Making History with his Feet--Ultramarathon Champion Kevin Lin

Ultramarathon Champion Kevin Lin

In response to the United Nations Development Programme's campaign to raise awareness of the water crisis in Africa, Taiwanese marathon champion and "4 Deserts" ultramarathon series winner Kevin Lin completed a 111-day footrace across the Sahara Desert.

The race, which is seen as the most challenging known to man, raised more than US$10 million for water shortage relief in Africa. It also led to a rare mention on the UN website of non-member Taiwan--Lin's victory brought Taiwan global attention, thus creating a "sports diplomacy" effect. Hollywood production company LivePlanet was also on hand to film the entire proceedings for a documentary. The resulting film, directed by James Moll and provisionally titled Running the Sahara, is scheduled to premiere this year.

The Sahara is the world's largest desert, stretching all the way across Africa from Senegal in the west to Egypt in the east. The 5,900-kilometer expanse is largely uninhabited, and in the harsh environment there are few water sources. Until this year there was no record of it being crossed successfully from end to end by a human being on foot.

Lin and his two teammates, American Charlie Engle and Canadian Ray Zahab, left Saint Louis, Senegal, on November 2, 2006. They crossed Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Libya before finally arriving at Egypt's Red Sea coast on February 20, 2007, becoming the first to complete such a journey across the Sahara.

Though during the planning of their journey they estimated that they might have to add up to 600 km to their course, they ended up running more than 1,000 km more than their initial projection as there were minefields along their planned route. Many countries on their route were in states of civil unrest, and they were prevented from moving forward at points by armed troops.

As Lin entered the last segment of the race, he became sick. He was vomiting and suffering from diarrhea, and had a high fever. His body weight dropped by five kilograms, but he persevered. In order to complete the race within the allotted 111 days, his team only slept six or seven hours over the last four days, running over 100 km a day. They ran continuously for the last 36 hours, pushing the limits of human endurance.

The smallest runner

Kevin Lin was born in Taipei in 1976. When he was in the second grade, the famed runner Chi Cheng, nicknamed the Asian Antelope, paid a visit to his school to promote the sport. Lin shook hands with his idol and strengthened his resolve to follow his dream of running.

In the fifth grade, he heeded the call to run despite his diminutive stature--he was less than 130 centimeters tall--and went out for track and field. He was the shortest member ever to run for Fude Elementary, but he was the fastest on his team. In junior high, there was a coach who looked down on him and wanted to kick him off the team, so Lin became even more determined to be the best.

His father, perhaps thinking running would be a way for his frail son to develop physically, allowed him to stay on the team all through junior high. On the eve of his graduation, Lin realized that if he wanted to keep running, it would be best for him to go to Hsihu Vocational School--a school known more for its long-distance runners than for its academics. He knew the idea wouldn't go over well with his family. His youthful ideals were in conflict with his father's hopes for his son. On a stormy night, he took up a pen and wrote a letter explaining himself to his father, and in the morning he packed his bags and left for Hsihu Vocational School. His father ran out the door after him, waving the letter in his hand and crying, saying, "There's no future in studying physical education!"

He ended up lowering his head and heading for the bus stop, following his dream. "At that moment," he says, "I knew it was a blow to my relationship with my father. We might be able to patch things up, but the scar would always remain." Years later, Lin still feels a pang of regret at the memory.

The Hsihu years

Lin's mentor at Hsihu Vocational School, Pan Jui-ken, remembers that Lin was less than 155 cm tall at the time. He looked like a sixth-grader, standing with his suitcase in his hand and asking to join the track team. Pan thought Lin looked like an escaped figurine from a miniature display at Taoyuan's Window on China theme park. But Pan was an experienced coach and could sense Lin's determination. He knew he'd be something special, so he let him join the team.

Lin's training at Hsihu was tough. The run they did most often was around Waishuanghsi through the Tzuchiang Tunnel. There were verdant mountains and impressive villas along the route to look at, but coach Tsai Hsiang-chih would ride behind them on a motorcycle--one hand on the accelerator, and the other holding a rattan cane to hit stragglers with!

