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The 2018 London Marathon

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate 

There was a moment just before the start of the London Marathon, as Royal Scots Guards blasted out a bagpipe tune, the starting pen filled up to the brim and the Queen – via satellite link from Windsor – made her way to the lectern to officially start the race, when I felt an unusual choked-up feeling in my throat.

Nervous excitement is normally all a marathon runner feels while they wait for the hooter.  But in the final pre-race moments, my anxiety was swept away by sensory overload and the magnitude of the moment, the echoing words of well-wishers and the approaching climax to a story I'd shared with the 40,000 or so other runners for half a year.  

The race itself was to be enjoyed and endured in equal measure.  As the heat fried my brain and my legs grew heavy and unresponsive, it was hard not to lose sight of what a profound and humbling experience it is to run the London Marathon.

The first half of the race was actually pretty fun.  I felt great, gliding along at a cracking pace, veering off course to high-five groups of kids along the roadside, allowing myself to laugh out loud at the sight of Yoda, Darth Vader and Mr Potato Head in the colourful crowd.  I heard my name yelled by friends, loved ones, people I'd met in the pub the day before, and when I saw them I waved back ecstatically.

At 21km, a personal best seemed achievable, even a sub-3 hour time an outside chance.  I picked up speed, feeling I was coping alright with the heat, and hoping the enormity of the day might give me the small lift I needed in the closing stages.

By 30 kilometres I knew I couldn't sustain the pace.  The final hour should be a marathon runner's victory lap – a chance to soak up the crowd's adulation and enjoy the fruits of months or years of hard training – but it seldom works out that way.  Instead, the mind dulls; thoughts of a storming finish and a PB replaced by basic mathematical calculations.  36 down, 6 to go, 37 down, 5 to go.  

As I rounded Buckingham Palace and turned for the home straight down the Mall, all I could think of was escaping the heat.  I wish there was something more profound – some epiphany or outpouring of joy – but after three hours, eight minutes and 20 seconds in blazing sunshine, I was in survival mode.  This might not have been the hottest marathon I'd ever run, but it felt like it.  I seemed to have coped with the 24-degree weather better than most: over the second half of the course, I overtook 1,784 runners, and was overtaken by just two.

The day was tinged with sadness and shock at the loss of a culinary hero, Matt Campbell, who collapsed with six kilometres to go and later died.  If you hadn't heard of Matt already, you soon would've.  He was a gastronomic genius; a rising Rene Redzepi; a crafty, charismatic, crazily innovative young chef at the vanguard of the clean, ethical and nutritious eating movement.

I'm not at all a spiritual man but at some point on that funereal final trudge from Canary Wharf to the Mall, the choking feeling returned to my throat.  It's quite possible that I passed Matt as he lay stricken on the course.  Did I intuitively feel myself in the midst of a terrible tragedy?

Like me, Matt was inspired to run by his father, and his own inspirational deeds will doubtless be felt by runners at next year’s event.  As for me, it’s safe to assume that as long as I think I can keep getting fitter, leaner and faster (which I do), I'll be running marathons.   I've done 15, so why stop now?  Not while I have so many more events to tick off, from the famous (New York, Tokyo) to the local and scenic (Hawkes Bay, Hauraki) to the sentimental (Dunedin again, Queenstown again).

The running journey will continue - just not right now.  I’m still happy just putting one foot in front of the other.

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Race Week

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

Well, here we are.

The months between marathons speed by, only for race week to slow to an interminable crawl as you yearn for the start of the race almost as much as you yearn for the finish.

The runner’s mood oscillates between anxiety and euphoria.  Have I done enough?  Will I fall apart in the heat? But how cool is it that I'm in the same race as world record holders?

The main consolation for a runner's troubled mind is that most of the hard work has been done.  My (attempted) healthy eating regime, the long training runs in the stifling heat and the numbing snow, and the fundraising.

Charity work is hard work, but it’s also hard to think of anything more worthwhile. As I write, we’ve raised more than £2,200; well above the minimum pledge amount and still climbing.  If you've enjoyed what you've read in this diary and have donated, thank you. If you haven't, there's no time like the present.  Here's a nice write-up in Queenstown’s estimable Mountain Scene, if you needed further persuading.

Among the dozens of truly uplifting messages of support from friends both old and new, a few have made reference to “how far you've come” since starting out as a runner.  For those who mark their progress through life by personal development and experience, rather than status and material gain, there can't be higher praise.

Most runners aren't in it to smash records or compete with their peers – if they were, they wouldn't stay in it for long.  The vast majority of the 50,000 or so who line up in Greenwich for the 42km slog to the Mall just want to better ourselves and, in the case of us charity runners, give something back to the community. Whatever happens on Sunday, we'll all be richer for it.

What will happen on Sunday?  All manner of things, potentially.  It could be the hottest marathon on record.  It could be the rainiest.  It could be windy.  This is London, so it could be all three.

Up front, a world record could be broken – unlikely, given the forecast.  Mo Farah could write another remarkable chapter of his storied career, or the old Kenyan masters – Kipchoge and Bekele – could reassert themselves as the powerhouses of the sport.

