When Isaiah Addison ’16 graduated from Wofford, he chose to postpone applying to law school to travel South Korea and honor his late grandmother by learning about her home country and its culture.
“I told myself I was going to stay for a year. I had a really good time, so I stayed one more year,” says Addison, who moved from Mokpo to Daegu to Seoul. “When I got to Seoul, I had a lot of really unique and amazing opportunities, and I decided to make it my home.”
Addison is now about to make another long journey. Beginning Saturday in Seoul, he plans to run an 800-kilometer route — the equivalent of nearly 500 miles — to Busan in 10 days. One of Addison’s running mottos, “We move to inspire movement,” encapsulates his decision to take on this challenge.
“I’m not doing this just to say I can run 800 kilometers, but to show that anyone can set a challenge for themselves and meet it,” says Addison, who has worked as an English teacher and a model in South Korea. “Sometimes you’ve got to dig deep and ask yourself, ‘What is something I’m not sure I can accomplish, but I want to see if I can?’”
Addison has recruited a team of sponsors and content producers who will help him fund and document the journey through his Instagram, @movezay, which has grown to nearly 10,000 followers. In his corner also will be an international community of friends and runners that he has helped bring together in Korea over the past five years.
To build that community, Addison began by building a running streak — one which will reach 2,000 consecutive days this month. It began on March 2, 2021, following a month in which he was twice quarantined for two-week periods due to COVID contact tracing.
“When you’re in a room 24 hours a day for a month, you start to realize how much time you have,” he says. “I set the challenge to myself that when I got out, for the month of March, I was going to put aside 20 to 30 minutes to do something productive by running 5K every day.”
Most days, Addison ran at a track, where friends and locals began to catch on and asked to join him. It started with a handful of people finding joy through motion and conversation and kept growing. In January 2023, Addison created The Movement — a run club, but also more than a run club — that brings dozens together to exercise and engage.
“I had friends who owned restaurants and bakeries, and we met there after our runs and discussed a topic. For the first one, it was the idea of ‘new year, new me’ and setting goals,” he says.
Addison says The Movement not only provides an open and inclusive fitness community, but it fosters dialogue between foreigners and locals and transcends the sometimes-reserved nature of traditional Korean culture.
“I remember there was a French woman who showed up to one of these. She was very quiet, but after we ran and started to have our discussion, I could see her opening up,” Addison says. “I realized how much this third space meant for her and for others.”
Addison believes his education and experiences at Wofford impacted how he has approached leading The Movement and how he has thrived in a new home across the globe from his native South Carolina. He learned about community building and event management through involvement in Wofford Activities Council, Campus Union and Kappa Sigma. He says his psychology major helped him be more empathetic and patient with others, and his Richardson Scholarship helped him explore the world with trips to Argentina, Spain and Ireland.
“Wofford taught me how to survive outside of the U.S. and how to make connections with people that aren’t exactly like me,” Addison says. “I think that’s a big part of a liberal arts education: To immerse students in a new culture and find ways to create an inclusive community.”