Hu Li

Hu Li is already coming to the Yellow River Stone Forest for the fourth time. In the first Yellow River Stone Forest Marathon, she was the winner of the women's category. The runner, who is known by runners in Gansu as a female running god, has not had a long training career. She only started running at the age of 36, and then she worked hard to achieve good results, winning the women's category in the Shaanxi Baoji-Longxian Half Marathon in 2021 and finishing third in the women's category in the Xi'an Marathon in 2021.

Hu Li is very thin, with long limbs, and friends say she runs like a light-hearted deer. A month ago, this fawn also won the women's category in a half marathon in Shaanxi, and when interviewed after receiving her prize, she smiled and said, "I'll come back to the race next year!"

Hu Li was the favourite to win the women's category of the event, with many female runners keeping a close eye on her. According to an interview with Li Baihui by the public accounts Living in the South, Li caught up with Hu Li on the big climb when she saw the "very thin and skinny" Hu Li, unsteady on her feet and on her hands and knees as the wind blew her up the hill. At the time, Li Baihui, who had not yet realised the danger, only felt "more passionate" as she passed Hu Li and became the second woman.

The last person to see Hu Li was Liu Xibing. According to runner He Fujun, a fellow runner visited Liu Xibing in hospital, and Liu Xibing revealed that Hu Li had left a last message for him when she felt she might be in trouble, arranging a place where she wanted to be buried. But where exactly, listening to the relay of the runner's friend, He Fujun can't remember.

Hu Li used to be a freelancer and after she started her running career, she stopped working and devoted herself to running. Friends say she trains very hard, alternating between strength training, long distance and hill climbing, with only one day off a week.

When she came to Baiyin this time to deal with the aftermath, only her brother came to Hu Li's home. The runners then realised that Hu Li's mother had passed away long ago and one of her brothers was also gone. The news of Hu Li's death has so far been kept from her 71-year-old father at home. It occurred to some runners that, having raced together a dozen or two times, they had never seen her partner or loved ones at the race to support her. "She was very independent, I guess." Runners describe it. Many runners still don't know if she is married, and the life they have seen her show in her circle of friends is only related to running.

Hu Li's running manifesto is that she wants to "rebirth" herself by running.