Tips to age well from a 90 year old runner
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At the BMO half-marathon last month, Yul Kwon won in his category with a time of 3:50:33. He also came in last in his category.
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That’s because he was the only runner in the 90-plus division.
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Until this year, the marathon categories ended at the 85-89 age group.
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“It would be unfair for someone in their 90s to race against someone in their 80s,” he joked.
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So Kwon, who is 90, wrote to marathon organizers to plead his case. They responded by adding a new category.
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Kwon beams like a kid.
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Sunrise
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“Happiness is my priority now,” he says. “At my age, I can see the end of my life. It’s important to cherish every moment.”
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Running, a hobby he took up at the age of 60, is part of that. At the age of 80, he won his age group in the Boston marathon.
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In the lobby of Seasons Wesbrook Village Retirement Community, where he lives near UBC, a woman reaches for his arm, stopping him to talk. He is on his way to the washroom. She won’t let go.
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Kwon, a retired economics professor, is something of a celebrity here. He has been nominated for the community’s “remarkable residents” honour.
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“Running is hard,” he says. Moving through what is uncomfortable brings rewards. One of those is joy, he explains. He runs because he can.
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Kwon wears clean New Balance sneakers, neatly tied.
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Born to impoverished farmers in a village on Korea’s southern peninsula, Kwon had no shoes until he learned to weave his own out of rice straw.
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The rice his family harvested was allocated to the Japanese colonial occupiers. There was no running water or toilet, and Kwon felt shame about his distended belly, swollen from starvation and parasites.
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Kwon was one of nine children. Three did not survive infancy. “Somehow I survived.”
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His parents scraped together money to send him to elementary, and later middle school, in Masan, something his siblings did not get to do.
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His best hope was “the vague prospect” of working in an office. He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, only that he wouldn’t have to work in the fields.
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But the North Korean invasion on June 25, 1950, ended his schooling. He returned home. Luck stepped in again, briefly. “I was too young to be drafted,” said Kwon.
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Kwon’s village was caught in months of bombardment between North Korean and American forces.
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His mother was killed, and the family displaced. When the war ended, his father did not have money to send him back to school. He was sent to work in the fields. Kwon decided to run away. His sister-in-law sewed him a backpack, loaded it with his text books and some dry rice.
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On the 20-kilometre walk back to Masan, the grief-stricken child saw the devastation of the war.
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“There was nothing left. All the villages were burned.”
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Kwon began his studies again. To support himself, he peddled newspapers. “I was so lonely,” he said.
