Epic running challenge: 64-year-old has done 10km-plus daily for 1,461 days unbroken on quest to run the length of the equator before he’s 70
- Hong Kong runner Peter Hopper is 1,461 days into a challenge he set himself on his 60th birthday – run 5km-plus a day for 10 years. And he’s averaging over 10km
- He reveals what motivates him in his aim to run the length of the equator in a decade – achieve fitness, discipline, enjoy nature – and his favourite trails
Four years ago, Peter Hopper set his mind on a far larger number than his coming 60th birthday – 40,075, to be precise. This is both the length of the Earth’s equator in kilometres and the cumulative distance he planned to run in the decade before he turns 70.
“Right now, I am somewhere in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean heading for the Americas,” he says with a laugh.
What prompted Hopper, who grew up near Durham, in northeast England, to take up this challenge and how has he kept it going?
“I wanted a goal that would motivate me to get out there and run even as my years advance. I was inspired by Ron Hill, a British long-distance runner and Olympian who became well known for running a minimum of a mile every day for 53 years non-stop,” shares Hopper, now 64.