Millions of pounds will be raised for hundreds of good causes.  Thousands will line the route to laugh at the preposterous costumes and scan the immense field for glimpses of people they know, roaring full-throated support for the few moments their friend or loved one is visible in the riot of colour and humanity.

Somewhere amongst it, I'll be shuffling along, looking like death but feeling like the luckiest man alive.  Here's what I'll be wearing.  If you see me, say hi.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

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What I learned from my dad

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

When I was home at my mother's place in January, I took a good look through my father's old running file.

I found a personal snapshot of the marathon running boom of the late 1970s and early '80s: faded photos betraying the peculiar fashions of the day, certificates of participation in long-defunct races, typewritten training advice from the legendary Sir Arthur Lydiard.

One document took me a while to decipher.  At first it seemed just a jumble of numbers spread across page after page.  A running log perhaps?  On closer inspection, it’s a record of the number of days he ran each month, each year, decade after decade.  Why was this information so important?  How did he use it?  What of his other methods that helped him run 17 marathons - two under three hours?

Unless an old running buddy has answers, we'll probably never know.  Dad died five years ago this week, and he took with him a lifetime of accumulated wisdom.  We lost our leader, our commander-in-chief, our captain (we were the “crew”, he would haughtily remind us, any time a dissenting voice was raised).

We had a lot more to learn from my father.  Hardly a week goes by I don't find myself wondering “what would Ken have done in this situation?”  Often it's to do with running.

I have childhood memories of riding my bike around Cornwall Park while he ran, or watching him rebuild the soles of his Asics Kayanos with an ice cream stick and a tub of strange, foul-smelling glue – a practice he blamed for sending him to an early grave.  Once, on a trip to Queenstown, he went on a long training run and left me in the hotel room, increasingly worried for his whereabouts.  He'd been stuck in quicksand, he explained, and couldn't pull himself out.

Beyond that there are only anecdotes, such as one my godfather told me recently about the first time my father ever went for a run.  “He rang the flat from a phone booth about ten minutes later, demanding we pick him up.”

But it never occurred to me to ask about his running: neither practical questions of preparation, recovery or fighting back against the aging process, nor philosophical ones, like the why the hell did he do it?  

To make up for my lack curiosity as a young man, I now ask veteran runners every question I have, any chance I get.  I mine them for information on any and all aspects of running - no question too stupid, no detail too minor.  I'd give the same advice to any other runner who wants to learn more about their sport.  Most runners love sharing their experiences and knowledge.  Pepper them with questions and they'll happily tell you all they know.

Few know as much as my father did, and I’ll always regret that so much of that knowledge has been lost.  But he has passed on certain genetic advantages: a slight build, a shuffling, economical stride and a stubborn determination to succeed that's a must-have ingredient in any long-distance runner's psyche.  For that and much else, I have plenty to be grateful for.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

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How to learn from mistakes

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate 

If there's one moment in my life I wish I could have again, it'd be when I came in one bar early during a school singing of “Jingle Bell Rock” in 1991.

A slew of schoolboy embarrassments aside, it'd be the 2014 Rotorua Marathon.

Until that day, I'd dismissed the concept of “hitting the wall” as little more than a buzzword bandied about by novices trying to make excuses for inadequate training.  At the 29km mark, the wall hit me.

My legs turned as heavy and inert as two railway sleepers.  My head slowly dropped until I was all but staring at my feet.  My stride slowed to a shuffle.  And I still had thirteen awful kilometres to go.

One indignity after another followed.  First the 3:15 pace group breezed by me, then I slowed to a walk up a long hill.  Then cramp set in.  I bummed a banana from a total stranger.  The 3:30 pace group went by.  I was being passed by people who themselves were at a painful plod.

With two kilometres to go, both hamstrings seized up entirely.  Forget running - I couldn't even crawl.  Another stranger grabbed my left let, then my right, straightened them out, pointed me toward the finish and gave a shove.

I talked to no one at the end.  I tried to get into my car, but was paralysed by adductor cramps and fell to the ground, where I spent 20 helpless minutes staring up at the sky.  I needed to pee for most of the three-hour drive back to Auckland, but didn’t dare try to get out of the car for fear of the cramp returning.

Part of me wanted me to burn my shoes and never run again.  But my overwhelming feeling was an urge for redemption.  I didn't want failure to have the final say.  I realised that, in fact, failure is one of the most powerful motivators there is.  That's why sports coaches love telling interviewers they learn more from a loss than a win.

There'd been plenty of failures, obviously.  Inadequate carb intake in the 48 hours beforehand, and only a banana for breakfast.  Not adjusting to the unusually warm conditions.  But mainly, I just thought I was faster than I was.

I was running too close to my limit - on pace for a 3:09 marathon when my previous best was 3:24.  Instead of acknowledging it and slowing down, I kept the pace up and prayed I'd last till the end.  It's probably the most common mistake marathon runners make.

One of my bosses in my early journalism days used to tell me “it's only a mistake if you make it twice”.  That's how I came to see that horrendous day in Rotorua – a mistake I never want to repeat.  And so far (touch wood) I never have.

