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Colorful crowds of people, gathered in the narrow streets of the old town square, can not see the head at a glance. In the early morning in Prague in May, the temperature is only 2 degrees, and some people are witty in down jackets, and many more wear only sports shorts to warm up on the bumpy cobblestone roads. The 10,600 runners gathered in the alleys repeatedly ran 42.195 kilometers around the Old Town through the Gothic Tyne Church, the Baroque Church of St. Nicholas, the exquisite Astronomical Clock, and the Charles Bridge on the Vltava River.
This year's Prague Marathon has seen more than 500 Chinese runners, about 200 of whom are cheering on one person.
This man is Mao Daqing, who completed his 100th full horse here.
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01
"The coward never set out, and the weak died on the way,
Only we are left to move on."
Mao Daqing's first full marathon began in Prague in 2013, took 5 hours and 10 minutes to finish, and when he returned to the hotel, he sat in the bathtub and cried loudly, which was a big breakthrough for him. Because he was weak from an early age and failed to pass the middle school sports, he could not go to Tsinghua High School, and Mao Daqing was not cold to sports since he was a child. He said that if he had not worked at Vanke, he would not have run a marathon in his life and would not have had anything to do with sports.
At that time, Wang Shi and Yu Liang, the chairmen of Vanke, promoted sports culture inside and outside the company, and Wang Shi's "7+2" (climbing the highest peak of the seven continents + hiking the north and south poles) inspired many people, "Wang Shi's influence on me was too great, and the world was turned upside down." At that time in Vanke, if you didn't get a little bit of sports, you estimated that it would be difficult to work there. Mao Daqing said.
Once in a meeting with Vanke executives, more than a dozen executives were present, and everyone talked about their sports one by one, saying that it was either climbing mountains or running or cycling, "I found that no one would engage in water, I suddenly said I could swim, and then a room full of people didn't talk, and they looked at me for half a day." ”
Mao Daqingjianghu nicknamed Qingqing Brother,
From a sports insulator to a sports expert.
Before the horse race, Mao Daqing could not sleep, lack of energy, and lack of appetite because of the pressure of work, the doctor diagnosed him with depression and prescribed 6 kinds of drugs, each of which had great side effects. Later, Mao Daqing translated a book called "The Power of Running", written by a lawyer on Wall Street, drinking, smoking, a greasy middle-aged man, climbing a staircase will be very breathless. Once, as he walked to his daughter's room at night, it occurred to him that when her daughter walked into the marriage hall holding someone's hand, he was probably no longer alive, and he began to run and cheer up. The human body lurks a midlife crisis, and if the body is excessively squandered, it will sound the alarm bell in advance. But it is a crisis and a turning point.
Driven by the atmosphere of Vanke, Mao Daqing began to learn to run, and ran the first five kilometers of his life. Confidence was stimulated, and gradually the monthly running volume reached 100-120 kilometers, which made Mao Daqing look at himself with astonishment, feeling that life had pushed open a completely strange window. Because of the systematic exercise, life becomes more regular, and depression is also "run" away.
When he ran to the 10 full horses, Mao Daqing saw an interview with Qiu Qianyang after completing the hundred horses in this magazine, and Mao Daqing admired the dedication and love of the post-90s to the marathon, so he also determined the goal that seemed very grand at the time: hundred horses.
Running a marathon will make people discover potentials that they did not know before, and Mao Daqing began to feel that "people need to challenge what they dare not touch." Wework, a coworking space that emerged in New York at this time, has attracted a lot of attention, and the success of this model has inspired the real estate industry a lot. The entrepreneurial boom is rolling in, and the prime minister put forward the slogan of "mass entrepreneurship, mass innovation" at this year's summer Davos Forum.
Mao Daqing's inner surging resonates with the tide of the times, and he is preparing to resign and start a business in early 2015. Mao Daqing said that the proudest thing in his life is that all decisions follow his heart. This is true whether it is throwing away the iron rice bowl a month after the university assigned a job, or leaving the foreign company CapitaLand Real Estate to come to Vanke.
However, the decision to leave the domestic real estate giant Vanke was still very entangled, and it took the Daxu Rural Marathon to finally have the courage to go to the headquarters to talk about resignation. Yu Liang said afterwards: "For me personally, I taught him (Mao Daqing) to run, and the most regrettable thing is that he can run, but he runs." ”
After starting a business, you will find that entrepreneurship and running horses have similarities: at the beginning of the entrepreneur's business, you must run with all your strength to shake off the large army of wuyang around you, and there will naturally be a better scenery in front of you; but once you are in front, it is decided that you must go all out, otherwise you are likely to fall behind, and entrepreneurship is a marathon with no end.
