THE MASTER OF HIS DOMAIN

I WAS ALWAYS TRYING TO PROVE I COULD BEAT MY BROTHERS. Gary Regtien

It’s early on a Saturday morning when a figure emerges around the corner, dwarfed by the trees on either side of him, oblivious to the rise ahead, relentlessly moving forward.

The face is one of determination, a look chiselled into him through years of taking on challenges most would yield to without hesitation. Age has taken its toll on his body, but he’s unmistakably athletic, lithe and built for running.

Today, he’s alone, but most times he’ll have a faithful companion by his side, one of the Siberian huskies that have been his training buddies for about 25 years.

To anyone who spends time at Riverhead Forest, north west of Auckland, his is a familiar figure: Gary Regtien is the king of this domain.

Now aged 82, Gary has been running for more than 45 years. When we catch up with him on this particular Saturday he’s out training for his 35th Rotorua Marathon, which he’s aiming to crack before the clock hits 6 hours.

It will be a far cry from his personal best on the course – 2:33:14 in his golden year, 1981. It was a year in which he blitzed fields and even set a world record.

But there’s no denying that looping the lake at Rotorua this year will hold just as much joy. You can tell when you run with him. The laughs and the tales come frequently.

The one about how, when towelling shorts became all the rage in the seventies, the trend didn’t go well for