While his teammates were all recommended to join the team, Lin signed up on his own. Lacking formal training during his high-school years, Lin was at a disadvantage. On top of that, he was short and frail. At first, he would often get a taste of the rattan cane on runs--seeing the word "Waishuanghsi" on the bulletin board was enough to send shivers down his spine.

It was all worth it, though. At Hsihu Lin developed a solid foundation for long-distance endurance running. In his second year, he took silver medals in 5,000-meter and 10-km events for his age group at the national level.

Breaking through the walls

Hoping to prove to his father that PE students could get into university too, Lin set his sights on Taipei Physical Education College. After his last class ended he would head to Taipei's famed cram school area, Nanyang Street, for extra lessons in math and English. Unfortunately, he didn't pass the college entrance exam, and had to wait for the one the next year. But how would he come up with the NT$50,000 for another year's cram school tuition?

His sister had made some bad investments and almost pulled the entire family down with her. His retirement-age father had to drive a cab to make ends meet. The only way Lin could think of to come up with the money was to ask Pan Jui-ken.

"When Coach Pan heard what I wanted, he told me to come and get the money the next day," Lin says. "It was only later that I learned that it was the first time in his life that he ever borrowed money from anyone, and that the amount was more than he'd saved up in more than ten years of working." Lin's voice is full of gratitude as he recounts the story. With the free board provided him by Hsihu, and financial assistance from Hsu Chun-chan and other coaches, he held on until he passed the entrance exam.

He was accepted at the school of his choice, Taipei Physical Education College, and his first coach was Huang Wen-cheng, the holder of the national record in the steeplechase. Huang had Lin tested and found that the aerobic activity he was best suited for was long-distance running. Later, famed endurance runner Lu Jui-shan took over coaching duties. During that first year, Lin took the silver medal in the marathon at the national level.

In October, 1998, at a national sport meet, Lin assuredly bet his coach he'd win a gold medal, saying if he didn't he would enter Taipei's new 100-km ultramarathon. He didn't pace himself well in the race and ended up injuring his ankle. He had to withdraw.

A month later, he kept his word and entered the Taipei ultramarathon--a race of 100 km, more than twice the standard 42.195-km marathons that he was used to. The event took place on a cold, rainy day. Around 30 km into the race, he hit his wall.

Runners say they "hit the wall" when they are pushed to their physical limits. Usually that means they have difficulty breathing, become anxious, and feel faint. Almost every runner has felt this at some point.

Lin had never run such a race before, so he says he hit the wall several times in those 100 km. He even got nosebleeds, but he was determined to finish. He finished within the top 24--enough to earn him a bronze medal. He was also the top Taiwanese, setting a new record in Taiwan's long-distance running.

The next year, 1999, Taiwan held its first international 24-hour race in Taipei. Lin beat out track stars from all around the world, raising Taiwan's profile in the running world. In the years since then, the race has become a mainstream international competition.

Hitting the Sahara

At the same time he was training so hard and winning all those medals, he was also working part-time. He'd attend classes during the day, then at 8 p.m. he'd take over his father's taxicab and earn his tuition. He wouldn't return home until around 1 a.m., and then at 5 a.m. he'd get up and begin his endurance training. This was his schedule for three years.

Then late one night during the first semester of his fourth year, he almost drove into a safety island in the middle of the road due to his long-term exhaustion. He had to ask himself, "What's the point of working like this just to get by? What happened to my running, my dreams?" He then remembered a flyer he had picked up the year before at a race in France for what was called "the most difficult race in history"--a seven-day, six-night ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert. At the time he'd scoffed at it, thinking only a lunatic would enter such a contest, and threw the flyer in the trash. But now in this moment of crisis the memory of it made its way back into his mind. He knew it was his chance to prove himself, and that he couldn't just let his life slip by.

That year, he also took part in Taipei's 24-hour marathon again. There he met another contestant who would later become like a second father to him--Clive Saffery, Coca-Cola's president for the Asia region. Saffery told him that the Sahara race was the ultimate in endurance running, and to be a real long-distance runner you have to do it once.