Running within yourself is harder than it sounds, but it's an essential skill for any long distance athlete.  Whether it’s running too hard or singing too soon, most life lessons can only be appreciated through bitter, painful experience.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

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Running back through time

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

Long before Britain's web of motorways, before cars of any kind, before even the steam trains criss-crossing 30,000 kilometres of town and country, Britain had canals.

It's hard to imagine these narrow, quaint waterways ever formed the backbone of the UK's industrial revolution.  Today they do the opposite, offering corridors of serenity and calm through the chaos of London, as I wrote in a feature article last year.  Canals are why it's possible to run from the countryside to the centre of Europe's largest city without crossing a single road.  Canals are why I'm freezing my bollocks off outside Cheshunt station on a supposedly-spring morning, waiting for my GPS to connect.

From Cheshunt, it's 31km straight shot southward along the Lea navigation to London Bridge, via Limehouse Basin and the Thames.  The starting point is Lee Valley (the spelling seems to be interchangeable) Regional Park; a magnificent open space of vivid greens and blues, the sort of bucolic scene Wordsworth might've smiled upon whilst thinking questionable thoughts about his sister.

The Lea Navigation is a condensed tour of the many layers of London. Early on, I pass under the M25 ring road, and through leafy villages, where sheep graze in little paddocks.  Then come the commuter suburbs of Enfield and Tottenham, their skylines punctured by rows of industrial smoke stacks and high rises that pose more questions than they answer (why build four identical and hideous 25-storey apartment blocks in deepest suburbia?).  

Where once canal boats carried coal, copper and lumber to and from the Midlands, now they're mostly moored, while their owner-occupiers tinker or cook bacon and their cats watch on lazily from the roof.  

The wide open spaces of the Walthamstow and Hackney Marshes give way to the hipster haven of Hackney Wick, with craft beer bars lining the canal and murals adorning undecorated exterior wall.  The distant skylines of Stratford and Canary Wharf rise in front of me, I pass the Olympic Stadium and then find myself surrounded by high-rises and heavy industry for the final few kilometres to Limehouse Basin, where the Lea meets the Thames.

A right turn takes me through the historic old warehouses and docks of Wapping, while the final mile is a snapshot of modern London: a zig-zag through masses of tourists on Tower Bridge, and a brief final section along the Thames Path past HMS Belfast to the Shard.

I've talked before about the importance of varying training routes to keep things interesting.  Sometimes it means a bit of forward thinking – it took me an hour and three different trains to get from home to the start of my run in Hertfordshire – but it's always worth it if you feel energised by the beauty and the history of your surroundings.

If you're lucky, you might even forget you're on a two-hour run.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate

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If you love something, set it free (and don’t eat it)

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate. I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

Readers who've known me for any length of time might want to sit down before reading the next line.

I've given up meat.

Well, ish.  Seafood is still on the menu.  I'm allowing myself a slab of meat on a special occasion.  But in my day-to-day life I now consider myself a pescatarian – or a reductarian, to borrow a cringey buzzword.

A shock though it may seem, cutting out meat has been a long time in the making.  I've always loved animals - it's just that I've loved eating them even more.  I've long wrestled with the question of whether I consider them our equals; lately, that seems to have shifted to whether they are in fact our superiors (to call Harvey Weinstein a pig, Donald Trump a jackass or Nigel Farage a weasel, for instance, would be to dishonour three proud species).

It's a decision that felt inevitable after the horrors I encountered at a meatworks visit in 2014; most vividly, a dismembered, skinned cow's head, its glistening eyes judging me for my complicity in its murder until a worker grabbed it, ripped out its pituitary glands and tossed them in a bucket.  “A delicacy in Asia”, he said with nonchalance.

It's certainly not a decision that should affect my running career.  History is replete with vegetarian athletes: Venus Williams has gone full raw vegan, Cristiano Ronaldo eats only lean white fish, and Australian cricketer Peter Siddle reputedly gets about on 20 bananas a day.  Chicago Bears lineman David Carter, fondly known as “the 300-pound vegan”, consumes 10,000 calories a day – not one of them from meat.

I've added more eggs and spinach to my diet.  To widen my repertoire I've returned to foodstuffs once fed to me by my grandparents (sardines) and others I didn't think I'd touch until I was a grandparent myself (mackerel), and have been pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying both.

I've also realised what I've always known – that it's no great hardship to be a vegetarian.  Who's complaining about a diet of falafel, margarita pizza and dahl makhani?  Last time my brother was in London we ate halloumi kebabs so meaty and delicious that nothing of animal born could've improved them.  On a trip to Pisa in 2008, my friends and I spent a glorious half day making eggplant parmigiana and fried zucchini flowers from scratch; the main ingredients of which were so fresh they could well have been on the vine that very morning.  It was hands down the best home-cooked meal I've ever eaten.

Do I sometimes yearn for the warm, melt-in-the-mouth comfort of a beef rendang?  Of course.  Do I miss biting into a supermarket chicken that's been pumped full of more chemicals than Bradley Wiggins?  No.

