"I didn't really know what to expect so I was pretty nervous about the thought of running that far. Just getting to the finish in one piece was the main aim back then."
Early on in his marathon-running career, Tindall was doing two or maybe three a year but that number grew steadily as the years went on and he actually completed as many as 20 in 2012. In New Zealand, he has run the famous Rotorua marathon 11 times and Auckland 10 as well as others in places such as Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill.
And he has been a frequent competitor overseas, having competed in all the "majors" including Boston, New York, Chicago, London and Berlin and several less high-profile events in Australia.
Of all the overseas marathons this year's Boston event is, not surprisingly, one of the more memorable with two bomb blasts killing a number of people but, fortunately, for Tindall he came through unscathed.
The surrounding chaos did mean, however, he was unable to make it to the finish, a situation which saw him head soon afterwards to Utah where he ran the Salt Lake City marathon, his 89th at the time.
Tindall's training schedule is rather different these days to what it was five years ago when he covered huge kilometres to prepare himself for each race.
It was then he suffered an Achilles injury which drastically reduced the distances he could cover without pain and, from that point on, he has basically used each marathon as training for the next.
"Once I decided time wasn't an issue, I cut right back on the training and have pretty much kept it that way," Tindall said.
"When you are doing so many, it's good to give the body a rest anyway, it seems to work out OK."
