Evan Kim isn't sure what she wants to do when she grows up. She might want to be an elementary school teacher. Or perhaps an Olympic long-distance runner.
She's working on the running thing.
The 5-foot-tall sixth-grader placed second among all girls and women at the Ventura Marathon in February when she ran the 26.2-mile course in 2 hours 58 minutes, averaging less than 7 minutes per mile. Her goal this year is to run the fastest marathon on record for a 12-year-old of either gender: she's just four minutes away. Her trainer (aka her father, who goes by MK) says the equation is simple: just follow the training plan and the record will be yours.
In some ways, Evan was destined for a life of long-distance exercise. Born in 2012 into a family of athletes, she was named after Cadel Evans, the cyclist who won the Tour de France the previous year. Her father MK, 49, was a pole vaulter at Duke University and now coaches runners. He himself has run a 2 hour, 51 minute marathon, but his daughter will likely pass him this year when he attempts a 2:48 at the California International Marathon in December. Her older brother Cole and her sister Haven also run marathons.
Being a 12-year-old marathon runner requires a level of courage that many 12-year-olds lack.
Evan Kim, 12, front, runs with family members and a group of runners to train for marathons on March 10, 2024 in Irvine, California. She recently ran 2:58 in the Ventura Marathon, making her the fastest 1-year-old girl or woman. -19 and the second fastest overall.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
For example: When Evan Kim was running the Ventura Marathon and trying to reach his goal of 2:58, he developed a foot cramp around mile 20 that lasted for a few miles. She wanted to give up. She wanted to stop running. But she didn't do it.
“Hang in there,” she told herself over and over, repeating the mantra to help her complete the marathon and beat all the other runners under 20 by a full hour.
Evan's goal is to qualify for the 2028 Olympics. To qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic team in the women's marathon, she would have to run a 2:37 marathon, and that's a bridge too far, even for someone whose record is as amazing as Evan's. Kenyan runner Peres Jepchirchir took home gold in the women's marathon at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with a time of 2:27:20.
How ridiculous are Evan's times? Consider this: only 21% of women finish the marathon in under four hours. Only 1% of women end up under three years. The fastest marathon ever run by a 12-year-old child of either sex, according to the Association. from Road Racing Statisticians, it was a 2:54 run by German racer Manuela Zipse in a 1986 race.
What separates Evan from his siblings, MK says, is that Evan started at a younger age. She is not particularly physically gifted. She doesn't have more lung capacity than other children. She simply has a reserve of strength built up from years of training seven days a week. When MK's children were little, they all went for morning walks and the walks eventually turned into runs. Cole was 11 years old at the time. Evan was 6 years old. She started with one mile, then two, and gradually increased until Evan asked what any 10-year-old would ask of her father: permission to run a marathon.
OK, maybe not alone any 10 years.
“I wanted to run because my brother did it,” Evan explained. “It's fun to compete and I wanted to race like Cole did.”
Evan is competitive with Cole, who beat her by a minute at the Ventura Marathon. “I'm a little jealous,” she acknowledged, but she said she hopes to “hopefully” beat him soon.
Evan ran his first marathon at a glacial 3:50 pace, which is to say glacial for 12-year-old Evan.
Evan will not be running the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, although his father and sister will, because she is still recovering from the Ventura Marathon. She'll eventually start building her base again before getting in shape for the California International Marathon in December, where she hopes to break the record for 12-year-olds.
MK is fighting for her daughter to break a barrier in a different and more famous race than the Los Angeles Marathon. He wants the Boston Marathon to allow her daughter to run in April, even though the minimum age is 18.
So far he has received no response to his pleas for his daughter to join what he calls the greatest race on Earth.
“We feel discriminated against as Evan has proven himself more than capable of safely competing in the event by completing four marathons and qualifying for Boston in three of them,” MK said. To qualify for the 2025 Boston event, an 18-year-old woman would need a marathon finish time of 3:30 between September 2023 and September 2024.
MK said the rule banning younger runners is similar to what women faced before the Boston Marathon became coed in 1972.
The Boston Athletic Association. He didn't explain why he has his age requirements.
“Athletes must be 18 years of age on race day to participate in the Boston Marathon. This age requirement matches the age requirements of all BAA mass participation races, where athletes must be 14 years old to run the Boston Half Marathon; 12 for the Boston 10K and 10 for the Boston 5K,” spokesperson Chris Lotsbom said in an email.
Pediatricians say there isn't enough information to definitively say whether marathons are safe for children whose bodies are still growing. There are two main concerns for child marathon runners. Firstly, is it physically safe for children to run marathons? Secondly, can children mentally handle the physical strain of running?
A study conducted by the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine of the Twin Cities Marathon between 1982 and 2007 found that of 310 minors between the ages of 7 and 17 who finished the race, only four had “medical encounters,” a lower rate than that of adults. that they finished. None of the injuries were serious. MK says Evan has never suffered any injuries.
Dr. Brian Krabak, a sports medicine doctor, said the risks for a child who runs marathons depend on many factors, but it can be okay as long as the child is closely monitored and the length of the race is gradually increased.
Another important factor, he said, is that “it is the child who is motivated to do this and not just the adults around him. That’s a key component overall.”
Although Evan's marathon results have so far gone unnoticed, other cases of children running marathons have gone viral and led to an online debate about whether children should participate and whether they understand what they are doing.
In 2022, 6-year-old Rainier Crawford finished the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati. But when his parents posted a documentary about his career on YouTube, his family became the target of intense scrutiny.
Olympic marathoner Kara Goucher weighed in on the issue on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “A six-year-old doesn't understand what it's like to accept misery. A six year old [old] Those who are 'physically fighting' do not realize that they have the right to stop and should do so.”
Evan is not intimidated.
As the Kim family casually ran seven miles Sunday along trails and bike lanes in Irvine, moving at a relaxed 9-minute-per-mile pace, people recognized the running family and waved as they passed. MK, a single father, has been making a daily vlog documenting his family's management for over a year.
Evan is candid about his competitiveness and the fact that he didn't always like running. Sports, however, have taught him that just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's bad. Just like running, telling the truth can be difficult, doing all your homework can be difficult, but she still does those things.
“During the race it feels really bad,” he said, “but after you finish it and cheer everyone else on and find yourself at the end, it feels really nice.”
