![]() "I don't care how slow I go, as long as I cover my mileage that day." He admits that a physiotherapist would have advised him to rest and recuperate at that point, but there was no stopping. My knee was locked - I couldn't bend it." "Around day 25, I thought it was over," he said. Running at altitude combined with injuries in the early stages of his challenge knocked his confidence, and limited his mileage. His aim is to rack up between 30 and 40 miles a day and reach New York within 100 days, but he is careful to add a cautious "we'll see!" to that timetable. Sidibe runs every day, come rain, shine or snowĪnd so the idea of the transcontinental run was born.Īfter his start was delayed by 12 months because of the coronavirus pandemic, Sidibe finally set off on 1 March this year from Huntington Beach, near Los Angeles. He has documented his journey and built a loyal following on his YouTube channel (he has almost 250,000 subscribers), which has provided him with steady income and sponsorship from a British fitnesswear brand.Īfter two years of running every day, he wanted to challenge himself further and looked for something "bigger than me". He has kept up his streak of running every single day for almost four years, regardless of the weather. So far Sidibe has been as good as his word. It immediately changed his attitude to running, and he told his girlfriend: "I think I can do this for the rest of my life." To tackle his attitude to running head on, Sidibe set himself a relatively easy challenge - running 10 minutes a day for two weeks. "But when the coach tells you 'let's start running', your stomach drops - you're scared of the pain you're about to go through." Sidibe played against his hero Frank Lampard "In soccer, it's about the game so you're not only focused on the running," he says. His highlight, he says, was playing in a pre-season game against his hero Frank Lampard, while the former Chelsea man was at New York City FC.īut even as a pro athlete, running for running's sake was something Sidibe resisted. ![]() ![]() The challenge is also rooted in Sidibe's love of running - but it was definitely not love at first sight.Īfter being awarded a scholarship to play in the top US college division, he later signed a professional contract with MLS side Seattle Sounders. Children play football in a dried river bed in Mali, West Africa The footballer who hated to run "Back in Mali, if you get a pair of shoes, you were told you had better take care of them because it could be years before you get another pair," he says.Ĭonsequently he hopes to raise money and awareness for a charity, Soles4Souls, that redistributes unwanted shoes to the millions of people around the world living in poverty without access to any form of footwear. The soles of his own feet are scarred from playing football on gravel or dirt roads. Sidibe says it is essential for Malian children to have regular tetanus vaccines because it is so common to cut their feet on discarded metal shards. Hellah Sidibe playing football in Mali and in the US The only thing that was important to me was kicking a ball and running around," he says. ![]() "As a child in Mali, soccer is a way of life. Sidibe, who moved from West Africa to the United States aged seven when his parents' academic work took them there, says at the time he didn't know sports other than soccer existed. So why put himself through it? 'If you get a pair of shoes, you better take care of them' "It's painful!" he told BBC Sport from the recreational vehicle that is his home for the duration of the run, currently somewhere in Oklahoma. The 30-year-old, whose footballing career peaked with a spell at MLS side Seattle Sounders, is about halfway through a transcontinental run from California to New York - about 3,200 miles in total, and a feat only about 300 people are thought to have achieved.
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