VIDEO: A Halifax runner’s pastime of racing buses has made him a local celebrity

Have you ever been on a commute and thought, “I think I could run faster than this?”

Halifax resident Minh Tan had a similar though when he first began racing local buses to keep his running routine fresh and fun. He moved to Canada in 1980 and picked up running in his mid-twenties. Tan has run 31 marathons and keeps it fun by racing the number one bus.

The route begins at Scotia Square and ends at Mumford Terminal, which takes the bus about 28 minutes according to Google Maps. It’s a 6.3-kilometre run if running on the sidewalks along the route, which passes by Dalhousie University and through the downtown core. Depending on the day, it would take an average pace of 4:26 per kilometre to beat the bus.

He chooses to race Bus 1 – Spring Garden instead of a higher-numbered bus route so he can safely say “I’m number one.”

Tan emphasizes that he obeys all traffic laws during the friendly rivalry. The longtime runner admits that he has done the man versus bus race about 50 times in a 10-year span. His winning percentage is about 50 per cent, and he wouldn’t be doing it if “it [a win] was guaranteed.”

“‘Let’s see who the real number one is’ is something I say to myself during these races,” Tan said in January. His story was first posted on Halifolks in the winter before he was filmed racing on the evening of Aug. 23.

The video was made by Halifolks, which looks at the faces and stories of people living in the Halifax area. The concept was inspired by Humans of New York, a blog that features interviews with New York City residents.

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On the filmed occasion, Tan ends up beating the bus, with the whole situation made even better by the Halifax Transit bus driver, Brad, who congratulated the runner on his victory. Brad was clapping at Tan during the friendly competition and talking to Tan if he was within eyesight.

Tan occasionally gets high-fives from passengers who catch on with his race and ride the entire way tracking his progress. Passengers have even moved over to the opposite side of the bus so they have a closer look at Tan.

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In the race video, the driver humorously gave Tan a transfer for him to ride the bus on the way back so he didn’t have to run the return trip.

Tan commented on the video saying that he has been overwhelmed with messages since the video was posted on Aug. 24. In three days, the video has more than 101,000 views, 2,500 likes and 2,000 shares as the story has become a hit in the local community and across the province.

The winner of the friendly competition ends the video by saying “I was so excited that I had my shirt on the wrong way, it’s inside out.”

Below is the original feature of Tan on the Halifolks Facebook page, which preceded the follow-up video posted on Aug. 24.