Zhang Huimin (张慧敏; born 1999) is a Chinese girl who completed a run from the southern Chinese province of
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...
to
Beijing
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Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
when she was eight years old. Each day, she rose at 2:30am, and ran the equivalent of 1.5 marathons, therefore running around per day.
After this, Huimin ran from Shanghai to Nyalam County, Tibet, a distance of . Huimin managed to arrive after just 51 days. Waking once again at 2:30am each morning, she would run until 7pm covering nearly per day, and wearing out 39 pairs of shoes in the process.
In 2009, Huimin set out to set a record for the Chinese government. She was to run until continuously only stopping for 15 minutes to rest every 6 hours. Reports say that she covered 541 miles at which point she collapsed the after running 143 hours. This counted against her next rest period. While she slept, they bandaged her feet and massaged her legs. It was revealed that her feet had swollen three sizes larger than normal. She was able to continue until she collapsed for the final time after 156 hours and running 579 miles.
Zhang Huimin, who was tall and weighed , hopes to compete in the 2016
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
, when she will be 17.
Her father, who has been accused of forcing the girl to run these distances, has denied all claims, saying "I make the training fun for her. I don't push her...she loves to run. Many people don't understand us", saying that they would "soldier on" regardless of what people think.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Huimin
1999 births
Living people
Chinese female long-distance runners
Runners from Sichuan