DJ's marathon effort to run again

BEN WATSON/North Shore Times

READY TO RUN: Radio DJs Dominic Harvey and Jay Jay Feeney are looking forward to taking part in the Adidas Auckland half marathon and quarter marathon.

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Dominic Harvey was just 4km into the 2005 Auckland Marathon when he started feeling unwell.

He was whisked to the emergency department of North Shore Hospital where he burst into tears.

But it wasn't the state of his health that upset him.

"It was because I'd done four months of training and only got to run four kilometres," he says.

The Edge radio station DJ had stopped at a St John Ambulance tent to get his blood pressure checked after feeling off colour.

Before he knew it he was being told by ambulance staff that his blood pressure was dangerously high and he had to leave straight away.

Doctors were originally at a loss to explain what was wrong but eventually discovered Dominic had a tumour in his stomach the size of a grapefruit.

Luckily it was benign and able to be successfully removed without any complications.

But the news still came as a massive shock to Dominic as well as his wife and fellow Edge DJ Jay Jay Feeney.

"It was pretty serious. He could have died," she says.

Jay Jay had been taking part in the quarter marathon event on the same day and did not know what had happened to her husband until after she had finished the race.

"It was really scary because I knew something was wrong with him but I didn't know what it was."

Dominic says he'd been sick on the occasional training run before his diagnosis but did not think anything was seriously wrong.

Now husband and wife are lining up to take part in the Adidas Auckland half marathon and quarter marathon on October 28.

Last year more than 10,000 people took part in the event.

Dominic says he has relished the challenge of getting back into running since his illness and has been training hard for the race.

"I don't remember ever enjoying running this much," he says.

"If I could break the one hour 30 I'd be ecstatic."

Jay Jay admits her training programme has not been quite as rigorous as her other half but says she will be knuckling down over the next three weeks.

Entries for the marathon and half marathon are now closed.

However, entries for the quarter marathon and 5km walk are still open.

- © Fairfax NZ News