Like anything in life worth doing - running a marathon included - it’s a gradual process.  No fully-fledged carnivore who swears off meat after a heavy weekend is likely to keep it up for long.  It’s a lifestyle choice I’ve merely grown into - and I’m healthier and happier for it.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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A not-so-merry tune

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate. 

“Hell is other people”, wrote that cheery Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre.  Privately, he also might have said “hell is other people's music”, and who could blame him?  Just look at the Top 5 Running Songs Of All Time, as voted by readers of the healthy living website, Spark People:

Pink – Raise Your Glass

Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger

Adele – Rolling In The Deep

Maroon 5 – Moves Like Jagger

LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem 

Not my cup of tea.  But then, I count The Band, Tom Petty and Old Crow Medicine Show among my favourite musical acts, and I don't doubt there are millions of people out there whose all-consuming fear of eternity in the pit listening to bluegrass, folk rock and Americana forms the very essence of who they are.

There's probably no aspect of our daily lives more subjective than music, but I do have a few rules for music while running.

If I wouldn't listen to a song while I'm driving a car or sitting at home on a lazy Sunday, I wouldn't listen to it while I'm running either. Some people find that trance or other high-tempo music puts them in the mood for exercise, but when I'm running I like to hear songs I enjoy.  When running is hard, playing your favourite tunes is a good way to disassociate from the grind and hard effort.

Sometimes, when I'm running a new or particularly attractive route, I turn off the music so I can fully appreciate the surroundings.  And I'd never listen to music during a race, of any length, for two good reasons.

First, it's dangerous and discourteous.  In a race, you have to be alert to the instructions of marshals, and the requests of fellow runners to get out of the way. Second, why would you?  Running a marathon or half-marathon is one of the most colourful, immersive experiences you'll ever know.  Make the most of it by tuning into your surroundings: wave at the brass bands, smile at funny banners, high five the kids on the side of the road.  Those fun interactions provide a huge mental boost when you need it most.

Running a long race without music brings it own challenges; namely, getting a song stuck in your head and being completely unable to shake it.  All A Lie by the Aussie band Saab 78 is always there, with its slow, driving beat and defiant crescendo.

Other times, such as during last week's Lisbon Half Marathon, I'll find myself repeatedly singing a song I barely know the words to.

He hears the ticking of the clocks, he walks around with a parrot that talks Da-da da-da da-da da-da-da-da, da da da-da da da da, Dum de da da da da, to which he could not relaaate Brought on by a simple twist of fate

If you're even unluckier, it'll be a song you don't really like – such as Hotel California, repeated ad nauseam during my ocean swim.  

If this happens to you, spare a thought for British mountaineer Joe Simpson who, during his legendary ill-fated Andes expedition in 1985, couldn’t get Brown Girl In The Ring out of his head.

“I thought, 'bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M',” Simpson recounts.  But he didn't.  If anything, the unpalatable thought of dying to Boney M kept him alive.

That more or less sums up my feeling when, in the late stages of a marathon, my brain puts on the Vengaboys.  Four kilometres to go – boom, boom, boom, boom.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate. 

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The great freeze of 2018

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

Bit cold out there, innit?  

The only other time I can remember being this freezing was my second year of university in Dunedin.  The weather charts weren't quite as grim, but the chill was rather amplified by the third-world standard of my student dwelling – indeed, I remember sometimes taking off a layer of clothing to leave the flat.  My father never used to come in at all, preferring to bark instructions from the relative comfort of the porch.

But this isn't 2004 and I no longer have the option of curling up in a sleeping bag while I sack off lectures for weeks on end.  It's seven weeks till the London marathon – peak training time for the 40,000 or so runners lucky enough to have a place.

And so it was a mixture of obligation and masochism that sent me out this morning into the numbing cold, along the Fulham Reach of the Thames, up Putney Park Lane, through the winter wonderlands of Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park, then back across Hammersmith Bridge and through the slushy streets of West Kensington.  Once home, I had to put on five layers of clothing and get back into bed for an hour.  And to think that two weeks ago I was complaining about the heat and humidity in Auckland.

In truth, I don't mind running in the cold, and neither should you.  Science suggests the optimal temperature for running a marathon is surprisingly low. One French study of 1.8 million marathon runners over a decade found fastest times were achieved at 6.2 degrees.  A group of American researchers placed the ideal optimal marathon temperature at 11 degrees, compared to 16.2 for a 5km race, and 23 for a 100-metre sprint.

And for anyone who regularly battles through oppressive 26 degree heat, you'll be pleased to know than a 4-hour marathon in those conditions translates into a 3:30 effort on a 5-degree day, according to another study.

So, it's widely agreed that 5-10 degrees is the ideal temperature for long-distance running, but what happens when the mercury drops even further?  The 1995 New York marathon was by far the coldest in the event's 48-year history, with strong winds pushing the chill factor to almost -10.

