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ties that students have been participating
in for the past few years to raise awareness
for the Brave Heart Fund.
Much to their amusement, students found
themselves running alongside curious
locals who jogged along asking them
questions. Students obliged by explaining
about Brave Heart.
Students were divided into shifts: the
night group ran from Tripoli to Beirut
(11pm – 11am) and the daytime group
ran from Beirut to Tyre (11am – 11pm).
Except for Wehbi, runners took breaks on
the bus every so often.
And when the pain got just too much to
handle, “I just remembered that Ali had
told us that running is about 10 to 30 per-
cent actual physical and the rest is mental,”
said Mohamed Saleh, 18. “So I didn’t
think of the pain. I focused on the thought
that I was doing something good.”
Some needed breaks every 15 minutes
and some every hour. During the night,
runners began to retire onto the bus,
one after the other. Sara and three other
students were left alone. “I kept pushing
myself,” said Sara. “We weren’t going to
leave Ali on his own.”
But during the second half of the run, the
unforeseeable happened. Wehbi injured
his leg and had to stop. Aghast at the
idea of stopping the run half way, students
made a quick decision: they would run for
him and he would rejoin when he could.
“We all agreed that we couldn’t let the run
stop,” said Mohamed. “So we took over
and just kept running.”
Chirazi supported their decision and the
group finally reached Tyre.
“I saw so much courage and so much will
in the students during these 24 hours,”
said Chirazi. “It’s very painful to keep
running such long distance but they
refused to leave Ali running alone no
matter what.”
At long last the run was over. One by one,
the runners made their way home to bed.
Their fatigue, however, didn’t last long as
they all showed up energized to run the
Beirut Marathon only a few weeks later.
SPRING
2012
11
“I just remembered that Ali had told us that running is
about 10 to 30 percent actual physical and the rest is
mental … So I didn’t think of the pain.”