnership between the charity and global IT conglomerate Tata Consultancy Services was a game-changer for Aboriginal health.
Through the partnership, which will bring live tracking technology to the running festival for the first time this weekend, the organisations have developed the Deadly Running Connect app, which helps people find running groups anywhere in Australia, get training tips and share success stories.
Mr de Castella said the app also offered an innovative way of tracking Indigenous fitness, and could provide data to evaluate Aboriginal health programs.
"The app is an opportunity for us to celebrate and showcase Indigenous achievements and resilience," the two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist said.
"We need to find positive, inspirational stories and we have to have those really exciting role models. Deadly Running Connect is going to be a platform for us to be able to do that digitally."
For Catherine and the other Indigenous teenagers entering the weekend's running festival, the experience of competing alongside thousands of others is a little daunting.
But they've been inspired by other members of Deadly Running Australia, some of whom have already competed at world-renowned marathons in cities like New York, Boston and Tokyo.
From thousands of kilometres away on Saturday, their family and friends will be able to track their progress in the 5km run, with an award-winning live tracker being used for the first time in Australia.
Through the running festival app, people can follow up to 20 runners' locations on the course, and see a live leaderboard showing the top five men and women, split times and expected finish times.
"It puts a useful, interactive resource at the fingertips of the thousands of runners and their supporters, and
puts a personal touch on their participation in the event," Tata Australia and New Zealand vice-president Anil Snehi said.
“We are also proud to be working with Rob and the Indigenous Marathon Foundation to support the
health and wellbeing of runners in Australia’s Indigenous communities."
