Athletics star Keely Small launches Wildbark fun run for threatened species at Mulligans Flat

Her bright yellow Australian tracksuit and track spikes have been replaced with a long-sleeve green shirt, broad-brimmed hat and work boots. Instead of a medal around her, she has a snake in her hands and a lizard on her shoulder.

It's here that Small says she finally feels like she's found the right balance in her life after a few years of battling injuries, illness, overseas moves, interstate moves, life as an elite athlete and a university degree.

It's also why she feels comfortable enough - at just 22 years old - to reveal her blossoming athletics career is on hold indefinitely less than a year before the Paris Games. She hasn't "retired", but there's no plan to come back.

"I still run," Small said. "But it doesn't feel like a chore any more. It has put running in a category that I do it because I love it, rather than I have to do it, or I have to go to training.

"Now I'm doing what I wanted to do outside of running. I always wanted to be a zookeeper, particularly working with native animals. I get to do that, and it makes every day so fulfilling."

Small's worlds will collide in an unexpected way this weekend. Her daily duties at Wildbark see her work with endangered species and take on a variety of different tasks.

The latest job - organising a "fun run for threatened species" over a five kilometre track through the sanctuary - is to raise money for the continued conservation efforts at Mulligans Flat.

The run is part of a wider event, which will mark one year since Wildbark opened its doors and align with national threatened species day on Thursday.

Small has taken the reins of the running side of things, naturally. There's a five kilometre and a two kilometre track which weaves through the Goorooyaroo Nature Reserve and Mulligans Flat, where eastern bettongs have returned to mainland Australia for the first time in more than 100 years.

They are now thriving in the predator-proof surrounds on Canberra's northern tip, which doubles as Australia's largest box-gum grassy woodland conservation area.

"I thought there's no better way to celebrate than to run through the sanctuary," Small said.

"You get to go through all of the fences, which are crucial to the sanctuary. Follow the fence line through Mulligan's Flat, come down the boardwalk and finish at Wildbark. Everything goes back into funding the reintroduction of more species."

Small made her Commonwealth Games debut as a 16-year-old in 2018 and won a Youth Olympic Games gold medal later in the same year. She had been earmarked as Australia's next track star.

The years since have been plagued by injuries, illness and upheaval.

She couldn't run for 18 months when she suffered stress fractures in her back, but then had a stint at an elite United States university and was recruited to a professional running team in Melbourne.

But she returned to Canberra this year to start what she described as her dream job at Wildbark, which says a lot given the Olympic Games path she was on just a few months ago.

"Going to Paris is obviously not going to happen. I'm still young and I obviously enjoy running, but it's hard to say what will happen or that I will never pursue it again," Small said.

"It's just at the moment, the competitive side of running is not for me.

"A couple of us from work will go for a run in the sanctuary and it's a pretty special place to run."