Not slowing down: 77-year-old Nelson man paddles 100km for charity
There’s no slowing down 77-year-old Nelson man Rod King.
After completing a 100km paddle boarding venture off Tāhunanui Beach last week to raise money for the New Zealand Heart Foundation’s My Marathon Challenge, King said he was keen to “just keep going.”
“Probably not quite at the same rate, and the weather might not play ball, but I’ll just keep going and see what turns out,” he said.
King said he decided to take up the challenge as he had family and friends who had been directly affected by heart disease and he also wanted to physically test himself.
He decided to do it his own way.
“I figured, ‘oh, I could do that, but I could do it on a paddle board instead of running or walking it’,” he said.
“So that was even more of a challenge – trying to do that distance on the paddle board.
“It seemed a good way for me to personally help this cause and on a personal level, it was also a challenge to knock down some boundaries and achieve something out of my comfort zone.”
King said he had initially planned to paddle board the equivalent of two marathons – 84km – but decided to increase the length of the challenge to 100km after encouragement from others.
“It’s an example to other people that it doesn’t matter what age you are, you can get out there and do stuff like this,” he said.
“And the other side of it, my wife had a heart condition, and I’ve got friends that have had the same thing – one day they’re in an ambulance and two days later they’re back out with a stent and starting to resume normal activities.
“I know people that have been involved with that, so it’s really good to be able to raise some money for a cause like that – being silent doesn’t make a difference.”
King, who still worked as consultant in the commercial refrigeration industry, said he took up paddle boarding eight years ago when he found his previous passion – kayaking – was too slow.
“I used to go kayaking around Haulashore Island in the mornings and all these people used to glide past me on their paddle boards, and I thought, ‘oh, that’d be a big cool thing to do’,” he said.
“So I started doing that, but then I’ve got one of those competitive streaks, and if you can do something faster, you do it, so I’ve got a big long race board that traps along fairly quickly and you can do probably six kilometres an hour.” ”
When King completed his 84km two-marathon challenge last week, he had spent 14 hours on the board, made 32,000 paddle strokes and raised more than $900 for the Heart Foundation.
According to the foundation, a New Zealander dies every 90 minutes from heart disease and there were, on average, 16-18 deaths from heart disease each day. More than 195,000 Kiwis currently live with heart disease – around one in 23 adults.
King said, weather depending, he would keep paddling and raising money for the cause for as long as he physically could.
“It hasn’t all been easy – some days it seemed the wind and tide were always against you, but you just had to be patient, take a bit more time, keep going and you will reach your goal,” he said.
If you wish to donate to King’s cause, go to Rod King’s Fundraiser on the Heart Foundation’s mymarathon.co.nz site.
By Andy Brew, Nelson Mail
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