Kew Gardens resident Wan Park will be running in the upcoming New York City Marathon on Nov. 5.
Photo courtesy of Wan Park
Kew Gardens resident Wan Park, a teacher in the Bronx, will be running in the upcoming New York City Marathon on Nov. 5. This will mark his second marathon in the span of four weeks, having just ran one in Chicago on Oct. 8.
This will also mark the fourth New York City Marathon in which he will run, having previously participated in 2005, 2010 and 2011.
Park’s interest in running dates back to 1990, shortly after he moved to the United States from Korea at the age of 14. At the time, he was still working on trying to learn English. While he initially wanted to play for his school’s soccer team, he had too much trouble communicating, so he switched to running for the cross country and track teams. It was there that he found solace, building relationships with his teammates.
“I immediately found friends who were interested in the same stuff [as me] and a coach who really helped me get adjusted to this country,” Park said.
In 1999, Park ran in his first full marathon, the Walt Disney World Marathon in Orlando, FL. In total, he has ran in 12 marathons, one trail marathon and four trail ultramarathons, including the three New York City Marathons.
Park often brings his hobby for running to his job as a math teacher at the Community School for Social Justice in the Bronx. He will often integrate running analogies into math problems. He’s also been able to share his hobby with his colleagues, often running together with some of them.
Park was granted approval to run in the marathon by Tata Consultancy Services, an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization. He will be running as part of Tata Consultancy Services’ Teachers program, for which the organization selected 50 teachers across North America to take part in the marathon.
In addition to Park, another teacher at the Community School for Social Justice, John…
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