Marathon runner ponders her global streak after ultra-sporty vacation week
In Antarctica she was bundled head to foot including goggles and a face mask while running on snow-covered ice, yet still she managed to run 26.2 miles. Yes, a marathon.
Within the same week in early February, she did the same thing, again and again – in South Africa, Australia, Dubai, Spain, Brazil and finally Miami, Florida. She fell several times on a rock-strewn hill near a village an hour outside Madrid. That hurt her knees, and one still ached after she returned to all-night shifts last week as a nurse anesthetist at Detroit’s DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital.
Yet, far outweighing that pain, said Jin Zhu, 59, of Farmington Hills, has been the thrill of notching a coveted "7-7-7." That means running seven marathons in seven days on, no kidding, all seven world continents. Not many have done it. The World Marathon Challenge is a show of athletic prowess that’s improbably difficult and costly. Zhu’s husband and their two sons gave her the globe-trotting vacation week as an early 60th birthday gift, for about $45,000, she said.
“I feel like my body is fine. My knee is kind of swollen and there’s still a little pain now. But I have no muscles sore,” Zhu said. She chuckled as she reminisced about her break-neck week of marathons, shared with a dozen women and two dozen men, along with medical and race staff, who flew chartered planes from continent to continent.
Detroit nurse accomplishes rare feat: 7 marathons in 7 continents in 7 days
Reached at her hospital job last week, and with her knee sending twinges of pain, she wasn’t ready to sign up for this October’s Detroit Free Press International Marathon, although she has fond memories of it from a decade ago, as the first of many marathons she has finished since. Still, Zhu didn't rule it out, and Free Press race officials said they’d make a fuss over her if she returns to downtown Detroit to run the race the newspaper founded in 1978. Her knee needs rest and an orthopedist's exam, which she has scheduled, Zhu said.
“People came from 13 countries. Antarctica didn’t have a shower. The other places – they all had those facilities in, like, sports centers. In Madrid, it was a high school.
“But in Brazil, we didn’t have time to have a shower” because flight delays put the group behind in the rush to squeeze seven races within seven days, she said. Running behind schedule, literally, Zhu and the others started their last marathon in Miami after midnight, just 17 hours after starting their previous race in Brazil. She finished, as she did for each race, in well under five hours.
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The group did not stay in hotels because there so little time between races, so the only time to sleep was aboard the jet flights. Zhu should've been exhausted after that last race, where was joined for her last mile by members of a Miami-based club of Chinese American runners, then was greeted at the finish line by her husband and sons. She should've demanded a quiet hotel room for a 12-hour rest. Not this runner.
“I couldn’t sleep," she said. "I was very excited to finish, very excited to see my family and so happy to meet the local Chinese runners,” said Zhu, who was born in China.
“Back to Michigan, I’m back to normal sleep. I work the night shift at the hospital, you know,” she said.
In fact, Zhu is notorious among coworkers for working night shifts in warm weather, then driving immediately to Kensington Metropark in Milford to train for 15 to 20 miles, often meeting friends who join her on long runs.
Zhu pulled off this month's global challenge off with stunning aplomb, grabbing several second places, a third and a fourth among the group of women who competed, many of them far younger and presumably in their physical prime. (Her fastest time was 3:48:29 in Dubai; and slowest was 4:36:44 in the Antarctic, which is still less than 11 minutes per mile on ice fields near the South Pole.)
The quirky World Marathon Challenge, and Zhu’s success, illustrates two unexpected trends in marathon running, said Ed Kozloff, the founding race director of the Free Press International Marathon and a national authority on the 26.2-mile distance. Kozloff's basement in Huntington Woods contains such an impressive archive of running literature, medals and mementos that it once rated a two-page spread in “Runner’s World” magazine. He said one surprising trend is that for many runners the thrill has switched to accumulating race finishes, not beating the clock, Kozloff said.
“More and more, people aren’t always worried about their time. It’s become just how many races you can do,” he said. Another surprising trend, according to Kozloff, is that many of the nation’s aging runners aren’t quitting. Their unexpected persistence, call it running addiction if you will, applies to Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964), the group that includes Zhu; and to Gen Xers (born 1965-1980), Kozloff said.
“The age factor has extended. People who might’ve thought they were too old at 60 or 65 are still running,” he said. The ultimate geezer jock in this year's World Marathon Challenge was 80-year-old Dan Little of Madill, Oklahoma. His pace was about half that of Zhu's, yet Little managed to finish all but one marathon, the one in Brazil, when race organizers called a halt to his exertions and hustled everyone to the airport, trying to stay within their seven-day schedule.
So, what did Little do? He finished his marathon at the airport, Zhu said, laughing as she recalled the scene.
“He was going in a big circle in the airport," she said, adding: "He’s a very nice guy. He said he wants to do it again next year.”
Contact Bill Laytner: blaitner@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit nurse is home with aching knee after 7 marathons in 7 days
