Concussions and a dodgy Achilles are on the minor side compared with suffering a heart attack a few years back and, most recently, breaking his collarbone in a bike accident.
"Knocked off my bike a couple of weeks ago — and this is a bit unbelievable — I got hit by a fast-moving cat," he said, laughing.
"Still carried on orienteering over the last two and a-half weeks since that, so I reckon I can still complete Three Peaks."
Metherell was one of the first in line at the inaugural Three Peaks Mountain Race in 1984 and the Christchurch man will return for the 40th anniversary race on Sunday.
He was living in Dunedin when Peter and Sarah Haines — who, alongside Metherell, were members of the the Dunedin Orienteering Club — created Three Peaks.
After competing in most Three Peaks races throughout the late 1980s, Metherell’s association with the race finished when he returned to Christchurch.
Orienteering and rogaining became his passion, but he still had the drive for mountain and multisport races after competing in five of the first six Coast to Coast events and returning for the 20th anniversary event.
Watching his daughter, Selena, win the women’s two-day Coast to Coast in 2019 inspired Metherell — "that sort of got me a little bit excited" — to get back into the events.
His children banded together and gave him a Coast to Coast entry for his 60th birthday that year, and he was training hard for the world masters orienteering championships in Latvia, and later the world rogaine championships in Spain, when he was stopped in his tracks in Latvia.
"I had a heart attack over there instead," Metherell said.
"That put a dampener on Coast to Coast. I decided by November I couldn’t do Coast to Coast that year."
Not one to back away from a challenge, Metherell got back to training and was ready for the Coast to Coast in 2022, but it was cancelled due to Covid, and he returned to Three Peaks that year instead.
Determined to still make something of the Coast to Coast, Metherell joined Matty Graham and Joe Scheriff, who also competed at the inaugural Three Peaks, for an "old school Coast to Coast" competing in original equipment from the 1980s.
"We had a real fun time at that," Metherell said.
He competed at last year’s Coast to Coast, but was battling through concussion symptoms after a bike accident.
He was lured back this year — alongside his daughter and son, Jeremy, who competed for the first time — to give it another crack, which went "reasonably successfully", finishing third in the men’s 60-plus age group.
All of that training and hard work has led him back to Three Peaks on Sunday.
The 26km track was "an iconic race" during his nine years in Dunedin and involved one of his favourite training runs up the Pineapple Track and over Flagstaff.
"I thought it would be a good thing to have another crack at.
"I had a massive gap from Coast to Coast, and sort of made a comeback to that, and thought ‘oh well, we’ll do Three Peaks again as well’," Metherell said.
There will be another special moment when he hits the starting line this weekend with his son tackling the Three Peaks-plus-one event, and his daughter, ex-wife Michelle and other family members taking part in the 26km run.
"It will be quite fun.
"Coast to Coast this year was the first year that we had multiple family members doing it at the same time so, yeah, it’ll be nice to get together again this weekend."
