How to age well: university dean runs endurance races at 55, and says it relieves stress and helps him keep his mind in balance

Will Hayward, whose feats include completing the non-stop 298-kilometre Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, finds such events help him beat stress

Running is an opportunity to be mindful, to slip into a flow state where he is in the moment, only aware of what is around him – even when he is hallucinating

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Will Hayward running up Tai Mo Shan, Hong Kong’s highest peak. Hayward, the dean of social sciences at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, takes part in gruelling endurance races to find balance and relieve stress. Photo: Will Hayward

Published: 11:15am, 12 Mar 2023Updated: 12:42pm, 13 Mar 2023

Corrected [11:18am, 13 Mar, 2023]

[11:18am, 13 Mar, 2023]
William Hayward is not the oldest person to complete the HK4TUC.

Midway through the 2023 Hong Kong 100, a race across city hills 100km long, Will Hayward was feeling terrible. He had not been able to keep any food down for several hours.

As he approached the foot of Needle Hill, the third steepest climb in Hong Kong, he had no idea how he would get up it.

“I wasn’t going very fast, but I went up in one go and continued on. From all the other races I’ve done, I have this experience of what it’s like to be at the lowest of lows – but rather than stop I will keep going and see what happens,” says Hayward, known in Hong Kong’s running community for his dogged determination to complete the gruelling ultra-marathons and challenges he signs up for.

Among the tall, lean running machine’s most notable extreme adventures are twice completing the non-stop, 298-kilometre (185-mile) Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge (HK4TUC) – in 2018 and 2021 – and being the “last man standing” in the Big Dog Backyard Ultra in Bell Buckle, in the US state of Tennessee, in 2019.

Hayward is dean of social sciences at Lingnan University and a keen endurance runner. Photo: Lingnan University

Now 55, Hayward is one of the oldest people to complete HK4TUC.

By day, he is dean of social sciences at Lingnan University. Outside its corridors, Hayward is running obsessed, a passion he developed in his mid-30s.