If everything had gone as planned Sunday, Tun Zan Maung would have celebrated Father’s Day with his daughter — by going for a nice long run.
But while the marathon-running medical man, an internal medicine specialist at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, got in his run, daughter Nan Maung had to take the day off because of knee injury — from playing soccer.
Dr. Maung, 57, ran for only an hour because he’s “tapering” or reducing his mileage in preparation for next weekend, when he will do back-to-back half-marathons in Seattle and Vancouver.
While he took up running only about 11 years ago, Maung has become a veteran of long-distance events.
He recently became part of the Seven Continents Club of runners who have completed a marathon on all seven continents — including Antarctica.
Maung uses his running to motivate his patients in Abbotsford.
“I deal with a lot of heart patients and diabetics,” he said. “All of them need exercise.
“This is the motivation,” he said of his running. “I made an example of it. It’s not just that I’m preaching it, I’m practising it.”
Daughter Nan, who turns 28 Monday, agreed that her father is an example to his patients.
“He wasn’t running until his 40s,” she said. “You’re never too old to start.”
Nan Maungwas more of a soccer player than a runner until about 2007.
“I started running with him on the track for exercise,” she recalled.
He was already well into his challenge to run marathons on all the continents when she decided to try do the same, except with half-marathons.
She has just one continent left, Europe, and plans to do that in two years.
Running isn’t boring, she said.
“It’s very social. You meet a lot of people. My dad is a huge motivator.”
And, she noted. running is part of their family time.
“It gets us together once a week at least,” Nan Maung said with a laugh.
They will get together for a little longer next year when they return to compete in a half-marathon in her father’s native land, Myanmar, which he calls by its traditional name of Burma.
All of this began quite innocently, when Maung decided to compete in the Sun Run, a Vancouver tradition that brings together thousands of participants.
In training for the 10-kilometre distance, he discovered he could go 16 km. At the Sun Run, he saw a pamphlet for a half-marathon — which was only five kilometres longer than that 16 kilometres. He decided to try it.
And then, as the expression goes, he was off to the races.