It seemed that he was destined to go to the Sahara. But when he went online to get more information about the event and learned that there was a US$2,600 sign-up fee, he didn't know what to do. Luckily, a friend who worked at a newspaper learned of the situation and wrote about it. A professor at Aletheia University, Chen Chun-ching, donated NT$100,000, allowing Lin to become the first Taiwanese to take part in the Sahara ultramarathon.

The rules of the competition require that contestants provide their own food, sleeping bags, head-mounted flashlights, first-aid kits and other equipment, and carry it all with them on the run. Because of this, most contestants bring freeze-dried food as a way to minimize weight. "Because I was inexperienced, my pack weighed 14 kg at first, and was tough to carry," Lin says. "I ended up getting it down to around 7 kg." As freeze-dried food is not cheap, he ended up carrying debt with him across the Sahara as well.

The race, which is seen as the most challenging known to man, raised more than US$10 million for water shortage relief in Africa. It also led to a rare mention on the UN website of non-member Taiwan--Lin's victory brought Taiwan global attention, thus creating a "sports diplomacy" effect. Hollywood production company LivePlanet was also on hand to film the entire proceedings for a documentary. The resulting film, directed by James Moll and provisionally titled Running the Sahara, is scheduled to premiere this year.

The Sahara is the world's largest desert, stretching all the way across Africa from Senegal in the west to Egypt in the east. The 5,900-kilometer expanse is largely uninhabited, and in the harsh environment there are few water sources. Until this year there was no record of it being crossed successfully from end to end by a human being on foot.

Lin and his two teammates, American Charlie Engle and Canadian Ray Zahab, left Saint Louis, Senegal, on November 2, 2006. They crossed Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Libya before finally arriving at Egypt's Red Sea coast on February 20, 2007, becoming the first to complete such a journey across the Sahara.

Though during the planning of their journey they estimated that they might have to add up to 600 km to their course, they ended up running more than 1,000 km more than their initial projection as there were minefields along their planned route. Many countries on their route were in states of civil unrest, and they were prevented from moving forward at points by armed troops.

As Lin entered the last segment of the race, he became sick. He was vomiting and suffering from diarrhea, and had a high fever. His body weight dropped by five kilograms, but he persevered. In order to complete the race within the allotted 111 days, his team only slept six or seven hours over the last four days, running over 100 km a day. They ran continuously for the last 36 hours, pushing the limits of human endurance.

The man with the flag

The Sahara ultramarathon route is 250 km across the widest desert in the world. Temperatures reach 50°C or more in the largely unpopulated desert areas of Morocco. A British runner named Hardy once said, "The rules are very simple in the Sahara--you either live or you die." Contestants have to sign a waiver stating that they know there is a possibility of death.

The most appealing thing about this competition, though, is that contestants can run across land that has never in millennia been set foot upon. Contestants who finish the event within the allotted seven days despite the harsh conditions receive a certificate testifying to their achievement--a certificate that will earn them the respect of the estimated 2 billion fans of running worldwide.

In April, 2002, the flag of the Republic of China was finally raised at the 17th Sahara Ultramarathon. Kevin Lin, number 345, joined 687 runners from around the globe in undertaking the ultimate endurance challenge. Not only did he sew an ROC flag onto his sleeve, but he also stuck one in his backpack.

He was moved by his friend, Clive Saffery, who is British but always brings an ROC flag to international events, saying he came to love Taiwan while living there. Lin says, "I was born and raised in Taiwan. How could I let my friend be the only one? So when I was planning my run, bringing our flag to the Sahara was a top priority."

During the seven-day event, there were two special things contestants would line up for at stations along the route: bottled water and cardboard boxes. There are no restrooms on the race route, and temperatures in the desert can fall below 10°C at night, so the boxes were needed to avoid freezing "sensitive areas." Lin laughs, saying, "From the second station, I gave myself a reason to keep it up--I had to hurry to the next station to get a box!"

What struck him the most was seeing how contestants from other nations ran in twos or threes. Not only did they develop a team spirit together, they also had companions to eat and chat with when they rested for the evening. As he sat by himself eating tasteless freeze-dried food he'd boiled in bottled water, he felt very alone. "In those moments," he says, "I really missed Taiwanese dishes like rice with stewed meat or beef noodle soup. Often when I get back from a trip abroad I have to go and eat a few bowls to get back to normal!"