Ucommune Rents an entire office building at a discounted price and then splits it into separate office spaces to rent to startups or innovative businesses. Mao Daqing began to have a large number of chores every day, to meet all kinds of investors, entrepreneurs, customers, but no matter how busy, will squeeze out time to participate in the marathon, he wants to use this "simplest thing" to empty the distractions, empty the anger.
The average life expectancy of American companies is 8 years, while the average lifespan of Chinese companies is only two or three years. What many startups lack is tenacity, and what is honed the most by running marathons is resilience. If entrepreneurs can be more resilient, they will have more possibilities to pass certain thresholds.
Entrepreneurship and marathon, Mao Daqing has to grasp both hands, both hands have to be hard, so he has become a double evangelist on entrepreneurship and running on the road.
02
"If you don't manage your weight well, you can't manage your life well"
For the average marathon enthusiast, registration is a headache. At the beginning of each year, Mao Daqing has to plan and register for many events, and will also give full play to his influence advantages, so that the fan group "Yarn Group", sponsors, and runners can help him register. His registration principle is to strive for no duplication of running locations and to pursue a more lucrative experience. Fifty or sixty shows will be reported in advance every year to ensure that twenty shows can be reported. How to arrange a good time to finish and go back and forth in a busy work is also a complex science.
When asked which was the most difficult of the 100 horses, Mao Daqing first mentioned: Heilongjiang Fuyuan Ice Marathon. Runners have to run on the ice surface of Heilongjiang on the Border River between China and Russia, the temperature is minus 33 degrees, and the ice and snow in some parts are very slippery, especially sadistic. After running back to the car, it was impossible to slow down for a long time, and Mao Daqing would now mention it and say: "It's terrible, it's cold." This marathon killed me and I didn't run, and I didn't run a second time for how much money I gave. ”
But the abuse on the road is endless. After completing the world's six marathons in London, Mao Daqing was "eager to move" to challenge the so-called "coolest" Arctic Circle marathon.
The Arctic Marathon is an elite event in the marathon event, with a registration fee of nearly 100,000 yuan and only a few dozen people participating in the marathon. The first 7 kilometers, to run on the 10,000-year ice sheet, step by step, you must wear crampons to run; after running out of the ice sheet, it is a continuous snow slope, the whole 838 meters climb, 27 ups and downs, and the blizzard will suddenly hit without warning. Because of the harsh environment and climate, this was once the place to test the maximum withstand limits of car tires. The "surprise" in the ambush may be frostbite or it may be the encounter with a polar bear.
For four days, the contestants lived a life of being lost in the polar region, Mao Daqing said that "the environment is suffocating", in addition to the Wifi signal of the limited location, there is no mobile phone signal, and the mobile phone is quickly turned off when it is taken out, and the hands are also frozen.
Founded in 2002, the tournament has not been noticed by the Chinese people until 2014, after which the number of chinese participants gradually increased, and 13 of the 62 participants in 2018 were from China, and Xie Guoping also won the women's championship.
When he really started running, After starting three kilometers, Mao Daqing felt that he would definitely not be able to reach the end. Along the way, I kept climbing, descending, and climbing again, as if there was no end. Mao Daqing realized: "What you touch is the elusive nature, the boundless loneliness and despair, the vast world that makes you feel that you are too small to mention. ”
After thousands of hardships, I ran to the two sideburns and white frost and white eyebrows, and finally finished the game. At this time, Mao Daqing repeated a sentence in his heart: I finally came back alive!
Running horses is painful and happy, and happiness and pain are the main themes. And it is inevitable that the injury, Mao Daqing once had a torn ligament while skiing, almost the end of his running career, but before he could fully recover, he dragged his injured leg to run the Seoul Marathon, leaving another unforgettable "first horse".
In addition to famous events such as the Big 6 and the North and South Poles, Mao Daqing also clocked in many marathon events held for the first time.
China's marathon fever has gradually heated up since around 2011. At a race held in a remote province at the time, a fellow villager also asked a breathless runner with pity, "Tired of this, who gave you the money to get this mile?" Runners had to awkwardly explain that they had to pay someone else for this torture.