The race was won by Germán Silva of Mexico, in a time of 2:11 – well off world record pace, but still 21 seconds faster than his victory the year before, achieved in uncomfortable 20-degree conditions.  The female winner also went-back-to-back: Tegla Loroupe winning in 2:28, which was 29 seconds slower than her 1994 victory.  Both complained about the bitter cold but the third-placed man, William Koech, summed it up best: “In Kenya, we have no weather like this.”

Their times reveal something else about weather extremes: the fitter you are, the less they affect you.  In serious cold or heat, those who spend as little time in it as possible fare the best.

So if you're looking out at the snow and mulling whether to cancel your training run, here's another scrap of motivation: whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger.

Just make sure the cold doesn't actually kill you.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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Silencing the self-doubt

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

The most frightened I've ever been before a race wasn't before a running race at all.

It was just after sunrise on an autumn morning and I was gazing out at immensity of the Pacific Ocean.  A relative stranger to sea water deeper than my head, here I was, about to plunge headlong into the unknown.  The first marker bouy was a distant metallic fleck on a monochrome horizon.  

“You look terrified, mate,” some guy said.

I'd signed up for the Sand to Surf, a 2.6km swim around the islands of Mount Manganui, out of desire for a new challenge. My friend Brodie had assured me it would be a doddle – easy for her to say, I thought, as I watched her charge out into the sea ahead of me and disappear beyond the breakers.

I knew what I had to do.  I'm not a strong swimmer, survival instinct told me if I kept my cool, swam at an easy pace and methodically moved forward, I would finish – and hopefully not finish last.

The next hour and a bit was a battle not just against the sea, but my lifelong anxiety of deep water.  I got past the breakers and settled into a rhythm: two strokes, breathe, two strokes, look up, two strokes, breathe, collide with another swimmer, two strokes, breathe.  

I ingested more salt water than the Titanic.  I felt nausea rise and subside as the sea chopped up in places.  I banged into fellow swimmers at right angles and wondered who was going in the wrong direction (probably me). Hotel California got stuck in my head.  I saw sinister shadows and brushed against unidentified objects and convinced myself they weren't malevolent creatures of the deep.  I reeled in each bouy like a dogged fisherman, and looked up for the next one.

I spotted the finish line and remembered Brodie's advice not to put my feet down too early and fall flat on my arse.  So I swam  into the shallows, put my feet down, got hit by a breaking wave an fell flat on my arse.  

I'd come last in my age group.  I'd got beaten by a guy with no legs.  I'd only just beaten an 85-year-old.  But couldn't have mattered less to me.  This had felt more like a test than a race, and I'd passed.  Never again would I allow myself to be spooked by deep water.

On the drive home, I thought back to all the other times fear had got the better of me: days when I felt so overwhelmed by my job I'd want to hide in bed.  The feeling of compounding pressure that comes with looming deadlines.  Windy, rainy mornings when I'd planned to do high-tempo runs but could only muster the effort to turn on the TV.

Most of us are capable of a lot more than we think we are.  Of course I can swim 2.6 kilometres.  Of course I can do my job.  Of course I can run a half marathon. Sometimes it's just a matter of silencing the doubt.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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A run on the surface of Venus

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Not many people can say they've run 21.1km in a sauna – although that's not the challenge I'd had in mind when I signed up for the Orewa Beach Half Marathon.

I was thinking of a fast, flat, easy course followed by a soothing swim in the sea. As we huddle at the start line in smothering humidity and a stiff breeze, the prospect seems a long way off.  A local lady sings God Defend New Zealand (a nice and unexpected touch), then the hooter sounds and we're away through the quiet backstreets of Orewa.

For the first seven kilometres I’m feeling strong and on track for a personal best.. Then we hit the long out-and-back beach section and things start to unravel – buffeted by wind, legs sapped by sand, the course then winds up a sharp hill and back down through a bush track.  It's beautiful running, but slow, with plenty of steps and slippery surfaces from the earlier rain.

By the time we emerge back out onto pavement for the final nine kilometres, my body has had it.  The humidity is approaching 150,000%.  It feels like running on the surface of another planet.  At the next drink station I tip a cup of water over myself but within moments I'm heating up like a furnace again.  The runner in front of me takes his shirt off.  I want to do the same, but the good folk of Orewa don't deserve to see that on a Sunday morning.

He's a good 30 seconds ahead of me and my nearest challenger is the same distance behind. No one can muster the strength to make a late surge.  Our lungs are like week-old party balloons, all trying to suck in the same soggy air.  It feels like I can barely get any air in mine at all.

Recovering at the finish line, now refreshed and drenched by summer rain, I come to two realisations.  Firstly, half marathons are bloody hard - just as hard as full marathons.  In the longer version, it's easier to hide a lack of speed or ease off for a few kilometres if you're not feeling great.  In a half marathon, there's nowhere to hide – it's flat out fast all the way.  It takes a brave and strong runner to know his or her physical limit and stay just fractionally on the safe side of it.  Clearly, I’ve strayed onto the wrong side.

Secondly, running in the northern parts of New Zealand is just hard, full stop. Even in modest air temperatures, the soaring humidity leaves the body battling to dissipate heat.  Blood rushes to the skin and away from the muscles, acting as a speed brake on the legs.

