In 2023, a 45-year-old Brazilian businessman named Hugo Farias set a Guinness World Record by completing 366 marathons in a row. Yes, he did it on purpose—one more than the 365 days in a year.
“I gave up a stable career to pursue a completely unknown goal,” he said.
From the news, it’s clear that Hugo is a successful businessman. But in Lin Song’s view, successful businessmen don’t pursue completely unknown goals. As the saying goes, “Success comes from preparation; failure comes from lack thereof.”
This guy just kept running, like Forrest Gump. He ran to one coast of America, turned back, ran to the other, turned back, and kept running…
As a father of two, Hugo always ran in the morning so he could spend the rest of the day with his family, recovering and focusing on strength training.
He ran almost the same route every day.
Despite the extremely high frequency and volume of exercise, the medical team supporting his marathon run found no signs of any myocardial damage in Hugo.
All cardiovascular changes were primarily physiological—that is, natural and healthy responses—with no signs of disease.
Hugo’s running intensity was moderate, with an average heart rate of 140 beats per minute, about 70% to 80% of his age-estimated maximum heart rate.
After completing his 366th marathon, Hugo said, “No one needs to run a marathon every day, but everyone needs to truly believe in their own potential.”
This is just blatant showing off. He did something almost no one else could do, and then he tells everyone to believe in their potential and they can do it too. Obviously, this kind of supreme achievement is impossible for almost anyone.
The people of Wuhan love to eat crayfish. For them, a summer isn’t complete until they’ve eaten a few kilograms of them.
The renowned Qianjiang crayfish, though bearing the name “lobster” (龙虾, lóngxiā), are not actually true lobsters. Although they look quite similar, crayfish and marine lobsters belong to different biological families.
Farmed crayfish live for less than a year. They are stocked in the winter and hit the market in the early summer of the following year. By autumn, the crayfish season is over, and the people of Wuhan have started eating crabs. Crayfish become a delicacy to look forward to next year.
Marine lobsters, on the other hand, are theoretically “biologically immortal”; each time they molt is a rebirth. A lobster’s lifespan can rival that of a sea turtle, living peacefully for over a hundred years.
Whether one is born a Wuhan crayfish or a marine lobster is not up to oneself. If you’re born in Qianjiang, you mature quickly in the fresh water of rice paddies and become a delicacy on the tables of Wuhan. If you roam the cold waters of Boston, then as long as you’re not caught and sent to a table in Wuhan, you can crawl slowly through the dark depths of the sea for a very long time.
The Tang Dynasty, from the ascension of Emperor Gaozu (Li Yuan) to the abdication of Emperor Ai forced by Zhu Wen, lasted for 289 years—longer than the lives of most Boston lobsters.
But a long life is not always a good life. After the An Lushan Rebellion extinguished the prosperity of the Kaiyuan Golden Age, the tattered Tang Dynasty managed to cling to life for another 152 years.
However, it was precisely from the time the Tang Dynasty began its decline that the chuanqi (传奇, classical short story) entered its golden age of creation. Packaging these classical tales into personal portfolios (xingjuan) was an important means for imperial exam candidates to seek early favor and admission.
These classical tales provided fertile ground for the vernacular story scripts (huaben) of the Song and Yuan dynasties. Feng Menglong’s Stories to Caution the World, published in 1624, was a collection of these Song and Yuan scripts, as well as imitations from the Ming Dynasty. The stories of folk storytellers had completed their magnificent transformation from the performance stage to the scholar’s desk.
Lin Song usually sleeps soundly, falling asleep the moment his head hits the pillow and not waking until morning. But perhaps he was overtired yesterday, as he had a strange dream during the night. Lin Song vaguely remembers being back in school in the dream, only his face was his current, weathered one. Strangely, in the dream, he was watching himself from a third-person perspective as he ran about.
The “Lin Song” in the dream was on his way to take a school exam. Whether it was a graduation exam or a final, he can’t recall. He only remembers being extremely worried that he wouldn’t be able to answer the questions.
Just as he was about to reach the school, the sky suddenly filled with dark clouds, and a torrential downpour began. The school announced that the morning exam was postponed. In the dream, neither the students nor the teachers had phones or the internet. How did everyone get the school’s notice? In any case, everyone knew they didn’t have to rush to school for the morning exam, but the afternoon exam would proceed as scheduled.
So, “Lin Song” asked a classmate to go get barbecue with him. The classmate who agreed was the one with the worst grades in the class. In reality, Lin Song never associated with that student. After all these decades, why would he be asking him to get barbecue in a dream?
The barbecue shop was near the school. Before they had finished eating, the sky began to darken again. Lin Song lifted his wrist to look at his watch and saw that it was already 6:30 in the evening. He was supposed to have come to school to take an exam, but now he hadn’t even set foot in the examination hall, and the day was over.