Running a marathon around the sports field 24 hours a day, are they crazy?

I went to Fujian, mainland China last week to help runners prepare for their first 24-hour race. I found out that the time and location of their race have been changing, and the contact window has also changed. Only after I went there in person did I know the details. the whole story. It turns out that a runner who teaches at a university originally wanted to hold the event in the name of the school because he came to our Soochow University to compete and personally experienced the charm of our event. He also wanted to hold an event in his school according to our event model and become the second largest in the world. A university that organizes a 24-hour ultramarathon has a good motive. Unexpectedly, after reporting it to the school, it received an unexpected response.

When I introduced the 24-hour ultramarathon to my school in 1999, I encountered almost the same difficulties. The school refused and asked two questions that most people would intuitively ask: "Will running for 24 hours kill anyone?" "Will the contestants be problematic and strange people (implying mental aspects)?" After all, a university is an academic palace, and every activity should have educational significance and bring positive effects to the students. learning effect. Such questions are quite understandable. The school authorities of the mainland runners also had such considerations, so he was rejected. Secondly, he organized it in the name of the school road running association and borrowed the track and field field from the school, but he failed to do so.

In the name of holding an event and conducting academic research at the same time, I also explained that one of the runners who wanted to participate was a professor from the University of Hong Kong to convince the school, and finally got approval to run it on a trial basis. What followed was an unexpected success. The media sensed the news and rushed to report it. There was a row of TV SNG trucks waiting all night to report online at any time. Suddenly, it became a topic. Students saw runners running for 24 hours without sleep, and their sports horizons were broadened. I also carefully invited international athletes to participate, such as the men's world record holder Yaniskoros from Greece. (Yiannis Kouros), Japanese players Ryoichi Seki and Kenji Okiyama, women's world record holder Irina Reutovich of Russia, current world record holder Miss Mari Kudo of Japan, etc. Year by year, it has become a special event of the school. When walking outside the school, I found that when people mention Soochow University, they think of the 24-hour ultramarathon. The runners are proud to be invited to participate. "Five Color Runway" is the holy land of ultramarathons in Taiwan. We also found that this event also has the effect of uniting students and alumni. In 2006, it was suspended once due to campus construction, and we also received many concerned calls from alumni.

In the past few years, newspaper reports were very large, but they were all described with sensational adjectives. For example, headlines such as "A group of lunatics ran on the playground of Soochow University for 24 hours." After a few years, Years later, everyone gradually understood that the ultramarathon was not mysterious. These athletes indeed achieved such incredible results after solid training. Everyone began to deeply understand and appreciate the essence of the ultramarathon. The Soochow University Ultramarathon has become one of the annual global ultramarathon events. It has set national records in 9 countries in one day, as well as continental records in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Japan’s Miss Makoto Kudo even broke two records on our track. Second world record!

Mainland runners know that our initial story is exactly the same as their current experience. The key is: there are still a vast majority of people who do not understand ultramarathon sports, and their running horizons are limited to marathons. For those over 42 years old, The kilometer marathon event is filled with strangeness and questions. During a gathering with them, someone suggested that I make a special trip to their school to give a speech to let the school understand how our ultramarathon, which has been held for 15 years and will enter its 16th on December 3 this year, has caused a rush to sign up for race volunteers among students. What can we do? Create an atmosphere so that invited runners are willing to give their last effort in our event and jointly achieve the only road running gold medal event in Taiwan.