▲ Marathoner Jeongil Ahn

Marathoners have to run 42.195 kilometers to complete the course. For many marathoners, not to mention amateur runners, the distance is challenging and it is a fight with no one but oneself. For this reason, completing the course itself is a pride of the runner who has won the long and lonely battle. While marathon is an official event of the Olympics or held as a single even throughout the world, some people just love running and they often claim they were born to run. Jeongil Ahn, a South Korean marathoner, also claims himself as a born-runner. 

He worked for the U.S. Army in Seoul for 6 years during which he ran almost every day after work. Watching him running every day, some officers tipped off that there were bigger ground and more events in the US like Death Valley or east-west transect. Opened his eye wide, he set up a goal to join the Hawaii Honolulu International Marathon in 1989 and trained himself by running more than 10,000 kilometers in LA, New York, Hawaii and New Zealand for 3 years. He ran the marathon indeed and completed the course. Back homeland, he ran cross-country marathon of 5,000 kilometers twice. Not complacent, he pushed himself to extreme by running mountain ridges with a 20 kilogram backpack.

He is now preparing for the Running Races 2022 starting from July 1. The races cross 16 countries in the Central Asia on a total 17,000 kilometers in 395 days. The countries include Japan, South Korea, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Thailand. Ahn was born in 1952 and is 69 years old now. <PowerKorea>

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