Scott Taylor Moore takes on Tauranga marathon

Scott Taylor Moore training beside the Whanganui River. Photo/Stuart Munro

Running the inaugural Tauranga International Marathon in October should be a stroll in the park for Whanganui's Scott Taylor Moore after his recent Oxfam Trailwalker experience.

After a rigorous training regime, Mr Taylor Moore walked non-stop for 29 hours to complete the 100km Oxfam event in March.

"The training for the Trailwalker took so long - up to 10 hours - while for a marathon you only build up to three hours of training," Mr Taylor Moore said.

"You have to think about what to eat over the whole Trailwalker event and you have to carry all your gear including wet weather gear.

"It was an extremely well-organised event and it was good to be part of something that supports good charity enterprises.

"It was nice to be in a different part of the country, between Whakatane and the Taneatua/Ohope area, and so different to walk with headlamps for 10 hours and see the sun rise while you're out there."

An experienced marathon runner, Mr Taylor Moore has completed several events in New Zealand. While living in London some years ago, he would look for places to travel where marathons were being held.

His adventure travel spirit saw him take part in marathons in Budapest (Hungary), Prague (Czech Republic), Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Reykjavik (Iceland) as well as smaller marathons in England and Ireland.

He now has the Tauranga marathon in his sights.

"It's exciting because it's the inaugural Tauranga marathon and Tauranga is where I grew up. They've had half marathon events before but not a full marathon.

"It's a really beautiful, well-designed course that goes past interesting waterways and places where I've been running, floundering and swimming while I was growing up and over the years.

"I stopped running two years ago because of arthritis but before that I had been a regular runner since about 1999. It was good to do another activity with the Trailwalker, which also helped me build strength, and now I'm getting back into running again.

"Because of the arthritis I'll be running for the first 10km of the marathon and then walking 5km and alternating."

The Taylor Moore family has cheered him on in his previous marathons but this year his wife Jennifer is getting more involved. She will walk the half marathon in Tauranga, her first long-distance event.

The Tauranga International Marathon will be held on October 7.

- Sue Dudman