“I was in the prime of life, but had the broken-down body of an old man.” Huang had achieved big success on the job—co-workers called him a super-salesman—but his hard work had cost him his health.

In early 1983, at the age of 33, the 161-centimeter Huang tipped the scales at 76 kilos and had a heart rate of over 80 beats per minute. He felt bad all the time, and a doctor urged him to start exercising to improve his health.

But what to choose? Linking Books Publishing had put out a Chinese translation of The Complete Book of Running, considered the runners’ bible, and it led Huang into the world of marathon running.

No sooner did he make up his mind to start running, than a two-month rainy spell in Tai­pei came to an end on April Fool’s Day. Looking up to the sun, Huang felt he had made the most intelligent decision of his life. He put on his running shoes and hit the road.

After just three weeks he had reaped an unexpected benefit.

“All of a sudden, not a single pair of pants would fit me anymore.” He had the waists taken in. Next came improvement in his high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high blood fats. His allergies abated. Whereas making money was formerly the only thing on his mind, he now became a missionary for healthy living.

“Out on sales visits I’d always be pushing my ideas about health,” laughs Huang. Customers often had to stay with him longer than planned just to turn the talk to the actual business at hand. Orders came pouring in. “I’d take customers out running. I didn’t have to rely on boozing or floozies to rope in business because I was able to win their trust and support with my positive attitude and happy energy.”

After running for a year, Huang signed up in 1984 for the Hengchun Marathon.

There were very few marathons in Taiwan back then, perhaps two at most, so two years later Huang took part in his first overseas marathon in Oki­nawa. The population of Oki­nawa then was only 900,000. Even so, over 8,000 people took part in the full marathon.

“In Taiwan, on the other hand, a marathon would only attract a few hundred runners.” He concluded that since one Oki­na­wan in 100 ran marathons, there ought to be lots of room for marathon growth in Taiwan.

In the year 2000, after marathon running had gained in popularity in Taiwan, Huang put up the money and time to set up taipeimarathon.org.tw, a running website that operated completely without corporate sponsorship. He also established a system for registering and tracking the number of marathon runners in Taiwan.

Even more happily for Huang, he was able to persuade his wife Tai-hua to start running, and eventually got her to do her first marathon—the Lake Ka­wa­gu­chi Marathon—in 1995 in Japan’s Ka­na­gawa Prefecture. In this indirect way, Huang had a hand in popularizing marathon running among Taiwan’s non-athletic women.

“Tai-hua felt a lot more confident about the prospect of running a marathon after going abroad and seeing lots of old men and women doing it despite looking physically unimpressive.”

She’s been doing marathons with her husband ever since, and has now completed nearly 190. The duo has run over 470 marathons between the two of them, covering a total distance that would circle Taiwan 22 times.

Huang worked on his English and Japanese to make it easier to register for overseas events, and to chat with foreign runners. In 1999, Huang and his wife took part in the venerable Boston Marathon, where they came across a 70-year-old Japanese runner whose bib indicated that he’d run over 600 marathons. They chatted, and learned that the elder man planned to complete 700 marathons.

“I had been running marathons 13 years by then, and had only completed 30, so the thought occurred that I still had a lot of marathons left in me.” Marathon running from that point became something of a religion to Huang. The most important thing each year is now the planning of which marathons he will run.

Later, with his youngest son experiencing academic problems in high school, Huang decided in 1999 to emigrate to Australia, and for almost a decade has been semi-retired. He and his wife now lead a migratory lifestyle, flitting off to wherever the weather is cool so they can run marathons the whole year round.

The sexagenarian Huang now runs over 40 marathons per year in at least five different countries, keeping in touch with his runner friends via Facebook.

Last autumn the couple did their first “international marathon tour,” running nine marathons over the course of two months in Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

Their marathon in Frankfurt was a memorable one. About 70 meters short of the finish line, the course took runners through an indoor activity center with a red carpet on the ground, glitter floating down from above, and heavy metal music blasting away. As runners passed through, the organizers called out their names and countries. The scene was so enchanting that the Huangs were reluctant to leave it behind. Instead of continuing straight to the finish, they spent four minutes slowly cruising the last few tens of meters and enjoying the festive atmosphere that the organizers had created for the runners.

“Running marathons has given me and my wife a shared interest and common friends.” Whenever anyone expresses wistful admiration for the warm affection they share, Huang just says: “So take your spouse out running!”

“Running marathons isn’t just about running. It’s a faith, an attitude toward life, a cultivation of body and mind, a pursuit of health, and the achievement of a beautiful life. Marathoning doesn’t require any special skill, it just takes a willingness to run.”

“No matter how many hours it takes, as soon as you take that first step, you’re one step closer to the finish line.”