at the club. Whenever I needed help, Alan was there for me. I remember one time I climbed aboard the club coach on a Saturday morning. We were off to race somewhere in another county. I had no money for lunch and didn’t know what I was going to do for food. Alan must have seen the look of concern on my face because he stopped beside my seat on the coach and asked if I had any money for lunch. I shook my head. Just like that, Alan dug out his wallet and handed me a crisp £5 note. I was touched. Five pounds was a lot of money to me back then. Alan didn’t have to do that. It came out of his own pocket, not the school. But he genuinely believed in my talent. He wanted to see all his students from Feltham succeed to the best of our abilities. And if that meant helping me out with things like lunch money, he was willing to do it. Without Alan, I would never have been able to take those first few steps towards my Olympic dream.
You might wonder why my mum, or my Aunt Kinsi, didn’t watch me race. The truth is, in Somali culture people don’t really view running in the same light as we do here. If you go out for a run in Somalia, people think there’s something wrong with you. To them, running is a crazy man’s sport. You should only be running if there’s a good reason – fetching water, perhaps, or escaping danger. In their eyes, the idea of someone running in a pure race format is puzzling. I think Mum viewed my running in this way. As a sort of hobby – something I did in my spare time to burn off energy. She didn’t attend my races because it never occurred to her that running was something to be taken seriously. The same was true for Aunt Kinsi. As it would be for most Somalis.
One Thursday after training at the club Alan reminded me that I had an event at St Albans on the Sunday. He wanted to know how I intended to get there. ‘Are you going to go on the coach with the other runners, Mo?’
‘Coach?’ I repeated, nodding. ‘Yeah. Cool.’
In those days, although I’d been in England a couple of years, my English was still rough around the edges. I could have a conversation, but there were gaps in my vocabulary and sometimes I didn’t understand what people were saying. Instead of admitting that I was confused, I’d simply smile and nod and pretend that I understood. If that drew a puzzled response from the other person, I figured I’d given them the wrong answer, so I’d change my ‘yes’ to a ‘no’, quickly shaking my head. In my mind, it was preferable to owning up that I didn’t know what the other person was saying.
On the Sunday morning I got up and waited for the coach to arrive. No sign of it. An hour passed. Still nothing. It was getting dangerously close to the start of the race and I was starting to think that the driver had forgotten to pick me up and gone without me. Just then I gazed out of the window and saw a car pull up outside our house. Alan bolted out of the car.
‘Mo, what’s happened?’ he exclaimed breathlessly. ‘Why didn’t you get on the coach?’
Alan had gone to watch the race, arrived at St Albans and waited for me to get off the coach. When I had failed to emerge, he’d driven to my house to come looking for me. As he explained all this, I scratched my head.
‘I thought you meant the coach was going to pick me up from my house,’ I said.
There was no time to lose. I grabbed my stuff and hurried into the car with Alan. We raced north to St Albans on the M25 and made it to the course in the nick of time. I won easily, having almost missed the race.
My cousin Mahad used to come with us on the trips. I’d ride up front with Alan, while Mahad sat in the back seat singing or making jokes. It was nice to have him tag along. He was the more vocal of the two of us. When we weren’t taking the mick, I’d take the opportunity to brush up on my English, pointing to things in the fields at the side of the road and saying the English words to Alan. ‘Cow.’
You might wonder why my mum, or my Aunt Kinsi, didn’t watch me race. The truth is, in Somali culture people don’t really view running in the same light as we do here. If you go out for a run in Somalia, people think there’s something wrong with you. To them, running is a crazy man’s sport. You should only be running if there’s a good reason – fetching water, perhaps, or escaping danger. In their eyes, the idea of someone running in a pure race format is puzzling. I think Mum viewed my running in this way. As a sort of hobby – something I did in my spare time to burn off energy. She didn’t attend my races because it never occurred to her that running was something to be taken seriously. The same was true for Aunt Kinsi. As it would be for most Somalis.
One Thursday after training at the club Alan reminded me that I had an event at St Albans on the Sunday. He wanted to know how I intended to get there. ‘Are you going to go on the coach with the other runners, Mo?’
‘Coach?’ I repeated, nodding. ‘Yeah. Cool.’
In those days, although I’d been in England a couple of years, my English was still rough around the edges. I could have a conversation, but there were gaps in my vocabulary and sometimes I didn’t understand what people were saying. Instead of admitting that I was confused, I’d simply smile and nod and pretend that I understood. If that drew a puzzled response from the other person, I figured I’d given them the wrong answer, so I’d change my ‘yes’ to a ‘no’, quickly shaking my head. In my mind, it was preferable to owning up that I didn’t know what the other person was saying.
On the Sunday morning I got up and waited for the coach to arrive. No sign of it. An hour passed. Still nothing. It was getting dangerously close to the start of the race and I was starting to think that the driver had forgotten to pick me up and gone without me. Just then I gazed out of the window and saw a car pull up outside our house. Alan bolted out of the car.
‘Mo, what’s happened?’ he exclaimed breathlessly. ‘Why didn’t you get on the coach?’
Alan had gone to watch the race, arrived at St Albans and waited for me to get off the coach. When I had failed to emerge, he’d driven to my house to come looking for me. As he explained all this, I scratched my head.
‘I thought you meant the coach was going to pick me up from my house,’ I said.
There was no time to lose. I grabbed my stuff and hurried into the car with Alan. We raced north to St Albans on the M25 and made it to the course in the nick of time. I won easily, having almost missed the race.
My cousin Mahad used to come with us on the trips. I’d ride up front with Alan, while Mahad sat in the back seat singing or making jokes. It was nice to have him tag along. He was the more vocal of the two of us. When we weren’t taking the mick, I’d take the opportunity to brush up on my English, pointing to things in the fields at the side of the road and saying the English words to Alan. ‘Cow.’
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