Soon Gaal was born in Seoul, Korea in 1948, came to the United States in 1973, and became a U.S. citizen in 1976. She has resided in Stockton from 1985 to the present. Soon, through her running activities, has raised money to benefit the Stockton Downtown Rotary Club Polio Foundation and the Oak Park Youth Tennis Foundation. Her achievements are many and varied by type of activity. In 1991, she competed in the Korean Ethnics International Sports Festival in Seoul, South Korea, as a member of the Korean/American Track and Field Team, placing second in the 100-meter and third in the 220-meter.
In 2001, she completed the Annapurna Circuit Trek in Nepal, which was a 23-day hike to elevations as high as 18,000 feet. In 2003, she ran in the 26.2-mile Boston Marathon, finishing in 4:36.29 hours. In 2007, Soon completed the Western States 200- Mile Endurance Run from Squaw Valley to Auburn, CA in 29 hours, 56 minutes, earning a Brass Medal. In 2009, she completed an eight-day mountain climb to a summit elevation of 19,400 feet on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa. In 2010, she completed a seven-day hike to an elevation of 14,000 feet on the Himalayan Highlands Trek in Bhutan. In 2019, Soon completed a 40-day/570-mile hike in France and Spain. She has competed in at least 12 marathons, as well as about as many 50-mile races in Northern California and the Sierras. Feature articles on Soon’s conquests appeared in a Stockton Record front page article on 7/4/2007 and again on 11/13/2019, as well as a feature article in the Local Section on 2/2/2009 and an article on the Sports Extra page on 10/22/1991.
