humans of hoka Archives -

HOKA fan Maël thrives in epic jungle adventure

Maël Jouan is somebody who thrives on a challenge. The 24-year-old has tackled more than 70 ultra-trail events around the world and most recently completed the 230k Jungle Marathon in Peru. It isn’t a race for the faint-hearted. Here is his fearless story.

It all started with an early departure for the city of Cuzco in Peru. From my home in Paris to Sao Paulo in Brazil, Santiago in Chile and, finally, the city of Cuzco, where the Jungle Marathon would take place.

I arrived in Cuzco one week before the start of the race. For those who don’t know Cuzco too well, it’s a city located at 3,400m altitude. Great for training, though a little more difficult when you’ve had a couple of beers.

During the first week, I wasn’t able to experience Cuzco to the maximum. I didn’t sleep well, I had equipment missing and I couldn’t really acclimatise to the conditions. It was very hot during the day, but very cold in the evening. I was alone for my training and I just didn’t know what to do.

Change of approach

I decided to stop putting pressure on myself. I had built up this experience and wasn’t able to enjoy it for what it was. I decided to become the perfect tourist for just a few days.

Forty-eight hours before the departure for base camp, I met David. We ended up spending a lot of time together and became great friends as a result of our shared experience in the jungle. The great friends I made and the amazing people I met is one of my biggest takeaways from the whole experience.

By the time I finally left the hotel at 4.30 in the morning on the day of the race, I was like a battery and couldn’t wait to get started. I had a lot of energy for this race – and a lot of doubters to prove wrong. Many people thought I wouldn’t make it to the end. I wanted to show them what I could do.

Trusting instincts

It felt like a relief to finally get going. I had no race plan, no strategy. It was the jungle. I didn’t know the environment. All I knew was that I had 230 kilometres ahead of me and an 11.5kg bag on my back. I preferred to trust my instincts.

I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t worry about being behind the leaders early on, that the race was long. Besides, the terrain and environment was like another world. It was very different from my training routes in the mountains or on the beach.

Sharing the experience

I finished the first day with Hilary. We finished fourth and fifth, which I was delighted with considering the ankle injury I sustained early on. I strapped it up and tried to carry on as normal.

Day two started and very soon I was alone. The leaders were away and I had to start paying greater attention to the markings. All the riders who have shared kilometres with me will tell you that I wasn’t nearly as careful following the markings as I needed to be.

For some, this kind of race is crazy. For others, it’s huge. I knew I needed this kind of challenge, to get out of my comfort zone. I ended up running alongside John, a smiling, dynamic Irishman who became my teammate. We crossed the obstacles together, little by little. We shared our lives, our work, our interests with each other. The mountains are the perfect place for conversation.

I met people from all over the world and had the opportunity, thanks to ultra-trail running, to share experiences I would never have had the chance to otherwise. There was Martin from Denmark, Frode from Norway. Misha, the Hungarian, who must have been a whole head taller than me, always smiling, always ready to help and always there to chat. It was one of my most beautiful encounters in the Jungle Marathon.

Solidarity in ultra running

Despite the rain that poured throughout day three, I stood, sheltered, and appreciated the simple fact that I was there. I allowed my breathing to slow and admired the environment around me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to live the moment twice.

There were complicated passages, mud that looked like quicksand and that went down the shin to the knee. The paste stuck to our legs, so much so it was sometimes difficult to get out of it. Solidarity is a special word in this kind of race.

I never really saw the sky because of the vegetation above. Insects were everywhere. I ended up swallowing one that stung me in the mouth. It was perhaps a spider, maybe a fly. In moment, it didn’t much matter.

I took on spider’s web after spider’s web. I ended up taking a piece of bamboo to probe in front of me because the webs and spiders became unbearable. But on the stick, there were a lot of ants eating my hand. In short, it was a hell, as Christophe le Saux had told me, a ‘green hell’.

Final flourish

I wasn’t ready for my Jungle Marathon experience to end. I had spent four years preparing for the race, for that finish line moment. But by the time I reached the final stages, suddenly, I wasn’t ready for it all to end.

Despite the swollen feet, the sprained ankle, the spiders, the insect stings, the hunger, tiredness, tears and anguish, I wasn’t ready for the moment to be over. I was joined by kids on the final run in, some of them on bikes, some of them with football jerseys. I reached the bridge and all but two of the kids continue with me to the end.

