We’ve all heard of fitness freaks, but here’s one man who has taken his fitness fetish to another level. Ghani Souleymane, a UAE expat runs 45 km every day. Yes, you read that right! The young man is making use of the Dubai Fitness Challenge to exercise and stay fit. Ghani starts his day starts at 2:00 am and heads to work post his run. The 37-year-old hails from Togo, West Africa, and grew up playing football, basketball, volleyball. He only really started running four years ago when he moved to Dubai.
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Ghani Starts His Run At 3 Am & Finishes At 7 Am Or 8 Am
After being a regular at marathons, Ghani decided to extent his 42.4. km into a 45 km run every day, for 30 days. Ever since the Dubai Fitness Challenge kicked off, Ghani starts his day at 2 am. After a breakfast of oats and bananas, he heads for a 45 kilometer run. “I could run faster, but I take it easy on myself. I don’t want to push myself too much, since I have to do it again the next day,” he told Gulf News.
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Ghani runs alone on most days as not many people can wake up and exercise as per his timings. However, he now plans to switch timings so people can join him on his run. In fact, he also plans to give a headsup on social media every day, so others can run with him. “It’s a great opportunity for me to exercise every day for 30 days, except instead of 30 minutes, it takes about 5 hours”, he said.
Managing Work And Fitness
Ghani works for Puma Middle East as a Sales Associate. On hearing his new passion, his manager was nice enough to reduce his working hours, so he could make some time for running. As for his food habits, Ghani eats normal food as he burns over 4000 calories in a day. “The running part is easy but the eating is what’s hard for me”, he says.
One would think after an exhausting 45 km run, Ghani would sleep more than normally recommended. However, turns out not! Ghani is still working on his sleep patterns and only sleeps around four to five hours a night. The only time his brain actually rests, is when he is running. To him, running is therapy, yoga and anything that calms the mind and the soul.
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Being a regular runner, there’s hardly any time to socialize. However, Ghani doesn’t worry too much about it, as he meets new people regularly on runs, and that compensates for all the socializing.
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Lessons He Learned From Running
Running has also allowed Ghani to give back. The young athlete plans to donate the last 20 days of his Dubai 30×30 45km to his favourite charity, Heroes of Hope. The non-profit group is devoted to getting children of determination active. He has a link in his Instagram bio, on which people can donate to this great cause.
“All this running has taught me a lot about myself, about my body. It always brings me back down to earth. It teaches me where I am coming from and where I am going, and that I can do anything.”
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