Perhaps therein lies another secret to the success of Kiwi middle and long distance runners?  Arthur Lydiard's famous training sessions in the Waitakere ranges took place not just over gruelling terrain, but presumably in choking humidity.  To those athletes, racing in the temperate climes of Europe and North America must've been a cinch after that.

That’s what I’m hoping too - a long, cold, crisp jog along the Thames in wintry London right now might make me feel like Superman.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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The bittersweet sting of complacency

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It's never hard to spot the runner who hasn't prepared for race day.  He's the guy dragging his haggard ass across the finish line, shoulders hunched, eyes down, and – worse still – wearing a white shirt with two red streaks tracing a downward path from nipples to waist.

Failure to protect the body's most sensitive bits, either through lubricant or taping, is one of thousands of ways things can go wrong on race day.  It's also the most visceral, and almost certainly the most humiliating.  

Just as painful is the inner-thigh chafing which comes from a failure to apply Vaseline between the legs.  These runners are almost as easy to spot post-race: they're the ones waddling around like a punch-drunk John Wayne.

As we go into racing season, here's a reminder of the cardinal rule of running: road-test everything before race day.  Most important are the shoes, but don't neglect the rest: socks, shirt, sport drinks, gels, hat, headband, and anything else in contact with your body that has even a minuscule prospect of causing discomfort.

You'll have to trust me on this, because my own lesson about failing to prepare just about scarred me for life.

It was the 2014 Dunedin marathon and despite the grim conditions (see above) I was feeling good about my chances (spoiler alert: this is when you're most likely to be overconfident and do something stupid).  I'd prepared well, mentally and physically, and was sure a personal best would duly follow.  

It did, but my smugness didn't last for long.  Once home and under the refreshing water of a cold shower, I let out a sharp, involuntary yelp.  I looked down.  A part of my anatomy, which I hold particularly dear, was red raw and stinging ferociously.  It had chafed against the fabric of my running shorts for more than three hours without my even noticing.

I'd bought the shorts the week earlier and hadn't bothered to try them out.  Why would I? They were the same size and brand as my old pair.  But subtly, something about them must have been different – just a fraction smaller or more restrictive.  Over the course of 42 kilometres, that was all it took to do damage.

For days I sheepishly applied paw-paw ointment to the affected area, wincing my way through shower time and cursing my complacency.  I wasn't impressed. Nor was the girl I'd been seeing at the time.  

You probably think this is all very funny, but you wouldn't if it happened to you.

A little part of me died that day.

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With friends like these...

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Some say runners lead a lonely life, but it's actually as sociable as you want it to be. You can run round and round a park with enough other joggers that you can't hear yourself think (which, I suspect, is exactly the point), or you can pick some lesser-travelled route to make completely your own.

I choose the latter partly out of practicality – most other people are at work while I run, and vice versa – but mainly because I enjoy the solitude.  I like to gather my thoughts and clear my mind; take in my surroundings without distraction; occasionally feel the sun on my back and soak up the scene.

But what are all those good feelings worth if there's no one to share them with? That's where my running buddies come in.  

Scoop, Mark and I form an unlikely trio – Mark is a genuine athlete, while Scoop's famous feats of endurance are better observed from a Queenstown bar leaner than the race track.  Our abilities vary wildly, but we run at Scoop's pace because he's earned it.  And our differences are only skin deep; easily overcome by our shared love of sport and talking bollocks over a beer.

I only get to run with these guys a couple of times a year, which entertains me all the more as I alternately get the universe according to Mark, and the Queenstown scene according to Scoop.  

In our eight races together, we've sauntered around Queenstown in full suits for the Winter Festival Golden Mile, braved Antarctic conditions in the Southland half marathon, endured the Lake Hayes 10K in stifling December heat, and run straight into the welcoming waters of Lake Wanaka after the Cardrona Half.

We're more Cool Runnings than Chariots of Fire.  In 2015 we ran the Southland Half at the same time the All Blacks were playing their World Cup semi-final. Cue one of the great logistical masterclasses in score avoidance: sitting at the back of the bus to the race start, far from the driver's radio, huddling in a separate room to avoid hearing the score from another competitor, running straight through the finish chute Forrest Gump-style to avoid glimpsing the game live on a big screen, then swinging past KFC and the liquor store with our hands clasped over our ears to collect post-race refreshments before heading back to Mark's to watch the rugby and discovering, oh bugger it, he's cocked up the recording and missed most of the game.

By now you've probably guessed why I run with these guys: because it's fun. And like anything else, if you don't find running fun you probably won't stick at it. They say a problem shared is a problem halved – so the more running friends you have, the easier it gets.  Social running isn't for everyone, but sharing the load when you're starting out could be the difference between sticking at it long-term and giving up.

And I'll admit I'm a bit in awe of my mate Scoop.  He's pushing 60 and he's still out there, running half marathons.  That's something any runner, regardless of age or ability, should aspire to.  Cheers Scoopy!

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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Going places you’ve never been

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This week I did something I'd been wanting to do for a really long time.  I ran to Macetown, an abandoned gold mining settlement high in the Central Otago mountains.

