SOMEWHERE IN THE vast, mind-numbing expanse of the Nullarbor plain, Stefan Lamble hit a wall. The sun was beating down, the horizon endless and the sound of he and his brother’s footsteps and the occasional passing road train were all he could hear for hours. His body ached and mind wandered toward doubt.
Stefan and his younger brother Lachlan, collectively known as the Lambros, were in the middle of a nearly 3,400 kilometre run across Australia, and were starting to understand the gravity of what they had set out to do. “I thought How on earth are we actually going to do this?” Stefan tells Men’s Health.
Eight kilometres ahead, the duo’s support van waited. With no reception, no shortcuts and no way out, the boys dug deep. “The way we thought of it was that we either run those eight kilometres and get to the van or we’re stuck here,” says Lachlan.
“We have this philosophy that if you can stand, you can walk and if you can walk, you can jog, and if you can jog, you can run,” Stefan adds. “We try to break it down into bite-sized pieces rather than thinking of it in big chunks.”
That became the Lambros’ mantra. Just putting one foot in front of the other to keep moving forward. And it worked. In 2024, the Lambros became the first brothers to run across Australia together, raising $249,000 for cancer research in the process. They had no ultra-running background – their sport of choice was Aussie Rules – but they had the requisite determination to accomplish something for a good cause.
“We lost our grandmother in 2016 to breast cancer. We slowly saw her health diminish over the years, and that really hit us hard,” Stefan says. “More recently, our other grandmother was battling thyroid cancer. We’ve seen it have such a big impact on our family and we wanted to do something big to raise the money for cancer research, so we both gave up our full time jobs and just went all in on endurance running.”
With only six months of endurance running training, the Lambros did what many would think impossible. Now, they’re doing it again. Only this time, it’s 38 marathons in 30 days, across a country they’ve never been to, in a climate they’ve never run in, with more than twice the fundraising goal.
The boys are now in UK, where they’ll attempt to raise £250,000 (roughly $516,000 AUD) for Cancer Research UK. The route will see them cover nearly 50 kilometres every single day for a month, with an average elevation gain of 500 metres per day – much more than what they faced in the exceptionally flat Australian Outback.
How will they do it? They’ll start by feeding off each other’s energy.
If you spend five minutes with Stefan and Lachlan Lamble, you’ll discover how infectious their energy is. They’ll ask you as many questions about yourself as you ask about them, all while finishing each other’s sentences, trading friendly jabs and seeming to genuinely enjoy spending nearly all their time together.
Growing up, the Lamble boys were inseparable, constantly pushing each other to be better. That bond has held strong into adulthood and helps them stay in the right headspace when they run. They share one earphone each while they’re on the road, to help keep rhythm, and make the most of each other’s company to stay focused. “We try to keep it 80 per cent talking about philosophy and 20 per cent arguing,” Lachlan says. “Just because we’re brothers, you know.”
Attempting to drive a wedge between the pair would be futile. When asked who’s the better runner, they both laugh, waiting for the other to answer first, before Lachlan takes the pragmatic route.
“I would say that Stef is the better runner in a single day event,” he says. “When we’re running in training, his stats are usually better, like he has a lower heart rate, but I think my body is a bit more durable than his. So, over a multi-day event I’m a little bit better. He’s had like five surgeries on his knees now, so he’s basically robotic.”
“I agree,” Stefan chimes in. “For performing on a single day my stats look better, but that doesn’t really mean anything in the 30-day events if I end up injured.”
To combat the mental strain of their upcoming challenge, the brothers put huge emphasis on getting their headspace right every single morning, starting with a cold shower. “We take on the first challenge of the day with a cold shower,” Stefan explains. “That way, we’re already proving to ourselves that we can do hard things.”
Then they’ll put on soundcore’s Space One Pros and dive into 15-20 minutes of breathwork. The headphones help them find calm, even when the world around them is chaos. “It really dials us in,” says Lachlan. “We use them to get quiet, do some gratitude, set intentions for the day.”
Later, when the day’s running begins, it’s the soundcore AeroClip earphones that take over. They’re open-ear, meaning the boys can still hear traffic – crucial when you’re running on roads with little shoulder and fast-moving cars. “We look for four things in a pair of headphones,” Stefan says. “Comfort is number one. If it’s in your ear all day and it doesn’t feel good, you’re done. Then battery life, because we need a long charge. Sound quality, obviously. And lastly, we need to be able to hear what’s going on around us for safety, so something that doesn’t block out external noise entirely is great.”
As they clock up kilometres, the earphones become a lifeline for distraction. Sharing one earbud each, they crank up the music. “When we really need to get up towards the end of the day we just pump some music,” Lachlan says. Lachlan’s partial to Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. Stefan prefers Coldplay and a bit of electronic music to find his rhythm. When they need an emotional lift, they turn to audiobooks or podcasts on mindset and gratitude. On the run across Australia, they listened to 15 audiobooks.
When it’s time to reset it’s back to soundcore. According to Lachlan, midday breaks often involve 10–30 minute “non-sleep deep rest” (NSDR) protocols using the Space One Pros to cancel out noise. “It’s like putting your body to sleep,” the younger Lamble says. “Ten minutes can be equivalent to like two hours of sleep because it resets your nervous system and activates your parasympathetic nervous system.”
The tech helps, sure, but so does the Lambros’ work ethic. These are two guys who’ve built their lives around showing up, day after day, and doing the hard things whether they feel like it or not. They’ve been putting in the hard yards over the last few months to prepare for their challenge in the UK.
“We did some massive training camps about two months ago,” Stefan says. “We had four days where we ran ultramarathons every day in the Dandenong ranges, so we’ve done the work. Now we’re basically just running at least a mile a day.”
That dedication extends to their work in the gym. “Every single day we do a minimum of 15 minutes in the gym, short and sweet, and usually three to four times a week we’re in the gym for around about 45 minutes,” says Lachlan. “Our gym sessions look very different from the average gym session, though. It’s very functional, single leg isolation work, working the small muscles in our feet, toes, ankles, all these little joints and muscles. Around 70 per cent of the work we do in the gym is for below the knee.”
There’s no question they’ll face setbacks in the UK. The route is steeper, the weather likely grimmer. But what they’ve built through their mindset and bond isn’t easy to shake.
There’s still so much they don’t know about what lies ahead, but they know why they’re doing it. “When we’re in pain, when we’re tired, when it gets hard, we think about the people doing it tougher than us,” Stefan says. That’s what makes the Lambros more than just a couple of guys chasing a fitness goal. They’re running for something bigger than themselves. And that’s exactly what they’ll do, all the way across the UK.
