An 80-year-old still running up that hill
Mike Ward celebrated his 80th birthday with an activity quite ordinary to him – running.
The Nelson jeweller and artist began running in the 1970s, and has never stopped.
He remembers the moment the switch flicked on that prompted him to pound the pavement most days.
He was teaching in Tokoroa High School’s art department, and while he had been ‘‘moderately active’’, he wasn’t doing any sport.
‘‘One of my colleagues . . . who was national marathon titleholder at the time, he said I needed to jog. So my exercise was getting from my home . . . to my classroom.’’
From there, he was bitten by the running bug, and began entering events in 1975.
Since then, the jeweller and former politician has completed Coast to Coasts and marathons, but he says it has been almost 10 years since a Coast to Coast. He hasn’t done a marathon since he was 72.
‘‘I probably won’t run another one.’’ But the shorter runs are still getting him up early most mornings ‘‘five or six times a week’’.
‘‘This month, I’ve got the 5km series every Wednesday night and the occasional Saturday race, a longish run on a Sunday and get out early in the morning for the rest of the week.’’
Getting the legs moving is good for the brain, he says.
‘‘You think, you unwind, if there’s anything on your mind that needs working out, it’s a good time to work it out, and it’s a great stress release.’’
But Ward says running is not as simple as it looks.
‘‘It’s not something that comes easy. Normally I run early in the morning, it’s never so comfortable as when you wake up in the morning and outside it’s dark. You don’t make up your mind in the morning to do it, you make up your mind the night before. It’s a discipline.’’
And while age hasn’t taken away the
motivation to run, it has slowed him down. ‘‘It takes twice as long to run 5km as it used to.’’
On the day of his birthday, July 18, he invited his local running group, the Harriers, to join him on one of his regular sessions. They ran up the Centre of New Zealand and finished in Botanical Reserve at one of his favourite coffee spots, Joker Coffee Cart, where he shouted everyone a hot brew.
The distinctive artist is recognisable by his neckerchief, something he continues to wear on his runs.
He says he took to the neckerchief during his art teaching days in the early 70s.
‘‘I had a particularly bad day when I cut the end off my tie in the guillotine, spilt paint on myself, and snagged my trousers on a bit of metal. I realised that wearing good clothes to a classroom wasn’t on. I went to cords, T-shirts, jeans, and usually a jacket. I gave away the tie and started wearing a neckerchief – and I’ve just worn the neckerchief ever since.
‘‘It’s really useful if you’ve forgotten your hanky. It’s very handy if you’re sweating and you can wrap it round your brow.’’
He used to buy them but these days he makes his own on his sewing machine, and a friend also makes them for him.
‘‘I got three new ones for my birthday, black with white spots.’’
About becoming an octogenarian, he says ‘‘it sounds old to me, I don’t feel especially old’’.
‘‘I’m thinking, what do I do in the next decade to justify my existence. I wake up stressing about how little time we have to get it right on the planet and . . . how much more needs to be done, and what might I do. So there’s another book in the offing and perhaps another election campaign, who knows.’’