Hanover resident Edward Ou is a perfect commercial for asthma medication.
Three weeks ago Ou, an asthma sufferer, ran the 26-plus miles of the Boston Marathon in two hours, 43 minutes and 55 seconds, finishing 178th out of a field of more than 9,000 runners.
Ou finished first among competitors from New Hampshire.
Dressed in a sweatshirt and running shorts, Ou rested on the Green last Friday and discussed his finish in Boston and his running career in general.
Ou, a 30-year-old Asian American man, has the build of a runner. His long, thin legs, with a runner's well-defined muscles, are darkly-tanned -- a result of six months spent training under the scorching sun in Thailand.
Ou started running eight years ago when he was studying in China. He was no longer able to play tennis or squash, so he took up running as a form of exercise.
He started training full time only 18 months ago when he quit his job as a stockbroker in Tokyo.
"I love sports and just saw that the lifestyle of a stockbroker would kill my athletic career," Ou explained. "I ran a good race while I was working in Tokyo and I began to wonder how good I could be if I trained diligently."
"You're only young once. It was the best decision I have ever made," Ou said.
Ou does most of his training in Phauket, Thailand, which is very hilly and located in the tropics, where temperatures range from 85 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
"It toughens you up to train under the worst conditions," Ou said.
He runs about 100 miles a week, including 20 miles on Sundays. Sometimes he does interval workouts on a local track, sprinting for a short distance and then jogging for a short distance for a total of about 10 miles. Other days, Ou will just take long runs.
Ou ran the Boston Marathon for the first time three years ago. He has run 12 marathons since then, but the Boston one is the best-known one he has ever entered. His best finish was in the Bangkok Marathon, where he finished 12th out of 2,000 runners, with a time of two hours and 42 minutes. That time still remains his personal best for a marathon.
When Ou ran the Boston Marathon for the first time he did not take his asthma inhaler before the race.
"That was a fatal error," he said. "It took me forever to run smoothly."
Since that race, Ou takes a dose of inhalant before every race.
"I've had asthma since I was a little kid," Ou said. "It went into remission for 15 years, and now it only bothers me when I come back to the cold climate of Hanover after training in Thailand."
"I think it is due to the drastic change in temperature," Ou explained. Ou trains in Thailand from September to April and then returns to Hanover during Thailand's rainy season.
Ou said when he starts running, his adrenaline starts to flow and his asthma disappears.
Although he expected to run a lot faster in the Boston Marathon, Ou was pleased with his performance.
"After five miles, I was more tired then I should have been," Ou said. "The rest of the race was mental. I was able to hold on even though I was very tired. I didn't panic."
Last year, Ou said he panicked after he got tired. As a result, his time was four minutes slower than this year's.
Ou said the lessons he has learned from running he will be able to use for the rest of his life.
"What I've gained out of this will help me in anything I do after this," Ou said. "It has made me conscious of the balance between the body and the mind. I feel there is nothing that I can't do. Whether I achieve something great in running is secondary to whether I have done my best and learned something from it."
Ou, who runs full-time and does not have a job, is living with his parents in Hanover for the Spring and Summer. He is still recovering from running the Boston Marathon, so he is limiting his training now to only eight miles a day. He plans to work on his speed this summer by running shorter distance races, such as 10-kilometer runs and half-marathons.
