If you're struggling to find the time to train for the Canberra Running Festival next month, spare a thought for Shaun and Elena Thayer.
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They've got six children, including three toddlers - a task which usually leaves them feeling "quite ragged at the end of the day" - and now all eight are training to run the five-kilometre event to raise money for Careflight.
Two-year-old triplets Benjamin, William and Isaac will be getting a free ride from dad in a triple stroller, and could be the youngest entrants to cover the five-kilometre circuit in under 25 minutes.
Shaun, a doctor at Canberra Hospital, has a football background, but these days keeps in shape by commuting to work by bike. He then fits in running training on his days off - pushing around 55 kilograms of babies and stroller.
"I'm doing my emergency rotation … so you usually work quite long shifts, but you do four days on, four days off … so on my days off I've just been practising a lot with the babies, running around the block," he said.
"I'm hoping to run quite fast … I can do 4½-minute kilometres with them, so that would be 22½ minutes, so if I can do it between there and 25 minutes, I'd be happy."
He has good reason to want to run it quickly, with toddlers not renowned for their patience.
"They're less difficult when we're going faster,'' he said.
"When we've been doing it a while they get upset and start pulling one another's hair or pushing one another from behind, so that gets a little difficult, but maybe on the day I'll bring some food and hand them food while we're going around."
As they race against the clock, wife Elena will take a more casual pace with their other three children, 10-year-old Elissa, eight-year-old Jacob and six-year-old Samuel, a first-timer in the race.
"[Samuel] was pretty keen to go in it - last year my wife and the two older children went in it and they all got the medals from the fun run and he was a little bit miffed because he missed out on a medal," Shaun said.
They'll be happy with a medal, but the family is also hoping to raise a few thousand dollars for Careflight, an air ambulance service they know full-well the value of after Benjamin needed urgent heart surgery in Sydney as a four-day-old baby.
"We really appreciated that wonderful service that was offered to us when our little boy was sick … now he's two years old and he's thriving, he's doing so well."
You can donate to the Thayers' Careflight cause via www.everydayhero.com.au/shaun_thayer
■ The festival will be held on Saturday, April 13, (5km and 10km fun runs) and Sunday, April 14 (half marathon, marathon and ultra marathon). More details at: www.runningfestival.com.au/