My final thought as I entered the finish, passing the flags, the party, the announcer, the brass band, was that this moment was for my grandfather. Without him, I would never have accomplished what I did. I thought of my parents and my big sisters, who worried constantly during this race. The doubters no longer mattered. I did it. The jungle was over.

Photo credit: Mikkel Beisner

HOKA fan Tom inspired to stop smoking and run

Tom Pullinger aka Inspired Runner was inactive and seriously unfit. He smoked frequently and was reliant on his inhaler to get him through the day. One day, inspired by his long-distance running father, Tom stopped smoking and took up running in an attempt to lead a healthier lifestyle and be a better role model to his family. From short runs to marathons to IRONMAN, Tom challenged his personal limits and succeeded, with his father by his side every step of the way.

As a teenager, I used to watch from my bedroom window as my dad set off for his regular runs. As soon as he was out of sight, I’d be round the back of the house, smoking.

My dad’s marathon training was regular as clockwork, an hour or two in the evenings and two to three hours on Sunday mornings. Every cigarette I smoked was preceded by and followed by a couple of puffs from my asthma inhaler.

My asthma was really severe. If I had so much as a laughing fit, it would end in me frantically searching for Ventolin. I was using so many inhalers that I would routinely tell my doctor I’d lost another one so that he’d give me another. In reality, I was getting through inhalers at an alarming rate.

This carried on through my twenties. I wasn’t active at all. I worked, I played video games and I smoked.

Taking the first step

Every year, we would go as a family to watch my dad run the London Marathon. Every year, I’d vow to stop smoking. At age 26, my wife and I were married, and as I hit 29, we decided to start a family.

The time was right to stop smoking. At the same time, I started running. Those first tentative steps were terrifying. I couldn’t run 200 metres without vice-like chest pains – more Ventolin was the only way to ease it. The first run was almost half-a-mile in total, mostly walked. Over the weeks and months, this became a mile, then two miles, then three and always carrying my inhaler.

At this time, my dad recognised that we were thinking of starting a family and dropped a bombshell on me. He had a condition called Huntingdon’s disease, which would slowly but eventually take him from us. As a scientist, he had researched how to fight the condition and keeping fit and active could delay its onset, so he ran marathons.

Huntington’s disease

As a hereditary, terminal condition, Huntington’s disease is passed on to one in every two children, so my two sisters and I were faced with the fact that out of the three of us, at least one would likely be carrying the faulty gene. If you carried it, it would be terminal. It didn’t kill you, but the weakened immune system, onset of pneumonia or uncontrolled shaking and swallowing difficulties would definitely do so.

My two older sisters and I had to undergo a series of psychological interviews before the blood test, to ensure we could deal with the possibility of a positive result. I wanted my two sisters to be tested first as I felt this gave them the best chance. One after the other, they revealed the fantastic news that they were both clear of the gene, which meant that the Huntington’s disease would progress no further down their family lines.

Thrilled to bits for them both and their families, I couldn’t help but think that if they were both clear, I was bound to test positive. Results day came and I was completely shocked and stunned to hear the news that I was also clear of the gene – Huntington’s disease in our family ended with my dad – although it would and did take him from us, it progressed no further – my dad had beaten the 1 in 2 odds and not passed it on to any of his three children.

Running together

It was 2002, a couple of years of running had passed by, my wife and I had a young son and I entered my first half marathon, with my dad. We ran together for 12 miles, at the back of the pack. My dad’s condition was taking its toll and he was wobbly, shaky and unsteady on his feet – we had a first aid car behind us the whole time, constantly pulling alongside to ask if we were OK.

By 10 miles, I was done. My longest distance, although running at a slow pace, had tired me out. My dad, although clearly showing signs of his advancing condition, was still so much fitter than me and together we got to the finish line.

Five years later, I was running my first London Marathon, with my dad supporting me just past the halfway point. I stopped and hugged him and carried on in tears. I was a 5-year non-smoker now but still asthmatic and carried my inhaler at all times. I finished in 5 hours 45 minutes, utterly destroyed and my dad told me with glee that I was two hours outside his 3:44 marathon PB! I told him I would beat his best time eventually!

Making the grade

It was 2014 and I had a few marathons under my belt now. I took to triathlon to help with injury prevention and cross training, making my way up to half-IRONMAN distance, where I qualified for Team GB and a place in the 2015 European Age Group Middle-Distance Championships in Italy. To have my dad and my family, including my wife and two boys, supporting me in Italy was amazing. My dad was in a wheelchair now but would come to support at every race he could.

