He materialises out of the gloom on Tauranga’s McLean St every morning. A shadow from the shadows.

Long before the city has yawned and stretched awake. The runner. Laurie Coughey. Aged 79, in his eightieth year. 

Through the rain, the drizzle, the chill, the dark.

At about 5.15am when lesser souls would be rolling over and going back to sleep, Laurie is pulling on his runners.

Day in, day out. Unbending, or “just plain stubborn” as his wife Jan prefers to think. 

“I have to go every day – pretty well every day,” says the runner.

I often spot Laurie on my way to work.

There’s unspoken respect. He’s fighting back the years and me, I’m fighting the industrial scrapheap, inevitable retirement.

So both of us stubborn, unyielding. 

Anyhow, it’s 5.45am and there’s Laurie again. The dark can’t disguise his distinctive gait. Kind of walking, kind of running.  

“It’s a shuffle,” says Jan.

“I call it a jog,” insists the runner.

“It’s a shuffle,” reaffirms the wife. 

Laurie Coughey’s doctor said he needed to lose weight so he bought some trainers, chopped off his jeans at the knees and hit the road. Seventy to eight minutes every day - further than many 79-year-olds can walk. Photo: John Borren.

A stride

Jog or shuffle, it’s a stride that carries this now 60kg wisp of a man for 80 minutes around the streets of Tauranga every morning.

From 11th Ave to Durham St, Chapel St, Elizabeth St and back to 11th Ave.

Including that pathway from the cul-de-sac at the end of The Strand to the cop shop  – it’s a real pinch, when he starts blowing hard.

“But I do it because I can, and I enjoy it.”

Simple as that. Wasn’t always that way though.

“At school l hated running. Never saw the point of it. I wasn’t very good at it and I liked to be good at things.” 

When Laurie materialised on McLean St one morning recently, this reporter thought the old bloke would have a story to tell.

Everyone does. Some are just more interesting than others.

So I stopped him in the dark.

“Do you have a minute?”

“No!” he growled. “If I stop I won’t get started again.”

And off he shuffled, jogged, towards that damned pathway, the one that makes him blow hard.

That only made me more determined.

But now, weeks later, here we are now in Laurie’s garage swapping life stories, exaggerations and fibs.

That’s the privilege of this job. 

The patient

Twenty years ago Dr Nick Hanna looked at patient Laurie – the near-100kg dairy farmer-turned-outdoor bowler and occasional beer drinker and told him he needed to lose weight.

The good doctor prescribed exercise. Told Laurie to start walking 10-15 minutes a day, nothing serious.

“I was quite chunky; I just ate too much.” 

Laurie began walking the Daisy Hardwick – probably 10km door-to-door.

“Can’t say I enjoyed it.

"And I said to myself: ‘Laurie if you didn’t eat so much you wouldn’t have to do this’.”

The message became his mantra.The walking became walking and jogging, then running the Daisy.

All the time reminding himself not to eat so much.

“Dr Nick kept me alive – absolutely. I’m indebted.” 

So Laurie started his running career in his early-sixties.

“Probably wouldn’t have made a living off it.”

But he shed 40kg in the process and stayed alive. 

The runner wears two knee supports.

“I go through the pain barrier with one of them. I just run through it.”

Apart from the ‘dicky knees’ the rest of the machine is in perfect running order after nearly eight decades and hundreds, possibly thousands of kilometres. 

Routine

This is a machine with a routine.

“I have to leave on my run between 5.30am and 5.45am. If it gets to six o’clock, I’m not happy. The routine is all to hell. And I like routine.” 

Another curiosity with ‘the runner’ is the get-up – hardly a walking, or shuffling clotheshorse, no advertisement for Nike or Under Armour.

"Looks like he’s just wandered in from the garden. The running shorts were jeans. I had to cut them off and sew them up,” says Jan.

“Probably why he goes out in the dark.” 

And a short-sleeved shirt and dress socks, not your typical runner’s kit. Then he’s off out the door.

“I wouldn’t wear any flash running kit – not that sort of person.” 

Like any sportsman Laurie has good days and bad days.

“After 50m I know if it’s going to be a good or bad day. The good days are real good, I could go another 15 minutes or half an hour.”

And the bad days won’t stop him.

“Only my coffin will do that.”

But he won’t be popping off anytime soon because there’s another pair of jeans waiting to be refashioned into sportswear.