25-05-2025
Runner ‘chuffed' with record
Former Dunedin ultra-distance runner Damian Watson nears the finish line of the Wild Horse 200 in South Wales. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Damian Watson did not just break the previous record for the Wild Horse 200 ultra-distance race across Wales, he absolutely smashed it, then ground it up into dust.
The race can take up to five days to complete, but the Dunedin-born and raised runner won it in 51 hours and 51 minutes — about five and a-half hours faster than the previous race record-holder.
The 38-year-old's mother Sharon Watson, of Dunedin, said it was held on a gruelling 200-mile (322km) trail, traversing the mountains of South Wales, along Offa's Dyke, traversing the Beacons Way before catching the Heart Of Wales Line on to the Wales Coast Path and finish line at Worm's Head.
"It's not like the Coast to Coast in New Zealand. It's a lot longer — 322km straight."
She said about 120 competed from across Europe and Watson was the only New Zealander.
"He's pretty chuffed with the win. He's really competitive.
"He's always been a sports person. He played ice hockey — he was a former Ice Black — and hockey, and then he took to marathon running.
"He can be very hard on himself. That's why he was so chuffed.
"He recently got third in a big race in the North Island which was a lot less kilometres in it, and he wasn't happy about it.
"He had the fitness, but he lost it mentally at the end."
Whatever went wrong upstairs, he seems to have fixed, she said.
"There was no way anyone was going to catch him.
"He basically led from the start and he was about 20km ahead."
She said he was "a proud Kiwi" and the family was delighted to see footage of him crossing the finish line, holding a New Zealand flag.
It appears there is no rest for the wicked.
She said he went back to work the next day as a Trafalgar Tours guide on a bus.
He spends the northern hemisphere summers tour guiding and doing marathons where he can, and in the New Zealand summer, he returns to help run his deli at Muriwai Beach with his business partners.
Mrs Watson said the former King's High School student was not the easiest child in the family to raise, because he was so "driven".
"But we're very proud of him."
