20 miles–and he doesn't wanna talk about it

It was a dark and stormy day - no, seriously, it was.

See, Morgan, this is the type of awful cliched writing you're going to get if you won't do your own blog post and make your father do it.

Anyway, the weather was atrocious. But with the Wellington Marathon looming, there really was no choice but to bang out the 20-miler in this miserable rain- and windfest.

Morgan and I set out from the Wellington Train Station - he on foot, I by bike. The wind hit as soon as we came to the Bayfront. It really was a howler. Trying to break the run down into manageable pieces, Morgan was to run around the bays for seven miles, then back and then add on the three-mile route along Hutt Road that he did for his 18-miler.

My task was to toss him a bottle of Powerade once in a while, and tag along on the bike to keep him on track. That plan came to naught when I hit a broken beer bottle and watched my tire go flat. Morgan was on his own. As I walked back to the car, I wondered how Morgan was going to run into the ferocious wind as it whipped saltwater off the ocean into my face.

When I reconnected with him at about Mile 13, he said the wind had twice knocked him onto his butt and that the seawater had left him unable to see for a couple of minutes.

In the end, he pulled through, hurting but focused. He's now ready for the Marathon. I figure the conditions today added at least three or four miles to his run. He cut through it and finished with a bit of a smile. Now for the marathon - and then South America.