A 76-year-old school bus driver competing in his 40th Rotorua Marathon this week says the people keep him coming back each year.
Ngongotahā resident Te Arohanui Hira is walking the course on May 3 and aims to finish it in under seven hours.
This year’s marathon would be the seventh he had walked.
Hira told the Rotorua Daily Post he had joined a walking group to bolster his training efforts.
“The handbrake’s come up,” he said with a laugh.
Hira said the people kept him coming back each year, including some he played rugby with “back in my old days”.
He also wanted to keep going for his friend Mason Tuhakaraina, who he used to run cross country with but died a couple of years ago.
Hira said Tuhakaraina was buried at Ōhau, which was along the marathon course, and he normally stopped there “for a couple of seconds”.
Asked how many more marathons he would do, Hira said: “I’m not going to stop. I think I’ll just keep going.”
He shared the same sentiment for his work and said he was “not in a hurry to retire”.
Ōpōtiki runner James Crosswell, 75, was training for his 48th Rotorua Marathon this year, running between 70 and 80km per week.
Crosswell’s goal was to run 51 Rotorua marathons after he made a promise to his friend Colin Smyth, who ran 50 Rotorua marathons before he died in 2015.
Smyth holds the record for running the most Rotorua marathons.
“I promised him I would catch him.”
Crosswell said he and Smyth were plumbers and drainlayers.
“We maintain there’s something in the water – it’s most unusual that you’ve got two plumbers running that many marathons.
“We’ve definitely got the endurance there.”
Crosswell said the pair formed the Rotorua Marathon Survivors Club in 1993 for runners who had completed 15 Rotorua marathons.
The club now had between 600 and 700 members, he said.
Members would celebrate with a meal after the marathon, talk about the run, and give out spot prizes, he said.
Crosswell said he ran 30km on Saturdays, 10km on Sundays and about 8km every second day, equating to between 70 and 80km every week.
After a heart attack in 2019, he started wearing a pacemaker.
“All that you’ve got to do is just listen to your body. So I walk and run – I run a km and then walk 50m and then away you go again.”
Crosswell said he worked as a plumber “semi-fulltime” but after a shoulder injury a few months ago, he had not been able to work “full on”.
“I’m too young to retire,” he said with a laugh.
A statement from the Red Stag Rotorua Marathon said it was bringing “new energy” to this year’s finish line.
“Runners will experience the energy and crowd support of running down the iconic Eat Street before concluding their journey at the new Red Stag Rotorua Marathon’s finish line on Tutānekai St, in front of the Novotel Rotorua Lakeside.”
The new Go Media 12km track would start at Te Puia, pass the Pōhutu Geyser and through the Whakarewarewa Forest before finishing at Novotel Rotorua Lakeside.
A Rotorua Marathon press release said the Te Arawa Marae to Marae relay would return to Rotorua on May 3 for the first time since the mid-1990s.
The relay would host registered Te Arawa Marae teams and their descendants. It would start from the Te Papa-I-Ōuru Marae in Ōhinemutu Village, with all teams finishing alongside marathon participants at the marathon’s finish line.
The relay “in its evolved form” included 10 culturally significant stages, including visiting a minimum of 13 marae and two rivers situated around Lake Rotorua along the marathon course.
More than 900 participants had registered.
Te Papa Tākaro o Te Arawa chief executive Stevie Te Moni said the relay was a unique and Te Arawa-centric event that celebrated Te Arawa Iwi health and wellbeing.
It also highlighted and reinforced Te Arawatanga with its people, Te Moni said.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.