It's a 34 kilometre round trip from Arrowtown, via a twisting four wheel drive track and a riverbed, then back along a goat track over a 1,100 metre saddle. This is proper wilderness – once you're out of Arrowtown, the only signs of civilisation are old mining structures that date back 150 years to when these parts were the Wild West of the South Seas.

These days there are no animals, no fences, few sounds - the occasional chirping of birds, the crunch of gravel underfoot - and the wonderful aroma of wildflowers to accompany runners back and forth across rivers, through tussock and over wide gravel plains.  

I thought back to a dream I'd had years before in which my father and I were the only people on earth, traversing a riverbank through an empty, primeval jungle.

Some runs stick in the mind because of the way you make you feel.  The closer I got to Macetown, a mysterious relic of a long-forgotten age, the more I felt the immensity of the mountains and the history around me.

Running can take you places you'd never have dreamed of going, either physically or mentally.  Unless you've got a friend with a decent truck or a helicopter, the only way you'll ever see Macetown is on foot.  The same goes for a million other wilderness areas.  The ability to run literally opens up whole new views of the world.

In 2014, I ran the Motutapu off-road marathon, from near Wanaka to Arrowtown.  Even with a handful of friends and hundreds of other runners, for most of the race a I was a lonely speck on the landscape, at one point turning around to discover I had literally an entire valley to myself.  It was an awesome scene, in the full biblical sense of the word.

That was the first off-road marathon I'd run and I might be the last.  It took me three hours and 57 gruelling minutes, and although I surprised myself by coming 23rd out of nearly a thousand runners, I also rather confirmed my suspicions that I'm a flat track bully with lungs and ankles too flimsy for the rigours of the trail.

At the same time, I doubt I'll ever experience such a beautiful marathon course again.  A road-runner I may be, but so many of my favourite memories involve mountain ridges, sweeping valleys, forest glens and endless beaches – places I've never seen before and might not see again.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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What to read when it’s too cold to run

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Most of what we learn about running will come through bitter experience.  But that doesn't mean we shouldn't read as much as we can - especially at a time of year when only a masochist would choose an open-air blast chiller over curling up under a blanket with a book.

I divide running literature into two broad categories: how-to guides, and personal accounts.  There's much to learn from both; though personally I find the latter more enlightening.

I don't read many runner's magazines.  They're interesting but too prescriptive, with their lists of 'dos' and 'don't's, and advice that seems to change from one issue to the next.  

For technical or scientific advice, 'The Lore of Running' by Tim Noakes is a 931-page tome that answers every question a runner could ever ask – and plenty that they won't.  It's the only bible I own.  If I'm looking for amazement and entertainment in the kids-don't-try-this-at-home tradition, the legendary feats of long-distance guru Dean Karnazes make for extraordinary reading.  He's the guy who rolls up a whole pizza and eats it on the run, like a taco, between one town and the next.

The three writers who've inspired me most make up the unlikeliest of trios.  They are great Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, American sportswriter John Jerome, and the wonderful New Zealand radio presenter Niva Retimanu. Like me, they're no special athletes, just average joes running for the satisfaction and the simple pleasures.

I'm biased here, because I know Niva through my work as a journalist.  But Leading from Behind: Winning While Coming Last is an eye-opening read for anyone who owns a pair of running shoes or aspires to.  Niva’s enthusiasm is often hilarious and always impressive, as she chronicles her transformation from party animal to pace runner for charitable causes from Beirut to the Big Apple.

Murakami's novel, What I talk About When I Talk About Running, is more introspective but no less compelling.  Best known for his quirky fiction narratives, here he interweaves his struggles and occasional triumphs as a writer and a runner, and his daily desire to improve at both.

John Jerome's The Elements of Effort has influenced me more than any other book. There's no preaching, confusing jargon, or modern-day sports science here (Jerome sadly died in 2002, not long after it was published). Instead, there's an earnest, thoughtful exploration of the relationship between the body and the mind, the restorative properties of running and the inner peace to be found on a lonely trail with nothing but your thoughts for company.  If you're going to buy one running book, make it this one.

Jerome's gentle wisdom and experience shines through each chapter.  I'll leave you with one here, entitled “Rescue”.

If you're having trouble staying motivated, seek an attitude adjustment.  Stop thinking of exercise as more of that self-improvement stuff and start thinking of it as rescue: private time, a tranquilizer (and energizer), an antidote for the poisons of modern life.  Use exercise that way and you don't have to make yourself do it, you have to ration the dosage.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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A new year of opportunities

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It wasn't until I became self-employed last year that I realised the value of the phrase, 'time is money'.

When you're a freelancer, every hour spent lying in bed or watching TV is an hour you could've spent earning money.  The opportunity cost of that sleep-in is an hour's pay.

Now I see it everywhere.  Spending two minutes a day standing on an escalator, when it would take a minute to walk it, costs six hours a year.  If every human hour spent watching Game Of Thrones was geared towards scientific endeavour instead, we'd be so much closer to knowing the cure for cancer.

This isn't about eliminating leisure time – we all need that – but finding a better balance.

