Malone ready to endure pain of marathon
WELLINGTON: Paralympic sprint champion Liam Malone is back running.
The 24yearold won athletics gold medals at the Rio 2016 Paralympics in the 200m and 400m but intends going further this weekend — almost 42km further — when he competes in the Hawke’s Bay Marathon.
Malone announced his retirement from toplevel competition in January.
He told RNZ sports editor Stephen Hewson he only decided to run Saturday’s marathon on the spur of the moment and had only 10 training runs under his belt.
‘‘I probably don’t appreciate the challenge I will be facing on Saturday.
‘‘Compared to the training I had been doing for the track — for 400m training at a maximum you would run 1km,’’ Malone said.
‘‘Some people might think just because you are an athlete previously it will be easy to run a marathon, but they are actually vastly different challenges. In this I am really just a novice person, not an athlete taking on a challenge, with an added factor that I have two artificial legs not designed for longdistance running.’’
Malone said he had no issues in dealing with failure, saying that despite his image of a multiple gold medalwinning athlete, he was actually more used to finishing on the wrong side of the ledger.
‘‘I am actually more accustomed to failure and being laughed at. Until Rio I had never won a race in my life and before that I really didn’t have the tools or technology in my blades to be good at any sport.
‘‘ For most of my life I have endured failure after failure. It has always been about getting to the end and satisfying my own objectives.
‘‘I guess if you are asking how I am going to define success, my answer is I will be really happy to get to the end of the marathon and not be on crutches or in a wheelchair the next day, it is that simple. And if I can run the whole marathon that, too, will be success.
‘‘That is not because I am unfit, but it is more about having to deal with such pain over a long period of time will be very challenging.’’
While most people talk about the 20mile (32km) mark in a marathon, Malone expects his biggest test will come earlier, with his legs soaked in blood inside his specially designed carbon fibre blades.
‘‘At the halfmarathon mark the questions will start arising. I know everyone says 30km is where you face challenges, but if I get to 30km I know I will be sweet.
‘‘Being prepared to fail is really important. I am not nervous about anything other than the sheer amount of pain I will put myself through and the chance of serious damage to one of my legs.’’
Malone is heading to Napier without a support team or others taking on the event with him, but is keen to make some new friends along the way.
‘‘I got entered into this event as a result of my workmates, but now I am not even sure if they are going. I am going to be going solo, so anyone that is there and knows who I am and wants to say hi or run with me, I would love some company at that slow pace and have someone to chat to.’’