Ken Campbell had last attempted running at high school. When his wife, Susan, injured her foot, she needed support to rejoin her running group, so Campbell went along to keep her company and share in the recovery. “We were just walking at the beginning,” he says. “And I was heavy. I weighed over 90kg.” But as the weeks and months passed, the weight fell away, Susan recovered — and Campbell’s abilities grew. At the age of 63, he ran 50km, and at 70, he ran through the night to complete a 100km ultramarathon.
So how does someone with no sporting precedent (先例) become an ultradistance runner in his 60s and 70s? Susan had run marathons before her injury. But for Campbell, the turning point came when Susan’s Fleet Feet running group took to the trails in the Sierra Nevada foothills near their home in Citrus Heights, California.
Campbell went out to visit Susan’s group, and “the trails were a terrible mess. It had been raining. And I was running in my road shoes. Slipping and sliding and falling. And I was struggling. I thought, well, I like this a lot but I could do better.”
What he liked above all was the feeling of “being enveloped by the trail, being embraced by the closeness of the vegetation and the nearness of the river. I was walking where Native people had walked for thousands of years and where miners had walked on their way to gold.”
Running the 100km ultramarathon took Campbell 16 hours. When Campbell crossed the finish line at 3am, Susan handed him a 100km sticker to display on the back of his truck. He already had a 50km one on there. “It is a public proclamation (声明) that you are part of this community,” he says. “Wherever we park, I see a line of vehicles with their various stickers and I feel that we area tribe (部落).”
Campbell suffered arthritis before he started running, and is “a candidate for knee replacement”. But for now, he is holding off on surgery. It could put an end to the running — but the “sense of wellbeing and accomplishment will carry me on forever”, he says. “If I can’t run, I will walk.”
4. What enabled Campbell to take up running again?
A.He lost weight. | B.He trained overnight. |
C.His wife accompanied him. | D.His wife shared her experience. |
5. What did Campbell discover while keeping his wife company on a tail run?
A.The joy of being out in the wild. | B.The hardships of Native people. |
C.The pleasure of gold mining. | D.The mysteries of nature. |
6. What did the stickers on the back of Campbell’s truck bring him?
A.A discount on parking. | B.A sense of belonging. |
C.An enormous income. | D.An honour to his wife. |
7. What can we learn about Campbell from the text?
A.He’s a determined man. | B.He’s a people-pleaser. |
C.He is easy to content. | D.He is hard to cope with. |