In the end, he finished with a time of 23 hours, 30 minutes and three seconds, earning himself twelfth place and first place among Asian contestants--a historical record for the entire Asia region. When he saw the ROC flag at the finish line and race organizer presented him with an extreme achievement medal, tears streamed down his face and onto the parched earth.

Unopened "will"

The next year, Lin was invited to take part in the first race across the world's second-largest desert--China's Gobi Desert. The event's organizers took into consideration the dangers presented by the Gobi's high altitude of 4,000 m and its constantly changing weather, and therefore only invited the world's top 100 runners to participate.

When Lin learned that the event would take place on a plain with an altitude higher than Taiwan's 3,952-meter-high Yushan, he began training at Lishan on the Central Cross-Island Highway in order to acclimatize himself. He also trained by running up mountain tracks around Lishan to test his muscular endurance. When he finally went to the Gobi Desert, he was able to overcome such challenges as a poorly marked route, a lack of topographical maps, and thickets of camel thorn plants as tall as a man. He took first place in the Asia region and third over all.

When he was to leave for the Gobi Desert race, his coach Pan Jui-ken took him to the airport. Lin handed him a thick envelope and said, "Don't open it until after I've left." Pan was afraid it was a will and thought it inauspicious to open it. He only opened it after Lin arrived home safely, and then he discovered it was a letter in which he told everything, from his finances to his plans to put out a book and to train students. Pan was moved to tears.

In 2004 Lin ran the Atacama Crossing event across Chile's Atacama Desert, and in 2005 he ran the Sahara Race in Egypt. Then in 2006 he became one of the first 15 people in history to run an ultramarathon in Antarctica. Before the event he prepared by gaining 3 kg of fat to protect against the cold. Also, as he didn't have the funds to go abroad to train in a cold climate, he had to imagine Yangmingshan was Antarctica. He went running atop the peaks there during a cold front, wearing only a short-sleeve shirt and training in the 1°C weather.

But it was only when he set foot on King George Island that he got a true taste of extreme cold. Just breathing made him feel like ice was piercing his chest--it was tough for this son of subtropical Taiwan. His system couldn't adjust, so he felt a burning sensation and started to become dehydrated. If not for the sense of pride he felt from the flag sewn on his uniform, he would have crawled into his sleeping bag and not come out.

Ultramarathon champion

After the Antarctic race, the head of the organizing body RacingThePlanet announced to all contestants that since Lin was No. 3 in the Gobi race, No. 1 in the Atacama race, No. 2 in the Sahara race, and now No. 3 in the Antarctic race, he was the overall champion of the "4 Deserts" series. Lin was now an ultramarathon world record holder.

Aside from his competitive successes, Lin, who's fluent in English, has made a lot of precious friendships at international events. The "letter in the sand" that one of them, a Canadian named Wade, wrote to Lin during the Sahara race is one of the most heartwarming stories in the running world. Wade had to withdraw from the race when an old knee injury acted up, but every day he'd ride alongside Lin in a Jeep provided by the organizers and cheer him on. And, at a station around 40 km in, he made letters out of rocks on the ground spelling out "K, go go go!" Lin was quite touched by the sight.

Ultramarathons are a unique sort of event. Contestants have to conquer forbidding terrain and volatile weather. While running four events, Lin encountered many record-setting weather phenomena: the strongest windstorm to hit the Sahara in 25 years, the fourth day of which brought the first rain in 70 years; the greatest one-day temperature change recorded in the Gobi, on which the temperature fluctuated by 44°C; a 56°C day in the Egyptian Sahara; and a -34°C day on Hope Bay, Antarctica.

"Shuttling around between these places with a temperature difference of 90°C made me realize the limits of my body and at the same time made me understand that my own willpower is limitless," Lin says. That willpower will take him to the 2008 ultramarathon at the North Pole. If he makes it, he will have completed ultramarathons at all the most extreme locales on the planet--a new record.