But in just a few years, China's marathons have surged from dozens a year to 400. On the Sunday of April 15, 2018, more than 40 marathons were held across the country. Few people ask why they pay for guilt, and marathons are no longer considered a dangerous extreme sport.
According to the "2018 China Marathon Annual Theme Report" report, 1581 marathon events were held in China in 2018, with a total annual industrial output of 74.6 billion yuan and a total of 5.83 million participants in the whole year.
The Chinese marathon has ranked first in the total number of IAAF signage events, forming a mature industrial chain with runners, events, tourism and city image promotion as the core. This frenzy was fueled by event organizers and sponsors, and spontaneously transmitted by runners.
More and more Chinese people go abroad to run horses, the scale of the "marathon tourism economy" has reached hundreds of millions, Mao Daqing shared a set of amazing figures: in 2018, China's civil aviation revenue was 785.3 billion, and air tickets from the marathon contributed 34.5 billion. Running horses abroad has become a big business: investing more than 100,000 yuan can help you complete the wish of running the "world's top 6"; if you are willing to invest more and have excellent physical fitness, you can even help you get the most bullish "777" - the participant completes 7 marathons in 7 days and in 7 major states. The entry fees, travel costs and special equipment for some events are very expensive, shielding many ordinary runners and becoming "RMB players" or a paradise with sponsored runners. The psychological need to constantly challenge and explore the limit has spawned some new events, which has led to the increasing difficulty of the marathon "global punch card".
Horse racing mania and national power growth seem to have a positive correlation, with marathon fever in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan originating even earlier. According to statistics, in 2014, the number of people running 100 horses in Taiwan has exceeded 500.
Up to now, the number of people who have completed a hundred horses on the mainland is only close to the scale of breaking a hundred (the preliminary statistics are 87), and some people have run nearly three hundred. Among the 87 hundred horse masters: there is the late Yang Yuan, the first person of China's hundred horses; there is a post-90s like Qiu Qianyang (who has run nearly 300 full horses); there are also 60- and 70-year-old runners such as Li Xiaobai and Tian Tongsheng; there are more miracles of 100 days and 100 horses such as Jin Feibao, Chen Pengbin and others; and there are more than ten female runners.
Runners are distributed in all walks of life, especially in the real estate circle, automobile circle, sports brands, running horse has also become a platform for the display of urban image and corporate image. Entrepreneurs constitute an important force in the horse racing circle, in addition to the running circle Tian Tongsheng, Li Xiaobai, Mao Daqing, there are also a large number of entrepreneurs such as Ding Shuibo, president of Xtep, Yuan Xiaolin, president of Volvo.
Yu Liang's sentence: "If you don't have time to exercise, you have time to get sick; if you don't manage your weight, you can't manage your life", to the point. Many middle-class people have begun to use horse racing as a fulcrum for life after middle age. Because marathons are a legal way of gathering groups, this kind of mass carnival can release people's accumulated passion, and naturally attract many people who like to join in the fun.
After completing 100 full marathons, Mao Daqing weighed the 100 marathon finishing medals, 18.4 kilograms. He also took great care to collect medals, certificates, number books, and even tournament manuals for 100 games. He wrote: "The full horse of 4219.5 kilometers, plus more than 30 half horses, is about 5000 kilometers. After walking thousands of miles and reading thousands of books, I have the most intuitive understanding. ”
03
Add a fulcrum to the second half of your life
Ordinary people run marathons not mainly compared with other runners, but with themselves. On the track, you can see the personal miracles created by many people.
On the track, there will be elderly people, there will also be disabled runners, and some blind people will rely on guide dogs to run the whole distance. Mao Daqing was particularly touched by an old lady he met while running the Antarctic Marathon.
The Antarctic Marathon closed for 11 hours, and the Vietnamese-American old lady was the last to finish the marathon, which took 9 hours and 57 minutes. Mao Daqing noticed that the old lady had been running crookedly, and she didn't know it when she talked, because she was injured in the bombing of American planes during the Vietnam War, and her legs were short. "The most surprising thing is that the old lady was 74 years old at the time (according to CNN, the old man was 70 years old at the time) and actually ran 777, and the Antarctic Marathon was the last."
From January 25 to 31, 2017, Vietnamese-American Chau Smith began her marathon in Perth, Australia, running seven marathons on 7 continents: Perth, Singapore, Cairo, Amsterdam, New York, Punta Arenas in Chile and King George Island in Antarctica, completing 777 feats at the age of 70.
