Ethiopia’s barefoot marathoner: Why I traded corner office for the track

My passion for sports started at an early age. I was born in Addis Ababa and grew up near the Jan Meda horseracing fields, where the national cross-country athletics championships also took place every year.

I used to play football when I was young, and also played at the Addis Ababa University. I studied engineering and, when I was in the fourth year of university, I was the top scorer. So, I’ve always loved football.

But, after university, and when I started to work, the Great Ethiopian Run was launched (in 2001 by Ethiopian distance running legend Haile Gebrselassie) and I took part from the first to the fourth editions.

I started running a bit late, as I worked as a maintenance engineer at Ethiopian Airlines for three years before joining the Great Ethiopian Run’s management team, having also worked as a volunteer with the Run.

I worked at the Great Ethiopian Run for almost 15 years, initially as a marketing manager for five years and then as race director and general manager for a decade.

It was while leading the Great Ethiopian Run team that I was also nominated to join the executive board of the Ethiopian Motorsport Federation and was elected president, serving for five years and mainly working on international relations.

During my presidency, we hosted the annual ASN Africa motorsport meeting, which was attended by International Automobile Federation president Jean Todt and other African delegates in Addis Ababa.

For over a decade, you headed the Great Ethiopian Run as general manager and race director. What made you move out of this enviable position?

The wake-up call was Covid-19. During the pandemic, as you know, public gatherings were not allowed, and we were also not allowed to come to the office. That gave me time to reflect on my life.

Looking back, I felt I’d done enough for the Great Ethiopian Run and I needed move on. But I couldn’t move out immediately, because I needed to ensure that the company moved out of the pandemic. We did virtual races during the pandemic and created exercise routines for the public.

After the lockdown, the Great Ethiopian Run gave a lot of hope to the public by organising a mass participation race in January 2021. 

Initially, the event was to run in November 2019, but, because of the lockdown, it was pushed to January 2021. It was after that that I decided I needed to do something new and so, a few months after the 2021 race, I resigned to pursue my passion – to brand Ethiopia.

In June 2021, I co-founded a marketing company, Deenk Ethiopian Brand, and I’m now pursuing my passion of running barefoot and marketing Ethiopia.

Why barefoot?

The inspiration, really, was to create a challenge for myself. Branding a nation is not an easy task, and so I felt I would need to overcome a lot of challenges.

Every Sunday we went hiking, as I normally exercise a lot. We would climb the Entoto Mountains (on the outskirts of Addis Ababa), but some of the people working with us were struggling to catch up with me because of my fitness.

That’s when I came up with the idea of hiking barefoot and, eventually, I ran barefoot in the Predator 5km race -- which the Great Ethiopian Run organised -- to create awareness on cancer. 

I also ran in the Great Ethiopian Run – barefoot -- for the first time since I left the company to raise awareness on breast cancer. And after I did the Hawassa Half Marathon, also organised by the Great Ethiopian Run, a few months later, I felt I should try the marathon, which lent itself well to what I was doing in branding the nation and using running as a way of telling the story of Ethiopia.

Abebe Bikila’s Olympic marathon victory – while running barefoot – in Rome in 1960, has a special place in Ethiopian and African history, as it was Africa’s first Olympic medal that then inspired other Ethiopian and African athletes.

Also, when Ethiopians fought in the Battle of Adwa (in 1896), they fought barefoot and defeated the Italian army, and defeated colonialism.

Therefore, barefoot running has a lot of symbolism, and nowadays, when people see me running barefoot and ask me why, it’s an opportunity for me to tell them a bit about Ethiopian history. It’s a vehicle for me to promote my message, as I also do public lectures and speak to children and the youth wherever I go. 

Running 42km barefoot is quite demanding. How do you avoid injuries, blisters, etc?

Walking barefoot in Ethiopia is nothing new. A lot of people in the countryside and out of town normally walk barefoot. But I grew up in Addis Ababa and I never walked barefoot when I was a child, and I only started it when I decided to run.

I was lucky because I normally train for an average of 10km a week running barefoot to prepare myself and now my feet have become stronger.

Initially, they used to bleed and get blisters, but now I no longer get them, even after running the half marathons. It’s really when I do some of the full marathons, where the surfaces are very tough, that I could get blisters.

And so, running once in a week for an average of 10km barefoot helps strengthen my feet. My feet are now very strong and, even after my last marathon in New York last month, I didn’t have any blisters. My feet are now getting used to it.

How many marathons have you run barefoot so far and which have been your best and your worst?

I have done five full marathons and two half marathons. The first full marathon was the 2022 Rome Marathon, which was very special, because that was where Abebe Bikila won the Olympic gold in 1960, running barefoot.

The second was in Athens, the birthplace of the Olympics marathon, and my third race was the Seoul Marathon, followed by the 2024 Paris Olympics mass marathon that took place on the same day as the Olympic Games men’s marathon race, but in the evening. My final marathon was last month’s New York City Marathon.

But my best remains the Paris Olympics one, because it was the Olympics, and not everyone has the opportunity to run in the Olympics.

It was the first time in Olympic history for fun runners like myself to run, although it was my slowest run. But I really enjoyed it.

My worst race was in Seoul, where the weather was very cold and I really couldn’t improve on my time.

My personal best time remains four hours and nine minutes, which I did in Athens. In Seoul, apart from the weather, my feet were really hurt by blisters. Of all the marathons, the Seoul surface was the hardest for me.

Which is your next race?

I want to run at the Tokyo Marathon on March 2, 2025, because it also has a special connection with Abebe Bikila, as he won his second Olympic marathon gold in Tokyo in 1964.

I want to run in Tokyo, but it’s not easy to get an entry as there’s a 10 percent chance. I applied this year, but didn’t get the chance and so I’m trying to get support from the Ethiopian Athletics Federation to secure a place next year, as that’s my dream.