When asked about that first win, Jiaju brieflypaused,and then said"The feeling of the first one was more different," as if recalling something from long ago.

The 2020 Chongli 168 Super Trail, in Jiaju's view, was his first real hundred-mile race, and in that race he and Liang Jing — both opponent and friend —kept pulling at each other on the course, trading places front to back, neither willing to relent.

At the end of the race, Jiaju felt that Liang Jing had yielded to him, allowing him to take his first Chongli crown.That race left a mark on him that no subsequent victory could ever fully erase.

Six years have passed; he says he's much stronger than he was then. But when asked"What's stronger?" he didn't list any training stats; he simply said, "Mentally I'm definitely much more robust than before, and above all it's the accumulation from years of racing."

What is that accumulation? He can't explain it clearly, but he knows the feeling—when someone opens up a gap on the course 7 minutesor solater, you don't panic; you begin to analyze, begin to wait, and start looking for the moment that belongs to you.

Jiaju has a habit: at the hardest moments of a race he gives himself commands in his head.

This year'sChongli 168，The downpour disrupted many runners' rhythm, but the men's lead group never slowed; Jiaju, his teammate Luo Canhua and last year's champion, the RomanianIonel Manole tussled for a long time.

AtCP9 (on the courseat the 110 km mark），his competitorsIonel Manole had already pulled a full 7 minutes ahead of him. The rain kept falling harder and the course grew increasingly slippery.Jiaju said he wasn't in a hurry this time.didn'timmediatelyspeed up to chase; instead he first said one sentence to himself:"The next section of the route is all familiar to me, I will inthenext stretchmake upthe time.""

This sentence wasn't for others to hear, it was for himself. He knew his rival was very strong using poles uphill, so he simplystuck to his own rhythm,ate, topped up energy, and waited. When the descent came, when he reached those extremely slippery sections where others didn't dare run fast, he then began to push."The wetter and slipperier the place, the harder I push, because I know they certainly won't take that risk."

Later, on the downhill one kilometre before Yunding he saw his rival's headlamp. The more he chased, the faster he went; the rival also saw him. The two ran into the personal aid station together，and the gap of more than 7 minutes was erased.。

This kind of"giving yourself orders" approach, in his view, is one of the most important things in a race. "You need a voice in your head telling you what to do now, where your advantages are, and which section you can win back," he said. "If you don't have that voice in your head, you're just running, not racing."

When 家驹 won in Chongli in 2024 he said he ate about 60 energy gels during the race; this year he ate about as many. Even so, he hasn't been courted by any energy-gel brand — amusingly, 家驹 self-deprecatingly joked:"I'm the best at eating gels, and yet no one asks me — I just don't get it."，"Maybe I just eat too much."。"

Jokes aside, when it comes toeating gelsthis is actually something he takes very seriously. He said that in training he rarely eats gels — they're too sweet, hard to swallow. But once a race starts, his brain automatically switches:"I have to eat them. If I don't, my energy won't keep up and I'll get caught. Am I really going to skip them just because they taste bad?"

To Zhao Jiaju, energy gels are like medicine: they don't taste good, but they work.That logic sounds simple, but he thinks it's exactly what many athletes can't do."It's not a stomach problem, it's a mental one. If you mentally reject it, your body will reject it too. I don't reject it mentally, my stomach doesn't reject it, and it works out."

He speaks as if stating the most ordinary fact. But behind that is years of forcing himself on the course to accept uncomfortable, unpalatable, difficult things — and turning them into habit.

There's a line Zhao Jiaju said about race frequency that sounded offhand but, on reflection, carried real weight.

"Used to race 100 km every week — that was20 20 years ago. Now it's different. Nowadays nobody has to live off prize money; just race the races you should race well, take care of your body, and sustained racing is the most important thing."

He said that if you race too often the body can't recover, you'll feel terrible and very discouraged during races,"and it will affect your psychological rebuilding for a long time afterward." So now he races once a month: prepare properly, race properly, and recover properly.

This is a self-awareness only a mature athlete has —not trading wear-and-tear for results, but using pacingto extend his athletic career.He wants to compete again.For many years.He wasn't joking when he said that.

Near the end of the interview, someone asked him: Is trail running a way for you to explore the world?

He said yes."We go to different places to race each year, see different local scenery, eat different local foods, and uncover the curiosities we may have seen on TV—or may never have seen."

Then he said that after the world opened up, he himself changed."I used to think everyone should take up trail running. But later I realized that's not the case — it's not that trail running is the best for everyone; everyone can find a sport that suits them, or something they want to do. Trail running might not suit you, but there will always be something that does."

Those words, coming from a professional trail runner, carry a peculiar weight. He usedthe prime of his lifeto mountain run, yet at some point he understood that mountain running wasn't the only answer — it was just his answer.

When the interview ended, he said he was going to have dinner and would order something light, because"My stomach is full of sweets — I've had a bit too many energy gels." He stood up, walked out, and like an ordinary person, went to find a bowl of noodles.

Only those legs had just run172 km.