IF you think Lauren Crocker is determined, you should meet her mum, Cathy Hanser.
The local duo is in training to take on Australia’s toughest team endurance event, the 96km Gold Coast Kokoda Challenge, which raises money to change the lives of young Australians through the Kokoda Youth Foundation.
Lauren, who had to drop out of the gruelling event when she took it on 11 years ago as a ‘Kokoda Kid’, has the determination of a woman with unfinished business and Cathy is right beside her.
Unfinished business beckons
SOME might call Lauren Crocker stubborn, but she just loves to prove people wrong.
Ever since she had to drop out of the 96km Kokoda Challenge in 2013, she has dreamed of going back and crossing the finish line.
She has decided 2024 is her year and nothing will stand in her way.
Lauren has a scrapbook from that first attempt as a 16-year-old ‘Kokoda Kid’ on the Kokoda Challenge Youth Program, which ultimately took her to the real Kokoda Track in PNG.
Her mum Cathy Hanser, a local nurse who is in training for this year’s 96km Kokoda Challenge alongside Lauren, said the program positively impacted her daughter as a teen.
“It made her realise that a lot of mental and physical effort is often needed to achieve your goals. She now understands the true meaning of teamwork and helping others,” she said.
Lauren, 26, now has a young family of her own and is juggling training alongside her family responsibilities and living with type 1 diabetes or as she prefers to call it, pancreatic failure.
Since her August 2014 diagnosis, Lauren has spent more than 150 days in hospital related to her type 1 diabetes and she has an artificial pancreas and a blood sugar monitor on her arm.
If anything, Lauren’s health challenges have only made her more determined.
“The thing is mum will call me stubborn, but I just think I’m a ‘prover wrongerer’,” she said.
“When I got diagnosed with diabetes, I got bullied a lot, people telling me I wasn’t going to be able to do these things anymore. And I turned around and I’m like, ‘as soon as you tell me I can’t do something, I’m going to go and do it just to prove you wrong.’”
The Beaudesert High alumnus and Beaudesert Rotary volunteer wants to give back to the program which gave her so much when she was a teenager seeking direction and purpose.
She also wants to do it for her own sense of achievement.
“I was the first one to drop out (I had really bad chafe) and even though I’d done 47km and I just felt like I failed, and I said, ‘no I’ve got to finish it’ and it’s bugged me since,” she said.
“Every time I do parkrun, I’m listening to songs and just picturing myself coming through the finish line like Rocky Balboa when he finishes a fight.”
Lauren and Cathy will complete the Kokoda Challenge as part of team ‘The Avengers Initiative’. To donate, visit www.kokodachallenge.com/fundraisers/theavengersinitiative