During the build up to this race, 10 weeks earlier, I had fallen off my bike on the ice and broken my back. Eight weeks in a back brace and with only two weeks to train for a half-IRONMAN distance race meant it wasn’t my finest performance. I finished in 5:49, but I couldn’t turn down the chance to race for Team GB, with my family, including my wheelchair-bound father, watching.

Fighting for every breath

It was now 2017 and my fifth London Marathon. I had already improved my PB to 3:28 and my dad wrote me a handwritten card detailing all his PBs, and said how proud he was of how I had turned my life around. He was still in a wheelchair, still fighting for every breath and fighting for every day.

My father came to watch me run in London again. We stayed in a hotel close by but he was taken ill the night before the marathon and had to be rushed to hospital. He didn’t get to see me run the next morning but I ran anyway, knowing it would have been what he wanted.

My dad died shortly afterwards, but he saved my life by motivating me to give up smoking, giving me goals, dreams, ambitions and he also saved our family by beating the odds of his condition and ridding our family of Huntingdon’s disease. The way he battled for every day of his life motivates and inspires me constantly, hence my Instagram name – @Inspired_runner_.

Photo credit: Tom Pullinger

HOKA fan Simon reconnects with the wild in Tanzania

Some 19,000 years ago, people were stood in the very same spot as Simon James in Tanzania. They weren’t just standing either, they were running. Ancient footprints are exquisitely preserved in the mud, now rock. Find out more about Simon’s humbling experience and how he reconnected with the wild during his trip to Lake Natron.

We stood there in the baking sun, the temperature pushing into the mid-40s, the ground radiated immense heat. It was like standing in an oven. Towering high above us was Ol Doinyo Lengai – or ‘the Mountain of God’ – an active volcano soaring out of the Tanzanian Rift Valley to around 3,000m high.

Some 19,000 years ago, people were standing in the very same spot we were now. Not just standing, but running. Their footprints are exquisitely preserved in the mud, now rock. Their toes, even droplets of water which spilled off their feet as they ran, marked the very moments they ran through the mud.

For me, trail running is all about reconnecting with the wild. The wild is where we began and deep down it’s who we are. Running is such a simple and beautiful movement and connects us across race, culture, gender and time. It’s something hard wired in all of us, from that moment we are born and the instinctual feeling of fight or flight, to escaping our cluttered lives as adults and running out down a trail.

True definition of wild

It had taken a 14-hour flight and 7 hours in Jeeps on unmade roads to get to the location, Lake Natron, near the border with Kenya. It felt like we had landed on Mars. We ran through the tiny village of Ngare Sero, the only village on the southern shore of Lake Natron. It felt surreal and exciting to be finally running in this land. It really was the true definition of wild!

The local Maasai called out and waved as we ran past. Some even came to run with us. It was an amazing experience and one that I will treasure for a lifetime. In that moment we ran together, we ran because we all loved running, and everyone was laughing. The kids joined us and soon we were all running just because it felt good to run. We couldn’t speak Maasai, but no language was needed to convey that incredible connection made for just an instant.

Life on the edge

Life is on the edge in Ngare Sero and there is no doubt that survival for most who live here is an everyday experience. I was working with a team of very experienced leaders, facilitating students to help play a part in an international schools’ project, which aimed to provide sustainable access to food and funding for local schools.

Nothing is what it seems, though, in that part of the world. Although we were right next to the sixth-largest lake in Tanzania, it was highly toxic to humans with its high alkalinity. But because of this, it is also sanctuary to 2.5 million lesser flamingos.

Reconnecting with the wild

The volcano, which regularly erupts and destroys everything in its path, was the very reason why the footprints had been preserved. We sat with those footprints for some time. It was emotional and truly humbling.

I thought back to my relationship with running, and how deeply it is part of who I am. My hands gently touched where their feet had landed in the mud. The scene that I now saw, the lake shimmering behind me in the extreme heat, the Mountain of God dominating this land, those runners would have had the same view some 19,000 years ago. For a moment, I felt we were somehow connected. The first trail runners and me.

Photo credit: Simon James

Feeling inspired? Simon works full-time in the outdoor industry, looking after the day-to-day operation of Run the Wild and working as a trail running guide. In summer, he is based in Saint Gervais, at the foot of Mont Blanc, and for the rest of the year in the Chiltern Hills in the UK. Simon works on charity-based projects in Tanzania as well as leading groups up Kilimanjaro. Follow Simon and Run the Wild on Instagram and check out the website here.

