by Hellah Sidibé has been on a roll since May 15, 2017. Rain or shine, and regardless of how his body feels, he has been running for more than 2,700 days.
Sidibe beams with joy. This comes through in the videos he posts on Instagram and YouTube about his run, which usually open with him saying “What’s up, my beautiful people?”
But before 2017, running didn’t mean joy for Sidibe. He dreaded it because it was a punishment when he played football. He played professionally in Mali, where he grew up.
When he attempted to continue his professional soccer career in America, his lack of American citizenship (he has since obtained it) prevented teams from signing him. “I got to a point where I was so frustrated in life that I really didn’t know what to do with myself, because now professional football wasn’t working anymore and I couldn’t find a job.” , he said. He thinks he had signs of depression.
He wanted to do something that would make him feel in control. He thought, “Why don’t you try something that scares you a little?” he said. That something worked.
Sidibe decided to run 10 minutes a day for two weeks. But after that, he didn’t want to stop. “I will be so happy when I’m there, because I just think about myself, I’m there 10 minutes a day and I’m in control, no coach is shouting at me or pointing fingers at me , and I can stop whenever I want,” he says. “It made me feel whole again.”
Sidibé grew up in Mali as a happy child. “Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world,” but people tend to see the glass half full rather than half empty, he says. He began to lose sight of this after arriving in the United States, where he compared himself more to others. Running made him feel like himself again.
In 2021, Sidibe decided to travel across the United States to raise money for Soles4Souls, which donates shoes to children in need around the world. He raised $50,000. It took him 84 days to travel 3,061 miles, and he would be the first black man to cross the United States solo.
While completing this race as a black man, Sidibé was arrested several times by the police. He knows that people often have preconceived ideas about what a runner should look like.
One day, while Sidibé was in Boston, a black man ran up to him and told him that Sidibé had given him the confidence to start running. “He started to cry and he told me his story,” Sidibé remembers. “He said, ‘When I saw you running, I thought I could run too, because where I live, in my neighborhood, I’m afraid to go running, because people might thinking I did something wrong… as if running away from doing something.
Sidibe recalled telling the man how he tried to make sure he looked like a runner, such as wearing a colorful running shirt and sports hat. But he realizes that not everyone can do that. “We say running is so accessible: all you need is a pair of shoes. But it goes way beyond just having a pair of shoes,” he says.
Most of Sidibé’s miles logged were on the roads, both during his cross-country run and near his home in New Jersey. He has run four marathons. But he discovered that trail running — which requires traversing varied terrain — was fun in a different way.
Running and jumping in the woods, he said, “I feel like a little child.” » When he records himself running on trails and watches it later, he realizes that he makes noise while running, like children do. “I’m just like, ‘Haaa!’ – these weird noises, I don’t even know it’s happening at that time,” he says.
During Sidibé’s cross-country race, someone suggested he run the Leadville Trail 100-mile race. He ran it in 2022, then ran the Western States 100 in 2023. Running these long trail or ultramarathon races is a different kind of challenge – it’s like playing a game of chess with yourself , he said.
He is now looking forward to running the Javelina Jundred 100-miler on Saturday. In this one, he plans to push himself harder than ever over 100 miles. “I want to see if I can lead a big [personal record]and I’m not talking about two minutes, but about saving hours on my hundred hours,” he says. His sponsors, including Hoka, Bare Performance Nutrition and Tifosi Optics, support his running and racing.
Sidibe says he likes the trail community, where people support and look out for each other, and where they’re less focused on racing against each other than road runners sometimes are. But at these trail races, black people and other people of color are rare. Sidibe said that at Leadville he saw no other black people on the course.
He hopes his presence at these trail races will show other people of color that they can fit into the sport, too. But not everyone can easily access a track for running, Sidibe explains. People told him, “I’d love to go trail running, but I don’t know where to go, and also, if I go, will I feel welcome when I get there?” …Will it be weird seeing me in the woods? Am I going to be looked at? I’m a little nervous.
Registration fees for races can run into the hundreds of dollars, plus the cost of lodging and transportation to the races, making them out of reach for many people.
Sidibé hopes to see the trail running community improve accessibility for people of color, for example by covering running costs and travel. He would like to create a program that invites people of color to participate in a trail race, paying for their shoes, equipment, race fees and travel expenses.
Sidibe also made running accessible to others in a different way: he volunteered as a guide for a blind runner, through Achilles International. He learned to maintain a connection between himself and the runner, and Sidibe guided the duo to a sub-four-hour marathon.
Through his racing streak, Sidibé learned two main lessons: “I am much stronger than I think” and “There is always light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. In his race across the United States, “There would be a day when you would be miserable, when you could barely lift your leg, and then you would survive that day. Then the next day comes,” and you realize you can make it through that day, too, he says.
Sidibe tends to think he can do whatever he wants. It therefore does not dwell on the challenges associated with daily running. But one of the challenges was making sure he could run while traveling. When he flew to South Africa, he stopped in Germany for 15 hours so he could get out and run without missing a single day. Another challenge is running after an injury, because it can be painful and rob you of the joy of moving your body, he says.
He doesn’t know when he will stop his streak. “I give myself permission to quit any day, and I don’t know when that will be the case. The day I feel like I wake up and I absolutely hate running, then I’ll stop,” he says. He wonders if this day will be sad. “But I don’t think so, because running has already given me so much in my life.”
