''Actually, surprisingly good,'' was how he felt.
All that was surprising, not only because of his half-marathon effort. Less than two years ago, Cunningham was told he might never walk again.
His story featured in Saturday's Otago Daily Times.
In November 2012 he was left paralysed from the waist down, after the simple action of leaning forward in the bath caused a disc in his spine to ''explode''.
He underwent emergency surgery and was told there was a good chance he would never walk again.
But a ''bloody-minded'' determination meant he had worked on his recovery every day since.
Despite his right leg - which took a year to work again after his injury - being noticeably thinner than his left, Cunningham decided in just the past two weeks to give the Cadbury Dunedin half-marathon a go.
He made that decision after he was persuaded by friend Sarah Chisnall, who won yesterday's women's section of the full marathon.
Cunningham completed the half-marathon in 2hr 28min, and ''managed to jog the whole way - no walking''.
He said he was ''stoked''.
''Even though this is easily my worst half marathon time, that wasn't really the point''.
After a slow start, - ''my leg takes about 20 minutes to warm up'' - he got to a pace he kept for most of the rest of the race.
''At about the 11km mark I began to get a very leaden right leg, my weak leg was beginning to think, 'Oh my God'.''
Despite ''hitting the wall'' for a while, he came through, despite a strong urge to drop back to a walk.
''I just thought 'I'm bloody determined to do this now'.
''Coming into the last kilometre I managed to accelerate and run almost normally.''
He also found reaction to his effort from spectators and other runners ''so uplifting'', as many recognised him and saying: ''Keep going mate''.
His body felt ''surprisingly good''.
''It'll be interesting to see how it feels tomorrow morning, but just a few aches and pains.''