Long-term plans

In 2008, Lin will not be running alone. He will choose two teammates to make up a Taiwan team. They will go to places like Wales, northeastern China, the Austrian Alps, and northern Norway to learn to ski, camp in snowy climes, conduct rescue missions on glaciers, and other such skills. As they might have to scare off polar bears along the route, they will also have to take shooting courses.

Once he's completed all of the extreme ultramarathons, Lin might hang up his running shoes for a while. Maybe it's his meticulous planning for these events or his training with an eye to the long term that has gotten Lin in the habit of making focused and concrete plans for his life: currently he is studying toward a master's degree at National Chung Cheng University's Graduate Institute of Sport and Leisure Education, and once he finishes that he plans to continue to a PhD program in psychology in America. Within ten years, he plans to establish an "Athletes' Life Fund."

As many companies abroad "adopt" athletes, taking them on as employees, the fund will encourage Taiwanese athletes to develop other types of skills and will recommend them to companies based on their personal characteristics. With support from private industry, athletes will be able to compete in international events without having to worry about their futures. That, he hopes, will raise Taiwan's profile on the international scene.

As for himself, when we ask if he'd run on the moon if it were possible, he just laughs and says, "Everything has a limit. I've challenged my limits enough. I don't want to go too far--if you do you get into trouble."

This "little giant" who's written a new chapter in the history of Taiwanese sport is cool-headed but passionate, and a skilled sportsman. But perhaps it is his wisdom and maturity beyond his years that guide him through crucial moments to success.

Extreme ultramarathons are grueling, lonely, and dangerous. In the 2002 race across the Sahara, Lin thought he saw a village nearby and drank all his water only to realize it was a mirage. He came close to death.

Kevin Lin was born in Taipei in 1976. When he was in the second grade, the famed runner Chi Cheng, nicknamed the Asian Antelope, paid a visit to his school to promote the sport. Lin shook hands with his idol and strengthened his resolve to follow his dream of running.

In the fifth grade, he heeded the call to run despite his diminutive stature--he was less than 130 centimeters tall--and went out for track and field. He was the shortest member ever to run for Fude Elementary, but he was the fastest on his team. In junior high, there was a coach who looked down on him and wanted to kick him off the team, so Lin became even more determined to be the best.

His father, perhaps thinking running would be a way for his frail son to develop physically, allowed him to stay on the team all through junior high. On the eve of his graduation, Lin realized that if he wanted to keep running, it would be best for him to go to Hsihu Vocational School--a school known more for its long-distance runners than for its academics. He knew the idea wouldn't go over well with his family. His youthful ideals were in conflict with his father's hopes for his son. On a stormy night, he took up a pen and wrote a letter explaining himself to his father, and in the morning he packed his bags and left for Hsihu Vocational School. His father ran out the door after him, waving the letter in his hand and crying, saying, "There's no future in studying physical education!"

He ended up lowering his head and heading for the bus stop, following his dream. "At that moment," he says, "I knew it was a blow to my relationship with my father. We might be able to patch things up, but the scar would always remain." Years later, Lin still feels a pang of regret at the memory.

Cool-headed but passionate, running prodigy Kevin Lin has a wisdom beyond his years That leads him to success against all odds.

Lin's mentor at Hsihu Vocational School, Pan Jui-ken, remembers that Lin was less than 155 cm tall at the time. He looked like a sixth-grader, standing with his suitcase in his hand and asking to join the track team. Pan thought Lin looked like an escaped figurine from a miniature display at Taoyuan's Window on China theme park. But Pan was an experienced coach and could sense Lin's determination. He knew he'd be something special, so he let him join the team.

Lin's training at Hsihu was tough. The run they did most often was around Waishuanghsi through the Tzuchiang Tunnel. There were verdant mountains and impressive villas along the route to look at, but coach Tsai Hsiang-chih would ride behind them on a motorcycle--one hand on the accelerator, and the other holding a rattan cane to hit stragglers with!

While his teammates were all recommended to join the team, Lin signed up on his own. Lacking formal training during his high-school years, Lin was at a disadvantage. On top of that, he was short and frail. At first, he would often get a taste of the rattan cane on runs--seeing the word "Waishuanghsi" on the bulletin board was enough to send shivers down his spine.