The Weather in that Antarctic Marathon was bad, the snow and ice hit the face, the road was muddy, and the old man, like the young man, just leaned over in the blizzard and insisted on running. Mao Daqing was full of admiration and asked her: "You are 74 years old and have a disability, how can you do 777?" The old lady said: "I was blown up as a teenager, if I did not have this hobby in this life, how could I live to this day?" The man who celebrated the old man on the shores of the South Pole had tears in his eyes. Mao Daqing felt: Many things will pass, and the marathon makes me look at a lot of simple problems.
Running on the road, you will find that every runner has a story, some people in order to prove themselves, some people in order to challenge their limits, and some people have particularly simple ideas - for example, running a north horse just wants to legally pee under the roots of the imperial city... Many of the behindstory stories are simple and moving, but not many people know about them.
Marathon runs to the later in addition to self-crossing, but also cross people. In addition to taking people to run and be a "marathon rabbit", Mao Daqing also found a new way to ferry people. In his 29th marathon, Mao Daqing met a man who was suffering from depression just like he did. The young man named Zhuang Chao suffered from depression at the age of 13 and committed suicide four times, and his parents had to take a rope and tie him to the bed.
On that north horse track, Mao Daqing accompanied him all the way. Because Zhuang Chao was very fat at the time, after running 29 kilometers, cramps, leg pain, and continuous condition, Mao Daqing cheered for him, rubbed his legs, broke his feet, and accompanied him to complete the first horse in 5 hours and 18 minutes. After that, Mao Daqing was pulled into a group of depressed runners, and the three hundred people in the group were all depressed, all using running horses to fight depression.
There is a way to get depressed people to help other people who are depressed. This will make them feel that "I am still of some use to others" and can stimulate people's desire to continue to live. Mao Daqing often said this sentence to entrepreneurs later: "We don't necessarily have much skill, but if we ask ourselves every day, can I still use it to others?" If it is a little useful, it means that you are very valuable. ”
Zhuang Chao, who runs on the marathon track, has become very sunny.
Now that Zhuang Chao is already a player within 3 hours and 15 minutes, Mao Daqing can't keep up with his footsteps at all. Zhuang Chao later went to graduate school, got married, had children immediately, and is now the leader of the depression running group, driving many people to run.
Mao Daqing wants to set an example for his daughter, and he also drives his children to run horses, and he hopes that the children "dare to challenge some things that they dare not think, which is a very happy thing." Zha Xiaoxin's "Running a Marathon of Life with You" resonated with Mao Daqing, the book advocates "node education", Zha Xiaoxin said that there is no time and patience to accompany the child every day, but hope to create some nodes in the child's life, so that he will leave a deep impression on life... Many families are busy with work because of their fathers, resulting in a kind of "widowed education" in which their fathers are absent, and widowhood can be transformed into nodes.
Mao Daqing also hopes to create "nodes" for children to have some unforgettable experiences together. Inspired by Zha Xiaoxin, when his daughter was 12 years old, Mao Daqing took her to the Gobi, and at the age of 13, he took her to run the Arctic Marathon - because he was not old enough, he could only run a half horse with his father as a volunteer. "A 13-year-old child, who can't even see people before and after, she dared to run through such a passage of eight kilometers, and I think this time of tempering can make her remember for a lifetime."
Mao Daqing began to hold a series of sharing sessions to share the feelings of the hundred horses, but for the sweetness and bitterness of the marathon, Nike's slogan summed it up very accurately - "running to understand". When people move from the traditional mahjong table game table wine table to the marathon track, there will be new changes, and this change will spread around like ripples.
At this point, Ma Daqing feels that marathons are very similar to entrepreneurship. "Through co-working, I see the changes in the enterprise, and the changes in the enterprise come from the changes in people." They all belong to a new quest, as Nike's founder, Phil Knight, put it, who "take risks and don't let their talents be buried in the land of mediocrity."
Mao Daqing's first step of the Hundred Horses was also triggered to some extent by the death of entrepreneur Liu Xiaoguang, and this marathon of life was full of accidents. To borrow a sentence written by Mao Daqing to his future self:
"Because of God's providence, you are still alive and healthy.
And therefore, to be alive, you have to bloom. ”
(Some of the pictures are from Ucommune Workshop)
Planner: Triptych. CREATIVE
WeChat Editor: Lu Ruihai
Design Typography: Mao Siyu
Author: Fang He
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