Breaking down barriers for mental health and wellbeing

Simon Vaisey was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy until he started to experience mental health issues during his second term of university. Thanks to the help and support of his family, friends and the charity, Samaritans UK, Simon was able to take a step back, speak up and find his way forwards again. Read on to find out more about his story and why he’s now tackling 50 marathon events in 50 weeks to raise awareness for mental health charities.

“50 marathon events? In 50 weeks? Are you mad?”

If I had a pound every time somebody has said that to me over the last year, I’d be a very rich man. But every so often, an idea can come in to your mind that you can’t let go. This has certainly been one of those ideas. It’s an idea I started putting into action on 9 September 2018 – and one that has seen me tick off 20 marathon events since.

“But why 50 marathon events in 50 weeks?” I hear you ask.

Well, before I started this journey, I had run one marathon and three half marathons in my 24-year existence. Now I’m attempting 30 marathons and 20 half marathons in consecutive weeks. I wanted to challenge myself further, set myself a goal that seemed unobtainable, push my body to its limits.

Facing up to the challenge

And it won’t just be about the physical act of running a marathon. Some might think that a long-distance event is predominantly a physical challenge, but as any seasoned runner would know, it is also very much about the mental battles you face along the way.

These long-distance events will see me tackle challenges I would never have dreamed of facing, as well as raise awareness of the value of good mental health and wellbeing for everyone.

I hope that by giving this challenge a go, I can help people realise they can break through any barrier they feel might be in their way.

Why now?

Let me take you back to where this all began.

I have always been a happy-go-lucky kind of person, continually positive and pretty laid back. Nothing ever phased me, and life was, for the most part, pretty good to me. Fast forward to January 2015, though, and life took a 180-degree turn.

I was beginning my second term at university. Things weren’t going great, factors that were both in and out of my control were the forces of this change. Without family and a secure network around me, my mental health declined rapidly.

Speaking up

At first, I can’t say I really noticed. It was when I went home to visit those closest to me that I realised something wasn’t right. But I carried on as normal as possible, thinking it would blow over. But it didn’t.

I decided to move back home and sit my exams later on in the year, so I could take proper care of my mental health. Through self-care and immeasurable support from my friends and family, I came out the other side.

I was fortunate. Through first-hand experience, I can vouch for the number of people who aren’t lucky enough to have such a support network, who don’t seek help, especially boys and men. Whether it’s down to embarrassment or a lack of understanding, people don’t feel like they can speak up.

Raising awareness

However, there are a number of charities, organisations and individuals changing this, using their voices to bring attention to these issues.

Did you know that 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems are not given appropriate intervention? Through tackling 50 marathon events in 50 weeks, I hope that the awareness and funds I raise can support the provision of a more rigorous support network for young people in our schools, colleges and universities.

The support I received was critical. Now I want to try and give back, so more people can benefit and feel that they can speak up about mental health.

Simon is running to raise awareness for UK mental health charities, Samaritans UK and Mind. Samaritans UK reach out to more than half-a-million people a year through their work in local areas across the UK and Ireland. One area of work that is particularly close to Simon’s heart is called Step by Step, which provides practical support and guidance to help school and college communities prepare for, and recover from, a suspected or attempted suicide. Listen to Simon discussing his challenge on BBC Radio Oxford.

You can follow Simon’s journey on Instagram @simonjamesvrun50 and help him towards his £3,000 target by visiting his Virgin Money Giving page.

How Shirin Gerami sparked a girls’ sporting revolution in Iran

Triathlete Shirin Gerami’s persistence in pushing Iran to allow her, as a woman, to compete led to a win that transcends sport. Her journey is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

The night before racing in a triathlon most people keep things fairly relaxed. They’ll pack their bags, perhaps eat a giant plate of pasta, piled up high like a pyramid, and have an early night. But before her first World Championships Shirin Gerami was doing none of those things.

Instead, she was rushing around trying to get government permission just to compete in the event. To represent Iran, she needed the okay from the Ministry of Sports there and for the past six months the answer had been a consistent and resounding “No.”

Then suddenly, hours before the race, she got an email confirming she was allowed to compete and Shirin Gerami became the first-ever woman to represent Iran in a world triathlon competition. A mould-breaking moment.

