If anyone knows every marathon-related fact and figure there is to know, it's one of the Kennys. Dennis was at the start line for the maiden event. Pam's been involved with the Lake City Athletic Club, as it's now known, and the marathon in organisational roles since the late 60s.
Previously her loyalties lay with the Putaruru Athletics Club which nurtured her through her school years into a seven-times New Zealand high jump titleholder, and saw her place 10th in the discipline at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games, upping that to 4th in Pan Pacific Games in Japan and Canada.
"I trained in Rotorua but wore the Putaruru colours; that club was unique for the number of New Zealand reps it produced."
Add cross-country to her sports portfolio. She managed the national women's team from 1975-1979 and, in her first year, she was in Morocco where her charges ranked second in the world.
"I've never run a marathon, I never intend to," Pam insists, claiming it was getting caught up in Dennis' slipstream that led her into the event's business end.
Dennis' version is that he roped her in because as his club's then-secretary, he needed a typist. A bank officer by day, Pam was a crack typist. The couple married in 1966. Neither has a clue how they met, but agree it was probably through athletics.
As if there'd be any doubt about it, athletics will forever be their raison d'etre.
Dennis entered the sport as a harrier in the mid-1950s. Before that he'd played rugby but injury put paid to any All Black aspirations. He joined the cumbersomely-named Rotorua Amateur Athletic Cycling and Harrier Club, contending the legendary Colin Smythe - whose Rotorua marathon entries will total 50 today - forced him on to the inaugural run's start line. Dennis placed sixth, his time of 3 hours 3 minutes 52 seconds just eclipsing Smythe's.
He blames Smythe and a few running cronies for the marathon's inception. "It was the [Arthur] Lydiard era, the gospel of long, slow running.
A club group were in the Lake House having a beer and Colin said, 'Wouldn't it be great to run around the lake'. He reckons I was there, I'm sure I wasn't, I've never been a great pub goer."
Regardless, the pair had participated in club marathon-length championships in the preceding three years.
"Why those didn't count as official marathons is a bit of a bone of contention with some people."
The upshot of the lake suggestion was that a club member who worked at Fletcher's Ngongotaha mill was deputised to "put the hard word" on his bosses to come up with prizes. The company, in various incarnations, was race sponsor for 34 years.
For the first marathon, invitations went out to Hamilton and Whakatane runners to join in. Dennis rues that of the original 16 starters, two remain unidentified. "Our record-keeping then was a little amiss."
A Daily Post front page picture's no help, showing only half the field. What Dennis does know is that not all who entered conquered the testing course.
With his half-century as a marathon insider, he's able to shed light on why the course changed direction in the 70s.
"You're supposed to run facing the traffic which meant crossing the road at Mourea. One year marathoners held up the local Ministry of Works engineer, he wasn't very chuffed and rather curtly suggested in future we run the other way ... a logical decision."
Our see-saw conversation across the Kennys' dining table returns to Pam and her marathon input, if it didn't sound so corny we'd be tempted to call it a marathon effort. Darn it, we will because that's what it is.
She says her involvement began with a "loose group of people formalised as the marathon committee".
"I guess I became chief bum, doing a lot of background work producing The Daily Post marathon supplement, processing registrations, getting volunteers to help on the day."
This year, she's "officer in charge" of the Survivors' Club and has coached the 10km run entrants at the Lake City club's marathon clinic "basically keeping them in order".
Dennis is in on the act too, accompanying Pam's charges on his bike through the Redwoods.
He took to a bike at Olympic runner, the late Jack Foster's behest; Foster had switched from running to cycling.
"He said running was a stupid, stupid sport, people who run around the lake need their heads seen to ... I tend to agree."
DENNIS AND PAM KENNY:
Born: Dennis: Wellington, 1939; Pam: Opotiki,1942.
Education: Dennis: Primary schooling Wellington, Rotorua High School. Pam: Pukuatua Primary, Putaruru High.
Family: "Hoards" of nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews.
Interests: Dennis: Vintage cars, sport of all codes "I take an interest in who's beating who", the marathon. Pam: "I just follow him."
On the marathon: Dennis: "It's wonderful for Rotorua that it's reached 50 years." Pam: "It's amazing it's survived 50 years, it would be great if it could survive another 50."
Royal Recognition: Joint Queen's Service Medals
Personal philosophies: Dennis: "Don't be grumpy." Pam: "I don't have one."
