With a time of two hours, six minutes and 39 seconds in the Cadbury Dunedin event last weekend, David Loughrey had more than most - and made the most of it.
There is something slightly animal about the start of a half marathon.
At the start line close to 1000 people smell of sweat, Deep Heat, deodorant and nervous tension.
Crowded in a tight space, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, with other people's hair flicking your face, flags taut and quivering in the wind, the massed humanity breeds it own thrill of excitement.
The mass moves; ripples run through it as its component parts shift from foot to foot, from side to side, stretching, rubbing flanks, blinking laughing and coughing, adjusting earphones and choosing songs.
Faces twitch; some are serious, some thoughtful, some knowing, some blank - all are ready to forgo comfort for a long and intense physical experience.
There are three minutes to go, two minutes to go, 30 seconds to go, five, four, three, two ... .
Swept up, jostled in a human churn and very alive, you step out.
Are you running too fast? Are you running too slow? Are your shoes too tight? Can you really do this? Why are you running, who are these people, who are you?
Gee there's a lot of people, perhaps the side of Butts Rd is the place to run.
Logan Park is nice.
Logan's a funny name - Logan's Run was a movie.
What would it be like if there was a society set up of everybody in the city with the same first name as you? It could be called the Dunedin David League, or the Dunedin David Association.
They would be all right.
People with common names would have the biggest, most powerful associations.
The Johns, for instance, would be huge.
If you had an unusual first name, something like Corbin or D'Arcy, for instance, you would have a small association, but you could market it as more exclusive.
You would need clubrooms.
It takes a good three or four kilometres to get a good rhythm in a long run, when your stride is confident, your breathing regular, and your footfall firm.
The panting line heads through the botanic garden, streams like a snake round 90 degree angles through the student quarter, before flowing south past the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum towards the Cumberland St overbridge.
With a good 15km or so to go, it's a good time for deep seated concerns about body parts that are starting to rebel.
How tight can calf muscles get before they spasm? Why is the big toe on the left hand side going numb? Will the whole foot follow?
Am I having a stroke? Why is everybody but you wearing tights? Tights have replaced shorts in running, that is clear.
Actually they have replaced trousers in many situations, including at the supermarket, and in George St and other areas.
We have entered the age of the pre-eminence of the bottom.
The epoch of the bottom.
Epoch ... epoch ... epoch.
Funny word.
This must be the first full comeback of tights since medieval times, when people wore them with tunics and a ruff, or something.
Were they Anglo Saxons? Maybe they were Franks, or Visigoths. Visigoths probably didn't wear tights, they sound pretty mean - though perhaps in their down time they did.
There is space now to run, as you are herded through orange road cones by volunteers with outstretched arms, on through the gritty but wondrous industrial sector with tall, thin long legged men, men with thick beards and flowing hair, short ladies with a brisk step, older women, overweight men and girls with bouncing ponytails and determined stares.
On past the yacht harbour, where wind blows water troubled and skittish.
Now the halfway mark is behind you, your breathing is steady and your will is good.
You are not like the non runners; you are motivated, you are strong.
You live your life well.
Your body is supple, your bearing erect, and your embrace of love, life, and ruddy good health is unquestioned and pure.
You are immortal, you are a God.
How do endorphins work? Wow.
The Cadbury Dunedin run organisers amused themselves while planning the event by inserting a hill shortly before the end at Roseneath.
It helps finally detach the mind from the body, leaving it simply an observer of the mechanics of exertion and discomfort.
Connected by fleshy cables, with but not of the panting frame, it coolly considers matters, and remotely gives consent to push on.
A now more sparse and elongated line of runners pours down into Sawyers Bay, under a bridge and through to that final goal, Watson Park in Port Chalmers.
The punished physique and the detached brain that is starting to nurse a deep seated self satisfied feeling of prevailing over terrain, God and fate turns south, into the wind and driving rain to its goal.
Watson Park.
Watson.
What would it be like if people with the same surnames got together in associations? They would probably be like a family, I guess.
