Taisuk "Tai" Kim is 33 and an Operations Manager at a fashion e-commerce start-up based in NYC. Tai's parents were among the first generation "amateur" runners in Korea. They (and their friends) founded one of the oldest amateur running clubs in the country in the early 2000s. When running was still seen as a strange niche hobby, his mom ran the New York City Marathon in 2000 and his father in 2002. So, growing up, Tai had the chance to see runners and marathon races.
Tai's family moved from Seoul to Boston in 2004. And of course, the first thing my father did was registering for Boston Marathon.
In 2015, after college and graduate school, Tai moved to NYC for jobs. At that time, for health and fitness, he ran about 4 miles, 4~5 times a week, and was putting in about 30 miles a week. Tai became friends with this one runner (Giordano) who was already into running several marathons. One day, he just suggested Tai run a marathon because he was already somewhat trained. Tai said "yeah why not?" And he made the spontaneous decision to run the Philadelphia Marathon.
Tai loves the Kipchoge quote "No human is limited," and he learned it too as he started to train for marathons. Tai never thought he would be capable of finishing a marathon, sub-3, BQ, or actually run the Boston Marathon.
Listen to the full episode to see how Tai achieved his goals.