The Murray Marathon Festival started and ended at Oddies Creek Park, Albury, with the races including a marathon, half-marathon, 12 kilometres, six kilometres and a two kilometres children’s event.

Runners from Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Orange and South Australia joined the Border entrants on the loop riverside course out to Wonga Wetlands.

A fundraiser for Parklands Albury-Wodonga, the festival offered a marathon route officially certified as the right distance.

“The upshot of that is you can run our race and use it as a qualifier to get into the prestigious international marathons, like the Boston marathon and the New York marathon,” event development ranger Sean Greenhill said.

Three visiting competitors had completed 250 marathons or more, with Sydney’s Ray James finishing his 280^th event despite battling cancer in recent years.

But it was the first marathon for Wodonga’s Kirby Hillier, who led the women home despite the last 10 or so kilometres being “all unknown territory” for her.

“It’s always been a long-term goal for me to do a full marathon so I thought why not kick it off locally?” she said.

“It was beautiful running out there, I had a kangaroo straight in front of us, probably at about the seven kilometre mark.”

Hillier’s training has been boosted recently by extra support from Rachel and Ken Little, Danny Lowe and her family.

She will now focus on runs in Melbourne and the Gold Coast after clocking three hours, eight minutes for her first marathon.

“I went there with no time in mind, I just wanted to get through the distance without stopping,” she said.

Mr Greenhill said the festival went well, with online results via Tempus Timing.

“When you’re doing an event for the first time, it’s always a little bit of a test of faith that people come,” he said.

“I definitely think we can do the marathon again next year.”