Of all the 21st century's many pleasant diversions, the most dangerous to the runner is alcohol.  Booze is harmful in three ways: it encourages excessive eating, discourages exercise and hampers muscle recovery.  It also tastes great and enhances almost any social event.

A few beers in moderation - if they don't interfere with training or lead to excessive kebab consumption - probably do less harm than good overall.  But beyond that, the opportunity cost is steep if you don't heed the warning.  I literally stumbled upon mine many years ago, and, in my youthful folly, ignored it.

It was 6am and my flatmates and I were heading home through the pinkish morning light after a very long evening of carousing and karaoke, when a jogger came hurtling past us.  “On a Sunday morning?  What kind of a life is that?”, I slurred to my companions, who slurred back in full-throated agreement.  Only years later did it occur to me the jogger must've been thinking the exact same thing of us. Except she'd have been right to think it.

I was 22 then, and should've been at my physical peak, but the only body part getting much of a test was my liver.  Now I'm half as old again and while my will is so much stronger, my body is weaker.  My legs aren't the coiled springs they once were.  Without enough rest, they don't respond to commands for increased thrust; like a beat-up old car on a steep hill.

Most new year's resolutions include more exercise and less time-wasting, but most are doomed to fail.  The celebration of our planet's regular journey around a celestial body is hardly a compelling pre-text for self-improvement.

We don't need a change of calendar for a change of perspective.  Instead, a simple assessment of where we could be more efficient with our time could be all it takes.

You'll never hear “Man, I wish I'd spent more time watching reality TV”, at the finish line of a sporting event; and there's a good reason why.

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

[maxrunslondon]

2017 in numbers

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2,859 kilometres

188 runs

11 countries

3 continents

29 cities and towns

3 marathons

2 half-marathons

15.21 kilometres average run distance

3:05:27 new marathon personal best, Amsterdam, October 12 

3 pairs of running shoes

24% of the full length of the Thames run along so far – 84km out of 346

438 metres highest altitude, near Arrowtown, NZ, March 13

157 metres biggest hill climb, Blair Atholl, Scotland, August 23

-4 degrees, coldest run, Prague, Czech Republic, December 19

27 degrees, hottest run, Doha, Qatar, February 7

25°17'12N closest run to equator, Doha, Qatar, February 1

57°29'03N closest run to North Pole, Inverness, Scotland, August 22

45°54'46S closest run to South Pole, Dunedin, NZ, March 5

29 training runs of half-marathon distance or longer

13074 bib number at the Paris marathon, April 8

23rd place finish out of 499, Jersey half-marathon, June 11

2018 the year I run my first sub 3-hour marathon!

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.

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Knowing when to take a break

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Can't be bothered going out for a run this week? Nah, me neither.

London in December is a pallid grey, from the sky down to the vegetables at my supermarket.  The cold follows you around like a damp, mangy dog. Layered up bundles of people shuffle about in near-perpetual twilight (today there are fewer than eight hours between sunrise and sunset).  Even the Thames can't be arsed.

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, the circumstances are different but the problem is the same: it’s too bloody hot to do anything.

Against this is the rising guilt of festive overeating. A year's worth of social occasions are crammed into a month and the eating is relentless.  Beer-drinking weather it certainly is not, yet we drink beer anyway, because that's what the British have done best for centuries.

Vulnerable to the twin perils of fitness loss and weight gain, what should the dedicated runner do in response?  Nothing, actually.

The festive period lasts three weeks, maybe four if you're a real party animal.  Unless you've got a race straight after Christmas, or are hoping to win World Championship gold in 2018, a couple of weeks off won't do any harm.  It might even help, if you're carrying a niggling injury, or trying to shake off a cold.

To pass time during the Amsterdam Marathon in October, I got talking to a pace runner (just in front of me in the orange shirt, below).  His name was Mohammed, he was in his mid-forties, and his enthusiasm for running was awe-inspiring.  When a guy of his wisdom and experience speaks, you listen.  

I asked how he keeps up his fitness and motivation, year in, year out. “Every summer, I take a month off exercise,” came his reply.  “No running, no biking.  Just good food and drink.”

I was incredulous.  I can't miss a single training run without furiously self-chastising and checking my skinfolds.  “How do you not get fat?”, I mustered in reply.

“I do get fat.  Then I start running again, and I lose it again.  I used to weigh 100 kilos – I know how to lose weight.”

This morning, as I crashed through the door after a two-hour run and sank into the couch, nose and ears numb, beanie coated with a film of frozen sweat droplets, jacket sleeves caked in snot, I thought back to Mohammed's words and firmly resolved “bugger it – I'll take tomorrow off”.  And I wouldn’t blame anyone who says the same.

The only time I would recommend a festive run is Christmas morning, when the world is empty and there’s not a single other human being outdoors.  You'll think you’re Bruno Lawrence in The Quiet Earth.  It's some feeling.  After that, you should eat, drink, and eat again, until you are less human than blob. Then eat again.  That's what I'll do.

Merry Christmas!

I’m running the London Marathon for the Mental Health Foundation. Please click here to donate.