Weipa’s Ziggy Freiberg has been smashing goals since finding his passion for long-distance running. Photo: Supplied.
Motivated, goal-oriented and happy are the words Zigmund “Ziggy” Freiberg’s mum uses to describe him after he found his love of running.
It all started with a school cross country that sparked an interest in the weekly Weipa parkrun at the beginning of 2023.
The 10-year-old is now one of the parkrun directors and recently celebrated a milestone achievement – his 50th finish in the event.
Ziggy said the 50th run had been a goal for a long time, and he was now focused on his next goal.
“I was excited and joyful,” he said.
“I want to get 100 before the end of next year.”
Weipa parkrun is a community five-kilometre run or walk held at 7am every Saturday.
Mum Vide Freiberg started running to support her son’s passion, and is now also a parkrun director alongside him.
“He just enjoyed parkrun and was getting so much out of it that I decided maybe it would be something we could do together,” she said.
“We signed up together, so I do all of the entering data and putting stuff on Facebook, whereas he does the setting up of the flags and the actual speaking part, addresses everyone and tells everyone the rules and acknowledges the Traditional Owners, asks if there are any visitors and things like that.
“I think he’s just watched everyone do it over the last few years, so he does it quite easily.”
Ms Frieberg said Ziggy was a completely different boy since finding a home in Weipa’s running community.
“A few years ago, Zig was quite negative and didn’t really want to participate in anything or do anything, he was just really hard to motivate,” she said.
“Everyone at parkrun has just been so supportive and it’s so nice that he’s really found his sense of belonging there which, for me, has been a huge turnaround.
“I think it was at the beginning of last year when he actually started to set goals, which he’d never done before – he’d never really wanted to achieve anything or looked forward to things.”
Ziggy said he was driven by numbered goals, which was what kept him going at his first 10km event at this month’s 2024 Weipa Running Festival.
With his new smart watch – bought with his own pocket money – he was able to keep track of his distance as he ran, and looked to it for motivation every time he got tired and wanted to stop.
“I just try to get to the next kay, so if it’s at nine-and-a-half, I want to get to 10, and then when I get to 10.01, I want to go to 11,” he explained.
With dedication and training, the young runner said he hoped to beat his parkrun personal best time of 22 minutes, 40 seconds for the 5km course, and participate in the half marathon at next year’s Weipa Running Festival.
Ziggy Freiberg was understandably pretty happy with himself after completing his 50th parkrun recently. Photo: Supplied.
