Male Runner of the Year: Joseph Michael Kai’Tsu Liu

Male Runner of the Year

JOSEPH MICHAEL KAI’TSU LIU

In July 2013, Joseph Michael Kai’Tsu Liu left the Arc’teryx store on Ste. Catherine Street in Montreal, and headed out for a run. He wound down a usual local route towards the Lachine Canal, and then took the bridge over to the South Shore. From there, like Forrest Gump, he kept on going. He has been running ever since, and over the course of the end of 2013 and all of 2014, he made his way through the United States and Mexico. At the time of this writing, he’s about to move into Guatemala and start across Central America, to reach his final goal of Ushuaia, in Argentina, the southernmost city in the world.

Why? JMK, as he is known to friends, was a decent distance runner with a 10k PB of under 36 minutes, and had just finished an engineering degree. Faced with the question of what was next in his life, he wanted to challenge himself with something more. He conceived of a plan to run all the way down the Americas, mostly because no one had ever done that before. He assembled a support team who would help him get the word out, raise the money for his trip, and take care of administrative tasks while he was out on the road.

While the goal of the trip began as a simple personal challenge, along the way he has partnered with orga- nizations dedicated to improving educational opportunities for low-income children in their respective countries. In Canada, money raised went to Pathways to Education, in the United States, it went to Edible Schoolyard, and in Mexico, the institution is called Acortar Distancias. There is a Peruvian organization called Minkando that is currently the South American representative of this program.

The idea of running (and only running) for days on end may seem romantic to some runners. But being out on the road is not without challenges. Weather can be relentless, and not knowing where you will be able to rest your head at night can weigh heavily on the mind. Various incidents and technical malfunctions have forced JMK to delay his progress, or take alternate means of transportation. So far though, he has maintained forward progress, even if he hasn’t gotten as far as fast as he had planned. But to undertake a run of this length – nearly 20,000 kilometres– you can’t be in a rush. You just have to keep going.