Always striving to stand out.
Joseph Michael Kai-Tsu Liu Roqueñi (aka JMK) had a remarkable outdoor spirit from a young age, and nothing stopped him from trying new things, his friends used to call him “el niño accidente” (the accident boy). Even after getting injured, he will never stop exploring and pushing boundaries.
In 1981,
seven months after being born to a Chinese father and a Mexican mother in Richmond Hill Ontario, JMK’s family returned to his motherland Mexico.
In 1990,
when he was 9 years old, his mother Merce, dies from a boiler (water heater) explosion, a tragedy that will define him for the rest of his life.
At the age of 18,
only speaking Spanish, he embarked on a solo journey to the place where his father grew up, Taiwan, to learn his father tongue but realized after a couple of months that it wasn’t his path and returned to Mexico.
In 2001,
curious to get to know his birthplace, “the Chexican” (Chinese-Mexican-Canadian) returned to Canada where he was exposed to a new language, culture, and philosophy.
In 2007,
anxious in the pursuit of physical activities, he joined the Concordia University Cross Country team.
In 2012,
following his thirst for new horizons, JMK thought about a 20,000+ km solo and barefoot run across the Americas, from Canada to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, or also known as the End of the World; and created Run2theEnd.
In the summer of 2013,
the next crop of graduating engineering students walked out of their universities, diploma in hand, ready to take the next step in their lives. Concordia student JMK was no exception, however, his next step didn’t involve shoes. He ran 4,654 km from Montreal to Tuxtla Gutierrez.
In 2015,
during his crossing through Mexico, he re-encounters with his first kiss, Iris Azucena Lomeli Lopez, over 20 years ago to become partners in crime.
In 2016,
due to unforeseeable circumstances, JMK had to return to Canada, but this time the mountains were calling, and he made Whistler, BC his new home.
In 2018,
after two years of shredding the slopes on his snowboard working as an on-mountain photographer, JMK caught an edge and tumbled 130 feet off-piste pin-balling multiple trees shattering his femur in four pieces, breaking T6 and T7 on his thoracic spine, and having a second concussion.
In 2019,
after eleven months of bone healing, he had to relearn how to walk and run again but chronic pain remained on his thoracic spine. The chronic pain didn’t stop him to move to a larger place to train, the Canadian Rockies in Canmore, AB.
2020,
After over two arduous years of multiple programs: Change ways (for anxiety and depression), Occupational Rehabilitation (OR) I and OR II (ten weeks, six hours per day, Mon-Fri), Chronic Pain Program with the Primary Care Network (seven weeks), counselling, physiotherapy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, vestibular therapy, chiropractor, massage therapy, meditation, exercises, mindfulness techniques, stretching, and lots of reading about pain and neuroplasticity, thanks to all the people involved in supporting his journey he is able to walk and run again.
In 2021,
as he is able to run again, he decides to finish what he started; he is now planning and training for Run2theEnd Leg 2, a 1,549 km semi-barefoot run from Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories to Teslin, Yukon.