"How are your lungs?", I asked Today show roving reporter Mike Dalton.
"Mate, I'm just going to put them back in my body."
Dalton and his crew from the Australian morning television show were in the city on Saturday, as part of a mission to look for stories with "a more loopy element".
So apart from the obligatorily visit to the Speight's brewery, and an interview with retired University of Otago anthropologist Prof Helen Leach on that gastronomic specialty, the cheese roll, it was Dunedin man Dave Kernahan who caught his attention.
Mr Kernahan became something of an unexpected tourist attraction after he took to running up and skipping down the world's steepest street 30 times a day.
That unusual hobby, and an Otago Daily Times story about Mr Kernahan published in the newspaper in April last year, attracted Dalton.
"It had a beautiful picture, a photo montage. It was a great image."
So despite the hail, Dalton ran alongside Mr Kernahan for at least part of the run, with the story expected to be broadcast on Today in about two weeks.
Dalton also visited Rotorua and Dargaville.
The Today show, on the Nine Network, also plans an outside broadcast from Queenstown later this month.
