Binney completes greatest feat

By KELLY EXELBY
For most competitors, staggering to the finish of the 243km Speight's Coast to Coast race from Kumara beach on the West Coast to Sumner beach near Christchurch is all the challenge they'll ever need.
Tauranga consulting anaesthetist David Binney's biggest battle has been in getting to the start line.
Binney, 49, is halfway to the finish of the two-day individual race, nudging to the day-one stopover in 7:35.08 yesterday in a rain-drenched start to the 25th anniversary race, with 9mm of rain falling on the Main Divide for the run over Goat Pass.
By the time Binney had finished the 33km run over the Southern Alps, the sodden start had given way to sublime mid-summer conditions at the first day stop at Klondyke near Arthurs Pass.
Binney nearly didn't make it to the start line after a life-saving dash halfway around the world to help save a close family friend diagnosed with multiple myloma, an aggressive form of bone marrow cancer.
Binney got the news last September that his friend, living in the United States, had become sick. Two months later, after he and others were tested as potential blood donors, he got the nod as an ideal match.
"There were quite a few of us tested and four matches and I was the youngest at 49," Binney said.
"I was happy to go over - you don't think twice and it's a neat thing to do if it works - and I was initially supposed to go over to the States in February."
Early last month Binney got a call from his friend's surgeon bringing the procedure forward to mid-January.
Plied with a cocktail of drugs to prepare his bone marrow, which sent his white cell levels soaring, doctors in Colorado took blood from one side of Binney's body via an IV, removed white cells and stem calls and replaced it on the other side. It took two days.
"To be brutally honest it knocked the shit out of me. Because white calls are inflammatory cells, mine shot up to 10 times normal levels, inflaming all my joints so I could hardly walk."
Binney arrived home from the States 10 days ago, relieved he had done his bit (it could be six months to a year before he knows if the procedure worked) but more daunted than ever about his first real taste of multisport.
"It has added another dimension to the race. I can still bike okay but the run, which I was doing a month ago, was the big unknown and I was worried it could all turn to shit half an hour in."
Binney's fears were unfounded as he cranked out a 5:29.48 run on the back of an opening 2:05.17 for the 3km/55km cycle leg.
"I'm just stoked - I ran all the way up to Goat Pass (3000ft above sea level) and my body held together. I told myself when I got to the top that it's all downhill from here."
Binney's entry into the Coast to Coast was foreshadowed many years ago but confirmed just a year ago when he visited a sick friend at his Tauranga Hospital workplace.
"I've got a black and white book at home of the original race in 1983 - I must have been in my mid-20s when I bought it and remember thinking it looked really neat. But, as you do, I had kids, have spent the past 25 years working too hard and probably still work too hard."
"I got big (he tipped the scales at 105kg at one stage) and have spent most of the last 20 years doing what I call my Couch to Couch."
Sick of being overweight and unhealthy, Binney hired a personal trainer four years ago, took up rowing and won national indoor rowing titles.
"A year ago I was visiting a friend in hospital after surgery and he had a multisport magazine which he chucked at me. I couldn't put it off any longer."
Binney is 20kg lighter than when he started and is now the fittest he's ever been, although he comes from a family of achievers with his brother Rob and sister Sue both well-performed swimmers, Rob swimming Cook Strait 12 months ago.
Rob and Binney's teenage twin sons Simon and Alister are his support crew this weekend, with his confidence soaring as he arrived off the run leg yesterday at Klondyke.
"The run is by far the hardest on the body so now I'm over that I know I'll cope with the rest."
Former Tauranga Boys' College schoolmates James Dawson and Michael Borrie impressed yesterday, the first of the Western Bay contingent home in 6:07.44 on the back of Dawson's 1:56.09 ride and Borrie's 4:11.35 run. Both are studying at Otago and Canterbury universities.
"I was hoping for a 4:05 run but rain made it so slippery that I spent most of the time watching my footing," Borrie said. Dawson, a national whitewater kayaking rep, should revel in today's 67km paddle down the Waimakariri River.
Mount Maunganui uncle/nephew combo Michael and Hayden Pohio also had an outstanding day, Michael riding home in 2:13.14 and Hayden, bloodied after a couple of tumbles, posting a 4:14.09 run.
"I told Dad (Adrian) and Mike I could be around the 5:30 mark but was quietly hoping for 4:30 so to come in 15 minutes better than that ... well, I'm pretty stoked."
Mixed team Grier and Jill Fuller completed a slick first day in 6:10.18, Grier riding 1:46.29 before handing over to his wife Jill, who ran 4:23.50.
Te Puke teacher Ron Broomfield finished in 6:44.50, a 1:53.52 ride and 4:50.58 run.