Standing on the start line with the 78 other anxious competitors at the first ever Coast to Coast on the 26th of February in 1983, Alister Metherell was unsure of what he’d let himself in for. The picture will be a whole clearer for him when he stands on Kumara Beach for start of the 40th edition on the 11th of February.

After getting a taste of the pioneering race, Alister Metherell was far from one and done, and returned again in 1984 and 86, as well as the first two editions of the Longest Day in 1987 and 88. The lure of the 20th anniversary race saw him again bouncing across the boulders and back on the Waimakariri River.

Don’t be fooled into thinking Metherell is returning again solely for the sentimental reason of the 2022 edition being the 40th anniversary. “In 2019, my daughter Selena decided to do the Coast to Coast and actually won the two-day race. That got me thinking it wouldn’t be too bad to do it again. My four children got it organised to give me an entry for my 60th birthday present. I was dead keen.”

But fate was to intervene in a way that could have completely derailed Metherell’s sporting aspirations or had even more serious consequences. “I was planning on racing at the World Masters Orienteering Championships in Latvia and the World Rogaine Champs in Spain. I was doing a lot of training for that and got pretty fit. I got as far as Latvia and had a heart attack.”

As is so often the case, the cardiac event happened completely out of the blue, but Alister Metherell considers himself to be lucky. “It happened the morning before the orienteering events were starting. I was just about to go off to registration with another Christchurch chap, Peter Cleary. I suddenly felt ill, and he managed to contact the emergency services and they figured out what was happening. I didn’t have any pain, but I basically just broke out in a big sweat.”

Fast forward six weeks and Metherell got the all-clear from his Christchurch cardiologist to get back into some training. A hardcore weekend of orienteering events later in the year made him realise that the 2020 Kathmandu Coast to Coast was going to be a little bit too soon. However, it’s a case of “Thunderbirds Are Go” for 2022. Despite now having a stent and a little bit of cardiac muscle damage, training is going well for the cheerful veteran. “I don’t really feel it too much when the heart rate gets up. But the statins get my lactate levels up. I puff a lot going up hills on both the run and the bike, but then I’m not alone in that!”

While many Coast to Coasters come to the event from sporting backgrounds a long way removed from kayak, bike and run, Alister Metherell has long had an affinity with the outdoors. A keen tramper, he took up orienteering back in 1980 and prior to the first Coast, had also achieved a couple of sub-three-hour marathon results. “Bike racing was a whole different story, I’m not sure I’d even ridden 60 kilometres before!”

A continuing interest in orienteering, rogaining and mountain biking have kept his fitness levels high, but he admits kayaking skills have been neglected since racing the 20th anniversary event in 2002. “After I decided to do it again, I started paddling down the Avon to build up fitness, and I had to do the Grade Two Certificate for the first time ever!” Since then, the Christchurch based Metherell has managed to spend some time on the Waimakariri River along with a couple of smaller Multisport races.

Winding back the clock to the early days of the Coast to Coast, it was actually race founder Robin Judkins’ precursor event; the Alpine Ironman, that piqued Metherell’s interest. Older readers might remember the TV ads for race sponsor Fresh Up with a laughing Judkins watching competitors struggling through the various difficult bits of terrain. Back then, Alister Metherell was based in Dunedin and decided to join the Otago Canoe and Kayak Club to upskill. Among the group of around eight from Dunedin who entered the first Coast to Coast, was inaugural winner Joe Sherriff. “He came out to New Zealand for a year as an anaesthetist - he joined us on the water and in the Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club. The race was only really announced in November so there wasn’t any great build-up. We all just decided we’d go and do it.” Sherriff clearly found the terrain to his liking and wrote his name into history with victory in 1983. Metherell actually managed to stick with Sherriff on the final bike section through until Yaldhurst where the Englishman found some extra strength to hook onto the back of a couple of team riders.

Alister Metherell steadily improved through the early years.  “I finished ninth in the first year of Coast, and while my times would continue to improve, my placings would drop back a little further each year.”

The second year of the Coast to Coast in 1984 was known as the “Year of The Flood!” The conditions at the time were such that in later years, Race Directors would definitely look to use alternate courses. “On the beach at Kumara, Robin Judkins said I’ve got some bad news. I think the weather will be ok today, but there’ll be a lot of rain later so the river will be up a bit for the kayak tomorrow.” Metherell’s response can just be heard on the video highlights package of the race and may have been the genesis of an idea that came to fruition in 1987. “I yelled out- Let’s do it all today!” Be careful what you wish for!

Like the vast majority of competitors, Alister juggles his training with his work in Agricultural Science and IT at Ravensdown. Despite the ups and downs of life, Metherell has never lost his enthusiasm for the race, and it’ll be a massive treat for both organisers and fellow competitors to have another of the originals back on the start line for the 40th anniversary, alongside his good friend Sherriff. The celebration of being back on the start line doesn’t end there for Alister Metherell, or indeed at the New Brighton finish line. Day two of the race will mark Alister’s 63rd birthday, so the challenge is there for all the competitors and spectators to wish him well when they see him out on the course! “Just getting to the finish will be the perfect present!”