John Dobson remembers feeling shattered as he staggered across the finish line of his first Melbourne Marathon, 47 years ago.

“I was that dog tired. My body was screaming. I could hardly walk,” he says.

But Dobson was back at the starting line the following year, drawn to the crowd’s cheers, running with mates and the sense that an “ordinary bloke” could achieve something extraordinary.

There’s a steely resilience, too, about Dobson and the two men who are the only people to have run every Melbourne Marathon since it started in 1978.

In March 2021, Dobson was diagnosed with prostate cancer and told he needed surgery within months.

But that might mean missing that year’s marathon. And that wouldn’t do.

Given the cancer was in the early stages, Dobson’s doctor agreed to move the operat

See Full Page