Afternoon in Chenggong, Yunnan.

Dong Guojian's new home is a spacious villa, and as soon as Wu Xiangdong (the president) walked in he joked that it was his "dream love nest". Strawberries were on the coffee table, and with the smoke of competition gone, the three men standing at the apex of China's marathon pyramid — Dong Guojian, Yang Shaohui, and Wu Xiangdong — were rarely seen slouched on the sofa.

This is a belated debrief — and a candid account of injury, regret, and brotherhood.

The topic's starting point was traced back to 2009.

At the time Dong Guojian was 22. In Wu Xiangdong's memory, he was a fair-skinned, slight, handsome young prospect on television. At that edition of the National Games, Dong Guojian ran 28 minutes 17 seconds and took the silver medal. Surprisingly, he was completely unfazed by it. “I was really ignorant then — I didn't understand anything. I never thought about winning championships, I didn't have that sort of ambition to achieve something, and I didn't even know anything about doping tests.” Dong Guojian recalled that life at the time was “just getting by”.

However, by the 2017 Tianjin National Games, the 'laid-back' youngster's gaze had changed.

That was Dong Guojian's most brutal battle of his professional career, and the only time he lost control before the finish line. That day temperatures exceeded 30°C, the heat rising from the ground wrapped the athletes. The race was brutal, with a dropout rate as high as 60%; many runners collapsed into shock.

"If it weren't for this gold medal, I definitely couldn't have kept going," Dong Guojian rarely described the physical limits he was facing. To stay awake, he kept slapping his thighs and cheeks hard with his hands while running, trying to use the pain to fight off the fog of consciousness. When he crossed the finish line, his thighs and face were red and swollen from the slapping.

Image source: China Sports Daily

At the moment he crossed the finish line, the usually calm, reserved Dong Guojian let out a heart-rending roar. "That was me letting it out," he said. "After persevering for so many years, I finally won the championship."

After that roar, he was nearly overcome. Staff had to immediately wheel him to emergency care, pouring ice water over him to cool him down. Despite being partially in shock, Dong Guojian gritted his teeth, refused assistance, and insisted on walking onto the podium by himself. "I have to walk up there myself no matter what; I must go up on my own."

Sitting beside Dong Guojian, Yang Shaohui (Da Fu), in that hellish 2017 battle, was following a completely different script.

He went out as a "sacrificial lamb." As part of the tactical plan, his original task was to act as a "rabbit" pacemaker, and he wasn't expected to contend for a placing. For the first 10 kilometers, to support Dong Guojian, he drove the pace extremely hard. After completing that duty, exhausted, he had planned to quit — "At that time I just wanted to stop.".

At that moment, Wu Xiangdong, who was also running behind, caught up and shouted to him, "Come on! Come on! You have to finish no matter what!"

Woken by that shout, Yang Shaohui started running again. The second half was like hell; he saw Duobujie and other big names lying by the roadside from heatstroke. By capitalizing on others' misfortune and sheer grit, this pacer who had planned to drop out managed to finish in fourth place.

But what Yang Shaohui most wants to talk about is not the heroics of those years, but his recent "darkest moment".

In a recent 10,000m race, a misunderstanding of the rules and a well-intentioned attempt to help a teammate led to a serious violation (assisting a pacemaker was ruled a violation) that directly cost the team a National Games medal.

The month that followed was the darkest period of Yang Shaohui’s life. "I kept avoiding everything, I didn’t dare return to the base, and I didn’t dare face my teammates," Yang Shaohui admitted, his head bowed. He even hid away to train on his own, and at one point thought about retiring altogether.

"If it weren't for my wife persuading me, I probably would have retired." His wife told him that if he avoided things because of one incident, he'd definitely regret it years later. In the end, he decided to give himself a few more years. "I'll give these next few years everything I've got; even if in the end I can't run anymore, I want to retire with dignity, not as a deserter."

Compared with the two "big brothers", Wu Xiangdong's role is more that of a determined pursuer.

“In 2011, I was striving to reach the Level 1 athlete standard, while Dong Ge was already a 28-minute ace — someone we looked up to,” Wu Xiangdong reflected.

These past ten-plus years have been a decade of dramatic change in China's marathon commercial environment. They once rode slow green trains to race everywhere for only a few thousand yuan in prize money, even doing a 100 km trail running race every three days just to earn a hard-earned 40,000 yuan. Now they have top-level sponsorship and can go to Eliud Kipchoge's homeland, Kenya, for training camps.

Wu Xiangdong's proudest moment came on the racecourse, when he ran 2:08 alongside Dong Guojian. At that moment, he had finally moved up from 11th place years earlier to stand beside his idol.

When the conversation turned emotional, the three of them drifted back in thought to the Chenggong training base more than a decade earlier.

At that time conditions were harsh; everyone lived in the same dormitory. Dong Guojian was like a strict but loving parent, turning the lights out at 10 p.m. sharp every night and leading the younger athletes by example.

"If kids today were like you, I could have retired with peace of mind long ago," Dong Guojian said, looking at the two brothers at his side, his eyes full of feeling.

Which way forward?

"I've set myself a five-year deadline," Yang Shaohui said; he wants to retire together with Brother Dong."I can hang on for another two years," the nearly 40-year-old Dong Guojian says; he jokes that he's 'too old to run,' but his gaze remains resolute. He says that as long as he's on the starting line, he will never 'slack off'; every time he gives it his all.

At the end of the video, Wu Xiangdong said:"Whether it's for ourselves or to support our fans, we will take the marathon incredibly seriously! Trust us, and please look forward to our performance next year — let's go for it together."

The strawberries were eaten and the tea had cooled. But the scorching footprints these three men left in the history of Chinese marathoning were only beginning to be celebrated by those who came after them.

Text:trail running / Editor:CC

Image:Trail Running Explosion  / Visual:Five-Year Trainee