Team Kiwi London Marathon

As chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand, husband of Janne and father of four, John leads a busy life. However, his shortage of time certainly hasn't stopped him from his new found passion, running. John is simply now a marathon junkie. In the last two years he's finished Rotorua twice, New York, and is running Berlin in September 2008. On top of this there are numerous 1/2 marathons, including running the Buller 1/2 and the Wellington 1/2 on consecutive days. A feat he even kept secret from Janne who would have quite rightly told him he was mad. John's fastest marathon is 3.21 and his goal for London is to go under this. John's charity of choice is Child Cancer New Zealand. Cancer is an invasive disease that has impacted almost all Kiwis, directly or indirectly. Its unwelcome intrusion is all the worse when it involves children. Child Cancer New Zealand does a fantastic job in providing support to young people and their families to help them through what are inevitably traumatic times. They benefit from and deserve our help."

   

Wellington-based lawyer, Hugh is a partner at Bell Gully where he practices in the finance and commercial property areas. He is a keen multi-sporter (of the weekend warrior type) and completed the one day individual Coast to Coast race in February 2009. Hopefully training for this race will have been a very good base for the London marathon, where Hugh will be aiming to break 3 hours 30 minutes.

Hugh is raising funds for The Neonatal Trust.  The focus of the Trust is to support the families of premature and sick babies. They also help by purchasing life saving equipment and provide support for the incredibly dedicated neonatal staff.  They deserve all the support they can get so they can continue to provide critical assistance through an often extremely stressful time.

   

The Manager of Wellington’s Adventure Travel, Karl is a self confessed exercise addict. His passion is Ironman and it’s become a yearly event for him. His fastest marathon on the back of Ironman is 3:25. In the one solo marathon he trained for he finished 4th in the 2005 Wellington Marathon in a time of 2:49. London will only be 6 weeks after the Taupo Ironman so his legs could still be a bit sore, however he’s pretty keen on breaking 3hrs.

Karl raises money every year on behalf of Te Omanga hospice where his mother passed away in 1993. They are simply incredible people and they need all the help they can get.

   

A 38 year old Tax Partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Todd has an impressive pedigree when it comes to marathons. He's a former winner of the Rotorua and Wellington marathons with a best time of 2 hours 23 minutes. In 2003, he won the NZ marathon championship. A career highlight was a top 50 place in the New York City marathon in 2005: "an amazing experience in an incredible city. I was blown away by the scale and hype of the event."

Todd's goals for London are to "enjoy the experience of one of the world's great marathons and to hopefully finish in the first few hundred". Todd's wife Georgina will be joining him on the trip to London, but both admit to mixed feelings about leaving their three children at home. Todd's chosen charity is Wellington Free Ambulance - "Our family has been the recipient of their prompt, professional and caring service. It means a lot to us to be able to give something back."

   

Why run?  Graham Stuart’s basic motivation for running is to eat and drink!  With a long career in food and beverages (currently Graham is the CEO of Sealord), Graham has been running on and off for over 20 years.

In the past few years his running has been more on than off since he rekindled his interest by running with Paul Clark in 2002.This year Graham’s goal is to better his time for his 7th Kepler Challenge (a 60km mountain race in Te Anau each December).

When choosing to run the London Marathon, Graham decided to raise funds for the Intellectually Handicapped Children’s Society, a charity he has supported for many years.

Graham's target time for London is 3:30.

   

At 52 years old and with 12 marathons under his belt, Paul is the only member of his family who runs!  A partner at PwC and father of three, Paul started running 25 years ago when he arrived in New Zealand on secondment (with PwC) from Scotland.

Paul’s personal best was 3:09 set in 1992 and with a “career break” (from running that is) to help with a growing family, he reacquainted himself with the road in 2002 having met Graham Stuart, setting out to run 10km in a time under their age in years (46)!

Since then Paul has gradually escalated the amount of time running and the length of races – completing the Rotorua marathon in 2007 (15 years later and 35 minutes slower than his previous one). Paul is raising funds for the Auckland City Mission.

   

At 53, married with three adult children and a grandfather, Alan is a committed long distance runner.  Running since 1996, the PwC partner has recently been transferred to Dubai, but international events feature highly, with Alan’s personal best being achieved in New York (2006) – an impressive 3:04:04. 
With over 95 half marathons in NZ and Australia under his belt, and having run his first marathon in just under 4 hours, Alan’s “stretch goal for London is under 3 hours but realistically any time under 3:30”.

As Alan’s wife Veronica works at Mercy Hospice in Auckland, he has first-hand knowledge of the services his selected charity offers and its own needs.  “Often in the terminal stages of cancer, patients and their families need support to get through the day to day living and the simple things really make a difference.  Mercy needs support to continue to provide community nursing and volunteer support as well as in house respite.”

   

As Managing Director Commercial for ANZ Banking Group in New Zealand Graham is a busy man.  Living in Devonport, Auckland with his wife Denise and children, Hamish (18), Nicholas (15) and Paige (12), fitness, sports and overall good health are important aspects of Turley family life.

Being his first, the London Marathon will be a great challenge to Graham. Drawing on five entries to the Auckland half marathon (3 of which were sub 90 minutes), Graham will be using this experience and his general fitness ability to achieve his target of 3:15 to complete the marathon.

Additional motivation will be his support of the New Zealand Rugby Foundation. Through his involvement with rugby, Graham recognises the need for this independent charitable trust, which provides assistance to seriously injured rugby players, their families, and other areas of need within New Zealand rugby.

   

A chartered accountant, Tim currently works for New Zealand's largest company, Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited, as their Group Reporting Manager.

Married to Sarah, Tim has chosen to run the London marathon in memory of his son Oliver, raising funds for the Nurture Foundation, which funds research into stillbirth.

Tim completed his first marathon in 2006, and by the end of 2008 will have completed six marathons in total.  With a personal best of 3:41 (at the Rotorua marathon), Tim's target time for the London marathon is 3:30.

   

At 50 Graeme is relatively new to running, having started about five years ago as part of an 80km relay run out of Bangkok to raise funds for the Save Hua Hin fund to improve the environment in one of the local towns in Thailand. This led to his first marathon in Bangkok, followed by Auckland and the Motutapu Icebreaker out of Wanaka.

By far his biggest challenge was the Oxfam 100km walk earlier this year which his team took 28 hours 34 mins to complete and in doing so raised $8000.

Short legs are not a runners best asset. Graeme describes himself as a shuffler, but with the ongoing support of his family, he will be using the London marathon to try for a personal best of  3:45.
New Zealand has the highest bowel cancer rate in the world but a lot can be done if it is caught early so Graeme is running to support the Cancer Research Charitable Trust.