Elderly Chinese keep running 400 meters a day

An 81-year-old Chinese elderly regularly jogs the 400 meters daily, and his story recently spread on Chinese social media.

The “China International Television Network” reported that the Chinese old man from Shaanxi northwestern China, despite his advanced age, never stops running 400 meters per day with 40 minutes of warm-up, whatever the weather, and the elderly person is working to record the daily running time in a special notebook.

Story of an old man running 400m everyday recently went viral on Chinese social media.

The 81-year-old from NW China's Shaanxi, insists on running 400m everyday with 40-minute warm-up regardless of the weather. And he keeps recording his time in the daily routine. #ChinaBuzz pic.twitter.com/CA7MzGUq6R

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) April 15, 2021

In a related context, official data showed that the number of elderly people in the Chinese capital, Beijing, who are 60 years or older, will rise in the coming years, to reach about 5 million by 2025.

Sun Li Guo, vice president of the Beijing Association of the Elderly, said there were 3.71 million people in the Chinese capital aged 60 years or over by the end of 2019, accounting for about 17.2 percent of the city’s total population.

As of November 2020, Beijing had hosted 544 elderly care centers with a total of 107,000 beds, while the number of age-friendly medical facilities reached 253, according to Sun.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), Beijing will create a more elderly-friendly environment by strengthening neighborhood care services for the elderly, upgrading public facilities and infrastructure for the elderly, and promoting technological innovation in caring for the elderly.

The average life expectancy of registered residents of Beijing was 82.31 years in 2019, according to Xinhua.