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

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Peter Hopper, 64, runs on Bowen Road, Hong Kong. The veteran runner set himself a challenge on his 60th birthday – to run at least 5km a day for 10 years. He’s kept it up for four years, averaging over 10km a day. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 7:45am, 2 Sep 2023Updated: 9:27am, 2 Sep 2023

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.

Hopper’s challenge to himself, he decided, was to run at least 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) every day for the next 10 years. Four years into the challenge, he has an unbroken streak of 1,461 days in which he has run over 10km every day.

“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?

Hopper on Bowen Road in Mid-Levels on Hong Kong Island, one of his favourite trails. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

“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.

It helped that he knew what he was getting himself into: the experienced runner, who moved to Hong Kong in 2000, started running in school and kept it up through his 20s and 30s. He started taking his hobby seriously after arriving in Hong Kong in his 40s.