It was all worth it, though. At Hsihu Lin developed a solid foundation for long-distance endurance running. In his second year, he took silver medals in 5,000-meter and 10-km events for his age group at the national level.

When Lin (center) answered the United Nations' humanitarian call and formed a team to run across the Sahara, the world took notice.

Hoping to prove to his father that PE students could get into university too, Lin set his sights on Taipei Physical Education College. After his last class ended he would head to Taipei's famed cram school area, Nanyang Street, for extra lessons in math and English. Unfortunately, he didn't pass the college entrance exam, and had to wait for the one the next year. But how would he come up with the NT$50,000 for another year's cram school tuition?

His sister had made some bad investments and almost pulled the entire family down with her. His retirement-age father had to drive a cab to make ends meet. The only way Lin could think of to come up with the money was to ask Pan Jui-ken.

"When Coach Pan heard what I wanted, he told me to come and get the money the next day," Lin says. "It was only later that I learned that it was the first time in his life that he ever borrowed money from anyone, and that the amount was more than he'd saved up in more than ten years of working." Lin's voice is full of gratitude as he recounts the story. With the free board provided him by Hsihu, and financial assistance from Hsu Chun-chan and other coaches, he held on until he passed the entrance exam.

He was accepted at the school of his choice, Taipei Physical Education College, and his first coach was Huang Wen-cheng, the holder of the national record in the steeplechase. Huang had Lin tested and found that the aerobic activity he was best suited for was long-distance running. Later, famed endurance runner Lu Jui-shan took over coaching duties. During that first year, Lin took the silver medal in the marathon at the national level.

In October, 1998, at a national sport meet, Lin assuredly bet his coach he'd win a gold medal, saying if he didn't he would enter Taipei's new 100-km ultramarathon. He didn't pace himself well in the race and ended up injuring his ankle. He had to withdraw.

A month later, he kept his word and entered the Taipei ultramarathon--a race of 100 km, more than twice the standard 42.195-km marathons that he was used to. The event took place on a cold, rainy day. Around 30 km into the race, he hit his wall.

Runners say they "hit the wall" when they are pushed to their physical limits. Usually that means they have difficulty breathing, become anxious, and feel faint. Almost every runner has felt this at some point.

Lin had never run such a race before, so he says he hit the wall several times in those 100 km. He even got nosebleeds, but he was determined to finish. He finished within the top 24--enough to earn him a bronze medal. He was also the top Taiwanese, setting a new record in Taiwan's long-distance running.

The next year, 1999, Taiwan held its first international 24-hour race in Taipei. Lin beat out track stars from all around the world, raising Taiwan's profile in the running world. In the years since then, the race has become a mainstream international competition.

The scenery of the Antarctic is breathtaking, but to runners the climate presents danger at every step.

At the same time he was training so hard and winning all those medals, he was also working part-time. He'd attend classes during the day, then at 8 p.m. he'd take over his father's taxicab and earn his tuition. He wouldn't return home until around 1 a.m., and then at 5 a.m. he'd get up and begin his endurance training. This was his schedule for three years.

Then late one night during the first semester of his fourth year, he almost drove into a safety island in the middle of the road due to his long-term exhaustion. He had to ask himself, "What's the point of working like this just to get by? What happened to my running, my dreams?" He then remembered a flyer he had picked up the year before at a race in France for what was called "the most difficult race in history"--a seven-day, six-night ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert. At the time he'd scoffed at it, thinking only a lunatic would enter such a contest, and threw the flyer in the trash. But now in this moment of crisis the memory of it made its way back into his mind. He knew it was his chance to prove himself, and that he couldn't just let his life slip by.

That year, he also took part in Taipei's 24-hour marathon again. There he met another contestant who would later become like a second father to him--Clive Saffery, Coca-Cola's president for the Asia region. Saffery told him that the Sahara race was the ultimate in endurance running, and to be a real long-distance runner you have to do it once.

It seemed that he was destined to go to the Sahara. But when he went online to get more information about the event and learned that there was a US$2,600 sign-up fee, he didn't know what to do. Luckily, a friend who worked at a newspaper learned of the situation and wrote about it. A professor at Aletheia University, Chen Chun-ching, donated NT$100,000, allowing Lin to become the first Taiwanese to take part in the Sahara ultramarathon.