Breaking the mould

Her journey to that point was as improbable as it is inspiring. Starting with the fact she had zero interest in sport as a child, which isn’t surprising because in Iran, where she was born and lived from the ages of 10 to 15, girls aren’t encouraged to play sport. “In the schools I went to, phys-ed was quite weak,” she says. “It was never a seriously sporty session. It was more girls sitting around a courtyard reading books.”

She did however love nature and hiking. “I was around 13 when my mum’s cousin, who always loved hiking and the outdoors, told me I should go hiking with her in the [Alborz] mountains, which Tehran [where she lived] is at the foot of. She seemed to know every single person there and she introduced me and said, ‘If you ever see her, take care of her.’”

After that, Shirin would go hiking in the mountains before school most days, leaving at 4 or 5 a.m. in her school uniform. “I’d come down smelly and sweaty and go to school,” she laughs.

When she was 18, she and two friends spontaneously took a hiking trip from Tehran to the Caspian Sea. They were having an amazing time until the fifth night when they got attacked in their tent by a group of men with “large daggers and knives fit to cut off the carcass of sheep.”

The experience was transformative for Shirin, causing her to be diagnosed with a mental illness, but also helping her realise that sport was her way back. “Anytime I’ve gone through a down or hard times,” she says, “it’s always been sports and the outdoors that helped me come back up again from the depths of downness.”

Starting out in triathlon

She went to university at Durham in England, and in her final year found the courage to try triathlon. “I didn’t consider myself sporty in anyway. Triathlon seemed totally impossible and out of my reach but I like an adventure…”

Still, she was completely intimidated at the start. “I was the last person in the slowest lane in the pool, I had to walk my bike up the hill and I was the one who was getting lapped on the track,” she says.

But she kept going and made progress. The thought of racing terrified Shirin but she’d made good friends in the sport and they persuaded her to try. At each stage of her first race, she expected to be stopped for going too slowly. But she never was.

Was she euphoric at the finish line? “It was more the realisation that we underestimate ourselves daily. We don’t show up to the start line; we give up before having even tried.”

She moved to London for work and joined a triathlon club “for the fun and love of it.” Then ahead of the ITU World Championships, which in 2013 were taking place in London, she was chatting with some triathlon friends about the various nationalities that would be represented in the race. “We all laughed and joked and said, ‘Iran, haha well that’s not going to be possible.’ But that night I thought, ‘Hang on. You dismissed something, without actually exploring it.’”

Making the grade

The next morning she called up the triathlon federation in Iran and asked why exactly women couldn’t race. After many questions, the first tangible thing she found was it had to do with clothing and Iran’s non-negotiable stance on women covering up. Shirin thought this would be a simple thing to solve, but it took her six months of sourcing various outfits, and pictures and emails and flights to Iran before the Ministry of Sports delivered that magical “Yes.”

Race day was the first time she’d worn her sanctioned outfit, which included a hijab. The kit was not the easiest thing to compete in, but in that first race, Shirin wasn’t worrying about that. “The relief of getting the permission was beyond anything, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh it feels a little heavy.’”

Four years on from that ground-breaking race, she has many more triathlons under her belt including the iconic Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, which she did last year. Thirteen hours of hardcore exercise over 140.6 miles, all in a hijab, covered to her wrists and toes.

She still feels there’s room for improvement in terms of kit that women can compete in fairly and safely while adhering to strict Islamic codes. “Some people find arts therapy, some people find sports therapy… I dream of a world where everyone could access sports — should they want to. And if clothing really is the area that is stopping you from accessing sport, then I think that’s something that needs to be looked at.”

But Shirin’s legacy is already in full effect. She’s inspired women all over the world, and in 2017, Iran sent a team of female triathletes to the Central Asian Championships for the first time, which was “very uplifting” for her.

“I hope these opportunities will continue growing,” she says. “In the UK, I rock up to whatever club I want to join and start training. It’s as a simple as that. Whereas if I’d been a girl living in Iran, I would not for one second have known what a triathlon was. And I’d have missed out on the confidence, empowerment and joy it’s brought to my life.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the innovative Clifton trainers Shirin wears.

Change of approach

Trusting instincts

Sharing the experience

Solidarity in ultra running

Final flourish

Taking the first step

Huntington’s disease

Running together

Making the grade

Fighting for every breath

True definition of wild

Life on the edge

Reconnecting with the wild

Facing up to the challenge

Why now?​

Speaking up

Raising awareness

Breaking the mould

Starting out in triathlon

Making the grade

Why now?