Jolyon Swinburn, of Wellington, and Blake Plummer, of Auckland, were Otago University students in Dunedin 20 years ago, when a bet was launched after "one too many drinks".
"We’re not quite sure how the conversation started, but it ended with Blake saying to the group of friends that were present, ‘I might be a slow runner, but at least I’m not as slow as Jo’," Mr Swinburn said.
"I took a beating for that - I said, ‘That’s simply not true, Blake. You name a time and place and a distance and whatever amount of money you want to put on it and I’ll beat you in whatever race you want’.
"We somehow landed on a marathon when we were 40 years old."
There was also money on the table - $10,000, which was to be paid to the winner some 20 years later.
The pair eventually settled on the 2025 Emerson’s Dunedin Marathon as the chosen event.
However, "late into the piece", this evolved into the loser shouting the "running party" - about 35 of their friends and family who had travelled to Dunedin to witness the event - a full dinner and drinks at Etrusco restaurant.
"We’ve both been turning our attention to this over the last couple of years, actually. Slowly, slowly. We’re not runners, so we had to start off small and deal with injuries and niggles and life as well.
"Running gives you a lot of time to think but much beyond that, this bet has been a common topic of discussion for our friends and the hype around it has been at fever pitch recently. To have 35 of us down in Dunedin celebrating together has been amazing."
He did not know what to expect from Mr Plummer, as each had done their training "in secrecy".
"We started shoulder-to-shoulder not knowing how much training each had in their legs and what they were thinking of doing."
Mr Swinburn finished with a time of 3hr 28min 13sec.
"The good thing about running is that it actually does get easier. Once you pass through the first few kilometers and pass through the first niggle or two, there are moments in which you can really enjoy it and actually get to see where you’ve been.
"It’s a good way to see a city."
But Mr Swinburn said there would be other opportunities.
"As part of the agreement, the loser had to run another marathon, but I’m really keen to also run one more."
2025 Emerson’s Dunedin Marathon media spokeswoman Becs Adlam said there were close to 3800 people who participated in the event in some form this year, compared with just over 3600 last year.
There were 533 who ran the full marathon, and another 1471 who ran the half marathon, with runners and walkers participating in various 10km and 5km events in good numbers.
There were no major medical events, and "just the usual blisters" for a lot of the runners, but yesterday’s high winds proved a challenge, Ms Adlam said.
"Once they got back down around the harbour, the conditions deteriorated very quickly.
"A lot of them finished saying, ‘gosh, that wind was not our friend today’, but they still enjoyed the race."