The rules of the competition require that contestants provide their own food, sleeping bags, head-mounted flashlights, first-aid kits and other equipment, and carry it all with them on the run. Because of this, most contestants bring freeze-dried food as a way to minimize weight. "Because I was inexperienced, my pack weighed 14 kg at first, and was tough to carry," Lin says. "I ended up getting it down to around 7 kg." As freeze-dried food is not cheap, he ended up carrying debt with him across the Sahara as well.

Lin is an internationally known "son of Taiwan" who keeps an ROC flag close at hand. He is seen here flying the flag as he approaches the finish line of the 2005 race across the Sahara.

The Sahara ultramarathon route is 250 km across the widest desert in the world. Temperatures reach 50°C or more in the largely unpopulated desert areas of Morocco. A British runner named Hardy once said, "The rules are very simple in the Sahara--you either live or you die." Contestants have to sign a waiver stating that they know there is a possibility of death.

The most appealing thing about this competition, though, is that contestants can run across land that has never in millennia been set foot upon. Contestants who finish the event within the allotted seven days despite the harsh conditions receive a certificate testifying to their achievement--a certificate that will earn them the respect of the estimated 2 billion fans of running worldwide.

In April, 2002, the flag of the Republic of China was finally raised at the 17th Sahara Ultramarathon. Kevin Lin, number 345, joined 687 runners from around the globe in undertaking the ultimate endurance challenge. Not only did he sew an ROC flag onto his sleeve, but he also stuck one in his backpack.

He was moved by his friend, Clive Saffery, who is British but always brings an ROC flag to international events, saying he came to love Taiwan while living there. Lin says, "I was born and raised in Taiwan. How could I let my friend be the only one? So when I was planning my run, bringing our flag to the Sahara was a top priority."

During the seven-day event, there were two special things contestants would line up for at stations along the route: bottled water and cardboard boxes. There are no restrooms on the race route, and temperatures in the desert can fall below 10°C at night, so the boxes were needed to avoid freezing "sensitive areas." Lin laughs, saying, "From the second station, I gave myself a reason to keep it up--I had to hurry to the next station to get a box!"

What struck him the most was seeing how contestants from other nations ran in twos or threes. Not only did they develop a team spirit together, they also had companions to eat and chat with when they rested for the evening. As he sat by himself eating tasteless freeze-dried food he'd boiled in bottled water, he felt very alone. "In those moments," he says, "I really missed Taiwanese dishes like rice with stewed meat or beef noodle soup. Often when I get back from a trip abroad I have to go and eat a few bowls to get back to normal!"

In the end, he finished with a time of 23 hours, 30 minutes and three seconds, earning himself twelfth place and first place among Asian contestants--a historical record for the entire Asia region. When he saw the ROC flag at the finish line and race organizer presented him with an extreme achievement medal, tears streamed down his face and onto the parched earth.

Lin has won several ultramarathon events in extreme conditions. From left to right are medals from the 2004 Atacama Crossing race, the 2005 Sahara race, the 2006 Antarctic race, and the 2006 Gobi Desert race he ran with teammates Charlie Engle and Ray Zahab.

The next year, Lin was invited to take part in the first race across the world's second-largest desert--China's Gobi Desert. The event's organizers took into consideration the dangers presented by the Gobi's high altitude of 4,000 m and its constantly changing weather, and therefore only invited the world's top 100 runners to participate.

When Lin learned that the event would take place on a plain with an altitude higher than Taiwan's 3,952-meter-high Yushan, he began training at Lishan on the Central Cross-Island Highway in order to acclimatize himself. He also trained by running up mountain tracks around Lishan to test his muscular endurance. When he finally went to the Gobi Desert, he was able to overcome such challenges as a poorly marked route, a lack of topographical maps, and thickets of camel thorn plants as tall as a man. He took first place in the Asia region and third over all.

