An Olympic Games gold medalist and World champion Olympic Games and World champion is planning to run in the Air New Zealand Hawke's Bay International Marathon this year.
Rowing superstar and single sculls champion Mahe Drysdale's intentions for May 13 were revealed recently in Air New Zealand in-flight magazine Kia Ora and confirmed, three weeks into his training, when he spoke as a guest at the inaugural New Zealand Rural Sports Awards in Palmerston North last Friday night.
Drysdale is currently taking a break from international rowing, but hopes to be in Tokyo in 2020 in a bid to win the singles sculls for a third time in a row, at the age of 41.
It won't be the first time Drysdale has dabbled outside his main sport in a post-Olympics gap year, having three months apart in 2013 done the Coast to Coast endurance crossing of the South Island and Ironman Australia.
He's already completed the first leg of a similar double-hit this year, having paired with fellow rower Nathan Cohen to win the Macpac Motatapu endurance event's new teams mountain bike category in the Queenstown lakes district on March 4.
It will be Drysdale's first marathon, although one was included in the Ironman in Sydney four years ago, his overall time of 11hrs 14min 41sec including the Olympic distance 42.195km run in 4hrs 26min.
He said last night from Cambridge: "I would like to go significantly better than that, considering that that came after a 3.8km swim and a 180km bike ride."
While the marathon will be a solo thing, he won't be on his own on the day, runners in associated 10km and other events including wife and former Olympic bronze-medal rower Juliette Haigh and other friends.
It's a week-by-week mission for Drysdale, starting with 4-5km runs, now up to 10km, and heading for 15-20km, but conceding little knowledge of the possibilities, saying while he loves to run and wishes he had been a runner, his near two-metre frame and non-competition trim of about 115-120kg wasn't really made for it.
"It's not something we do in our (rowing) training," he said.
The pre-race goal is to get the body under 105kg, and then the rest can take its course.
"The obvious goal is that four-hours mark," he said. "But other than that I just want to go out and be like anyone else and enjoy running the marathon," he said.
The marathon starts on Napier's Marine Parade and ends at Sileni Estates Winery.
Several other running and walking events are held on the day with organisers hoping to match last year's foundation entry of 5000 participants.