SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese endurance athlete Bai Bin, who has been called China's Forrest Gump, has run to Los Angeles, his first stop in the western United States, after a 307-day odyssey from Antarctica, his logistics team leader Li Zhenyu said Friday.
Unlike Gump, who was portrayed as a man who was often bullied for his physical disability and slow wit but having a strong will and perseverance in a 1994 American comedy-drama film, Bai is a famous Chinese endurance runner with a Gump-style iron will.
Bai has completed a 10,000-km-long distance run along the ancient Chinese Silk Road spanning western China, Central Asia and Europe in just 150 days in 2011, Li said after a press briefing in Silicon Valley, Northern California.
The Silk Road run, which Bai described as a "not a strong enough challenge' for him, inspired his more ambitious goal of running from Antarctica to the Arctic, a roughly 23,000-km-long expedition that would cover more than 60 cities in 13 countries and regions on the entire American continent, Bai told Xinhua.
After he started from the Great Wall Station of China in Antarctica on March 1, Bai ran across Ushuaia, a remote outpost in Argentina's Patagonian region, the world's southernmost city, and trekked northward along the west coast of South America. He is scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Jan. 10.
Due to numerous unexpected challenges on the way, Bai said he has to extend the long-haul odyssey which he originally planned to complete within 300 days to about 400 days.
He recalled that he had surmounted unimaginable difficulties ranging from exotic foods that were unsuitable for his palate, injuries to his feet during the middle of the race, tough weather conditions, steep mountains and valleys, sophisticated road conditions, to even being kidnapped by a group of gunmen in Mexico in November 2018.
"At one point, I almost doubted whether I could finish this journey because I experienced such a stifling heat in Central America that even a small movement could leave me all wet with sweat," Bai said of the scorching sun. "I could hardly run in this kind of engulfing heat wave."
Bai ran about six to 10 hours a day, or the equivalent of 60 to 90 km, the length of two marathon races.
The Chinese long-distance runner, who has just turned 49 years old, felt regret that he has not been able to accompany his wife, who gave birth to their second baby back in China while he was running a formidable race in Peru.
"Anyway, I love running and I had a sense of mission of challenging the Antarctica-to-Arctic race in five years shortly after I completed the Silk Road run in 2011," Bai said.
"I'm not going to stop running, and I plan to keep running even when I reach 80 years old," he said, with a broad smile.
Bai is expected to reach the finish line of his long-distance run in Fairbanks, the largest city close to the Arctic Circle in the interior region of the northwest U.S. state of Alaska, by the end of March or early April.