When he was to leave for the Gobi Desert race, his coach Pan Jui-ken took him to the airport. Lin handed him a thick envelope and said, "Don't open it until after I've left." Pan was afraid it was a will and thought it inauspicious to open it. He only opened it after Lin arrived home safely, and then he discovered it was a letter in which he told everything, from his finances to his plans to put out a book and to train students. Pan was moved to tears.

In 2004 Lin ran the Atacama Crossing event across Chile's Atacama Desert, and in 2005 he ran the Sahara Race in Egypt. Then in 2006 he became one of the first 15 people in history to run an ultramarathon in Antarctica. Before the event he prepared by gaining 3 kg of fat to protect against the cold. Also, as he didn't have the funds to go abroad to train in a cold climate, he had to imagine Yangmingshan was Antarctica. He went running atop the peaks there during a cold front, wearing only a short-sleeve shirt and training in the 1°C weather.

But it was only when he set foot on King George Island that he got a true taste of extreme cold. Just breathing made him feel like ice was piercing his chest--it was tough for this son of subtropical Taiwan. His system couldn't adjust, so he felt a burning sensation and started to become dehydrated. If not for the sense of pride he felt from the flag sewn on his uniform, he would have crawled into his sleeping bag and not come out.

After the Antarctic race, the head of the organizing body RacingThePlanet announced to all contestants that since Lin was No. 3 in the Gobi race, No. 1 in the Atacama race, No. 2 in the Sahara race, and now No. 3 in the Antarctic race, he was the overall champion of the "4 Deserts" series. Lin was now an ultramarathon world record holder.

Aside from his competitive successes, Lin, who's fluent in English, has made a lot of precious friendships at international events. The "letter in the sand" that one of them, a Canadian named Wade, wrote to Lin during the Sahara race is one of the most heartwarming stories in the running world. Wade had to withdraw from the race when an old knee injury acted up, but every day he'd ride alongside Lin in a Jeep provided by the organizers and cheer him on. And, at a station around 40 km in, he made letters out of rocks on the ground spelling out "K, go go go!" Lin was quite touched by the sight.

Ultramarathons are a unique sort of event. Contestants have to conquer forbidding terrain and volatile weather. While running four events, Lin encountered many record-setting weather phenomena: the strongest windstorm to hit the Sahara in 25 years, the fourth day of which brought the first rain in 70 years; the greatest one-day temperature change recorded in the Gobi, on which the temperature fluctuated by 44°C; a 56°C day in the Egyptian Sahara; and a -34°C day on Hope Bay, Antarctica.

"Shuttling around between these places with a temperature difference of 90°C made me realize the limits of my body and at the same time made me understand that my own willpower is limitless," Lin says. That willpower will take him to the 2008 ultramarathon at the North Pole. If he makes it, he will have completed ultramarathons at all the most extreme locales on the planet--a new record.

In 2008, Lin will not be running alone. He will choose two teammates to make up a Taiwan team. They will go to places like Wales, northeastern China, the Austrian Alps, and northern Norway to learn to ski, camp in snowy climes, conduct rescue missions on glaciers, and other such skills. As they might have to scare off polar bears along the route, they will also have to take shooting courses.

Once he's completed all of the extreme ultramarathons, Lin might hang up his running shoes for a while. Maybe it's his meticulous planning for these events or his training with an eye to the long term that has gotten Lin in the habit of making focused and concrete plans for his life: currently he is studying toward a master's degree at National Chung Cheng University's Graduate Institute of Sport and Leisure Education, and once he finishes that he plans to continue to a PhD program in psychology in America. Within ten years, he plans to establish an "Athletes' Life Fund."

As many companies abroad "adopt" athletes, taking them on as employees, the fund will encourage Taiwanese athletes to develop other types of skills and will recommend them to companies based on their personal characteristics. With support from private industry, athletes will be able to compete in international events without having to worry about their futures. That, he hopes, will raise Taiwan's profile on the international scene.

As for himself, when we ask if he'd run on the moon if it were possible, he just laughs and says, "Everything has a limit. I've challenged my limits enough. I don't want to go too far--if you do you get into trouble."

This "little giant" who's written a new chapter in the history of Taiwanese sport is cool-headed but passionate, and a skilled sportsman. But perhaps it is his wisdom and maturity beyond his years that guide him through crucial moments to success.