Kerre Woodham: Panoramic Auckland bonus for early morning long run

One of the best things about training for the Auckland marathon is getting up on Saturday morning for the long run.

I was initially horrified to discover that it is customary for joggers to head out on their long runs at dawn's crack.

There are a number of reasons for this: Most marathons have 6am starts so it's a good idea to get your body used to functioning at such an obscene hour.

You can enjoy the rest of the day without having the prospect of the long run hanging over you and you are able to run for a couple of hours without inhaling buckets of exhaust fumes as normal people aren't up and driving at 6am on a Saturday.

I used to be a normal person.

The jobs I worked started late and finished later and the only time I ever did mornings was when I was doing the walk of shame, apart from one brief stint as a breakfast host on an ill-fated radio station with Blackie.

That was an abject disaster. I would crawl into work at 5.30am, champagne glass in one hand, stilettos in the other, and entourage in tow.

I didn't last long, but then neither did the radio station.

If anyone had told me back then that one day I'd be jogging up Mt Eden, just as the day was breaking, I'd have rasped a smoker's laugh and poured another drink.

But there is something utterly wonderful, in a masochistic, spot-the-girl-with-the-Catholic-education, self-flagellating kind of way about sweating and groaning to the top of Mt Eden, the payoff for the pain being the 360-degree panorama of the city and the feeling of absolute triumph at knocking the bastard off.

Auckland's beautiful when she's asleep and so few of us get to see her like that. I, on the other hand, am not beautiful at dawn and particularly not when I've pounded the pavements for two hours.

So that's another advantage of the early morning long runs. The only people who get to see me like this are the other mad buggers sweating, heaving and grimacing their way towards the finish line.