STAFFORD, Va. — When Sam Wang took his first golf lesson in Arizona about eight years ago, he didn’t realize he’d one day become a long-distance runner who’d run a marathon in every state in the U.S.
“Through golf, I accidentally discovered the joy of running,” Wang said.
Today, the 56-year-old Stafford County resident is busy training for the biggest marathon of his life—a 50-miler in early October. In preparation for that race, Wang is getting ready mentally and physically, including 8½-hour runs through the county covering over 40 miles.
“I think I’ll be OK,” Wang said.
Wang’s love for running and for competing in marathons started after he and his family traveled to Arizona in 2014 to visit his nephew. During that trip, Wang spent one day taking a golf lesson and enjoyed the quiet time on the course and the challenge of the sport so much, he bought a new set of golf clubs in Las Vegas on his drive back home.
“I remember the golf lesson was mainly on putting and I enjoyed walking on the greens and hitting the balls to the holes,” Wang said. “I thought golfing would be a good hobby to learn.”
After returning home to Morton Road in southern Stafford, Wang became a fixture at the Lee’s Hill Golf Club driving range. He wanted to learn as much as he could about the game, so he checked out several golf books from the library and one author advised would-be golfers to stay in top physical and mental health to remain in peak condition for golf. Wang felt he could do that by beginning a running regimen, but he soon forgot about golf.
“I realized that I enjoyed running more than hitting the balls at the driving range,” Wang said. “The golf clubs are now collecting dust in my basement.”
Wang, who’s a financial analyst and career civil servant by trade, said running puts him at ease, “physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.”
Wang’s coworkers—some of them long-distance running enthusiasts—encouraged Wang to participate in marathons. In 2014, Wang signed up for the Marine Corps Historic Half in Fredericksburg. Wang said he ran the race to get accustomed to running with other competitors.
Wang finished his first half-marathon in just over 1 hour 47 minutes, about 43 minutes behind the winner of the race that year. Undeterred, Wang ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington later that year. There, Wang learned about the 50 States Marathon Club, whose members aim to complete a marathon in each U.S. state.
“Initially, I was not serious about finishing a marathon in each of the 50 states in the union,” Wang said. “Beginning around 2018, I became more serious about doing it.”
For the next few years, Wang worked toward his goal. By 2018, he completed marathons in four states, but realized he had to speed up the pace if he wanted to run all 50 states in his lifetime.
In January 2019, Wang found a Mississippi marathon that was taking place on a Saturday followed by another race in Alabama the next day. Wang not only received awards for competing in each separate marathon that same weekend, but he also received a third award for achieving the two-race feat.
“That was when I realized that I can do back-to-back marathons. Saturday in one state and Sunday in another state during the same weekend,” Wang said. “That helped me speed up the process and I was able to finish in a relatively short time.”
Wang’s daughter Michelle, who lives in Richmond, said her mother Jin has been at her father’s side since he first began running marathons.
“She has attended pretty much every single marathon with him,” Michelle Wang said. “Whether he’s driving from one state to the next for a weekend marathon, she’s always been there.”
The couple’s longest commute between back-to-back marathons came in March 2019, when Wang ran a Saturday marathon in Columbia, South Carolina, then drove 11 hours with his wife to Little Rock, Arkansas, for a Sunday race. The pair was able to get three hours of sleep in a hotel along the way before Wang faced the starting line the next morning.
“It was so cold and sleeting and ice. It was terrible, but it’s memorable,” Wang said.
Wang said it took him seven years, seven months, and 15 days to run a marathon in each of the 50 states, and along the journey, he said he’s had countless memorable moments, including his “best time” marathon in 2019. Wang said he ran about 3 hours, 39 minutes straight down Oregon’s Mount Hood after racers were first bused near the peak of the 11,249-foot mountain.
“That’s the first time I ran downhill,” Wang said.
To commemorate his accomplishment of running a marathon in every state, Wang will now attempt a 50-mile ultra-marathon on Oct. 1 at the James River State Park in Gladstone beginning at 7:30 a.m.
Michelle Wang said her father has been documenting the training miles he’s running toward the 50-mile goal on his personal blog, which also includes other details about his training regimen.
“He’s really excited,” she said. “This kind of closes out all of the marathons that he has run. It’s very important for him.”
Michelle, 33, said she’s always admired her father’s “grit and determination.”
“That determination and commitment is why he was able to complete this journey in such a short amount of time,” she said. “If he says he’s going to run a certain thing, or bike a certain trail, if it’s raining, if it’s snowing, through any sort of weather, he’s going to do it.”
Originally from rural China and raised in a farming family, Wang first came to the U.S. in March 1990 as a married, 24-year-old exchange student. The couple visited Hawaii that year with young Michelle and about 25 other people who were slated to remain in the U.S. for about one year.
The arrival of Wangs’ group to the U.S. took place at a time when student-led demonstrations were underway in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where military troops fired weapons at students and demonstrators.
In response to the suppression and massacre that occurred there, President George H.W. Bush signed Executive Order 12711 into law that deferred the deportation of Chinese nationals and their direct dependents who were in the U.S. between June 5, 1989, and April 11, 1990.
“We were able to stay because of that executive order,” Wang said.
Wang, who has lived in Stafford for more than 20 years, said the only way out of that China when he was growing up was through a college degree and higher education. As a foreign exchange student to the U.S., Wang said he discovered opportunities here he wanted to share with his family, especially their young daughter.
“That’s the main reason,” Wang said. “I saw opportunities here that we don’t have in China.”
Wang said a healthy lifestyle that includes good food and exercise is within anyone’s reach if they set a clear goal and stay determined to reach that goal. When he first began running, Wang said he would occasionally find himself not wanting to get started some days, but he said running has now become a way of life.
“The saying over in China is, ‘a thousand miles starts with the first step,’” Wang said. “Without health, you can’t do much of what you want to do, then you’ve got to focus on health. It’s the No. 1 value I have.”
To follow Wang’s progress as he prepares for the Oct. 1 marathon in Gladstone, visit his blog at shouan.wordpress.com.
