Wei Jie

claudiamente@hotmail.com

FRENCHMAN Thomas Royet has been an active figure in the local running community.

He has run more than 32 half marathons and at least 23 full marathons around the world in eight years. Considering a three-year hiatus from 2020 to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Royet has ran in a marathon, either full or half, each month on average since taking up the sport in 2015. He participated in all those marathons because of his love for running.

Royet ran in the Guangzhou Marathon in December last year, clocking in at 3 hours, 18 minutes, and 20 seconds. He finished the race, his first full marathon in four years, 1,485th out of 20,000 runners.

“That was not bad at all to me, as I did it with only short preparation. I still need to add some speed though,” said the 40-year-old Frenchman, who has recently been training for the Wuxi Marathon which will be held in mid-March in Wuxi City, East China’s Jiangsu Province.

Royet said he makes time for daily training, usually running five or six times a week in addition to some power, circuit, and cardio exercises in a gym.

“My training for tomorrow (Saturday) will be a 25-kilometer run from the Sea World in Shekou to Hongshuwan and back in the Shenzhen Bay Park,” said Royet, adding that this particular running route is one of his favorites.

He said it is a real blessing to run along the coast in such warm weather. “This is also what I love about Shenzhen. Good weather and a really great environment — a lot of nice parks.”

Royet first took up running for fitness purposes. “I weighed 95 kilograms back in 2015 before I started running,” said the Frenchman. “Running has, in addition to keeping a more healthy diet, helped me lose about 25 kilograms.”

More importantly, running has changed his life — he wasn’t really a very social person before running, but now he has friends from around China and the world with whom he shares the same passion and can catch up with when running in the same marathon.

Royet said that the sense of belonging to a community he gets from running really matters to him and keeps him moving forward.

Running is now more than just finishing a race for Royet, who volunteered to be a pacer in the Nanshan Half Marathon in November 2023.

A pacer is an experienced runner tasked by a race organizer with running at a set speed in order to achieve a certain finish time. “It’s kind of fun,” he said. Royet was a 145 pacer and had a balloon tied to him, which allowed other runners to follow him and finish the race in 1 hour and 45 minutes.

He is now the Shenzhen ambassador for the nonprofit organization RunForce.

Royet started working with the Shanghai-based running organization this year to help organize free online workshops and offline training camps for people interested in running.

According to Royet, online workshops organized by RunForce are usually aimed at letting people know how to start running, what a proper running form is, and how to prevent injuries, among other running-related matters.

As an increasing number of people nowadays are getting involved in fitness-related activities, “we want to get more people to join the running community, with help from professional trainers,” he said.

Royet has been living in Shekou since 2006 when he was transferred by his French employer to take charge of the company’s business operations in China.

Shekou, a laid-back area of Shenzhen without the hustle and bustle of a big metropolis, is a very accommodating neighborhood to expats, offering various kinds of services, such as police registration and legal support, and cultural activities to help expat residents integrate into local life in the city, he said.