by Mo Farah
To save up some money and fund my social life I got a job in a local sports shop – a branch of Sweatshop in Teddington. A lot of other young athletes worked there. Benedict Whitby had a job in the store’s mail-order department. Sam was there too. Benedict knew I was looking for work, so he rang me up one day, asking if I was interested in a job in the warehouse. I’d worked at Pizza Hut and McDonald’s and fancied upgrading my battered old Fiesta, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ The job involved collating envelopes and leaflets to send out marketing information to Sweatshop customers. It wasn’t what you’d call challenging work, but the hours suited me just fine. Whenever they needed me over at the warehouse Benedict would give me a bell and leave a message. ‘It’s half-ten, son. Finish up your training. I’ve got a job for you. Get down here!’
After a while I switched from the warehouse to the shop floor. Working at the Sweatshop could be a good laugh, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes I’d go out on the Friday night, come back in the early hours and wake up on Saturday, feeling shattered and knowing that I had to turn up for work at the Sweatshop that morning. Those days could be really long.
At lunchtime I’d go for a run with Benedict and Sam, but they ran insanely fast. Our usual route was through Richmond Park, and we’d do a good 10 miles in our lunch hour. The run would start off at a good pace, then, all of a sudden, Benedict would start picking up the pace, going faster and faster. Being that little bit younger than them both, I struggled to keep up. The first time the three of us went out for a run together, I couldn’t believe the pace Benedict was setting. That guy used to kill us in training; he was an absolute animal. After that I knew that training with Benedict wasn’t going to be fun. It was going to hurt. My legs would be killing me by the end of a session, but I knew that was a good thing. The pain would make me a better runner.
In our first year at the centre, Alan organized a trip for the St Mary’s athletes to a UKA training camp at Potchefstroom, which is about 75 miles from Johannesburg in South Africa. At 4430 feet above sea level, it’s at the bottom end in terms of altitude-benefit for athletes, but it’s a good introduction to training at altitude, and as it’s only two hours ahead of the UK, it doesn’t mess with your body clock. The facilities are top class, and in the winter months it’s warm without being too hot. It was my first time training at altitude and I loved it. The camp had two all-weather racetracks, but we stuck to running on the grass because it was so good.
Everyone from my crowd at St Mary’s went on that trip: Tom Bedford, James McIlroy … about a dozen of us in total. I was up to my usual tricks and games. On the Sunday evening we went into town to catch the first Lord of the Rings movie at the cinema. Potchefstroom is a nice white neighbourhood; I knew this at the time because I was aware of being the only black kid in the audience. All of a sudden, the power cut out. Everyone got out of their seats and started piling towards the exits. I saw my opportunity for a joke. I bolted up from my seat, ran down the aisle towards the front of the screen and started barking like a dog. I’ve no idea why I did that. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone in the audience started spinning around to see where the dog noises were coming from and spotted this black kid howling in front of the screen. I must have been quite a sight.
Throughout this time I still kept in touch with Alan Watkinson at St Mary’s. We’d meet up for coffee and he’d sometimes come along to the campus to watch me train. Of course, he still followed my results really closely. I think both Alan and Conrad were pleased to take a back seat in terms of my career. They had helped me out a lot – Alan especially had been running around sorting things for me for years. He was probably looking forward to having a bit of a rest! He had seen me grow from a restless kid who couldn’t speak much English into a determined young runner who was on the verge of racing at senior level. Life is like that. You get somewhere, suddenly everyone wants to congratulate you and take credit for your success. In your heart, you know the people who truly matter – the people without whom you couldn’t have made it onto the podium in the first place. For that reason, whenever anyone asks me who the biggest influence in my life has been, I always tell them, ‘My old teacher, Alan Watkinson.’
For a while back there, I was in danger of losing my way at St Mary’s. I didn’t go completely off the rails, but I definitely let my focus slip from training. I was carefree. One night a bunch of us went out to Oceana. It was the usual suspects: myself, Tom Bedford, Big Frank, plus a few other lads. After I’d given a demonstration of my finest dance moves, we left the club and wandered around the streets of Kingston at gone two o’clock in the morning, six guys on the lookout for something crazy to do to make it a memorable night. It was winter and freezing cold, but as we strolled past the River Thames, one of the lads suddenly had an idea.
‘Boys,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve got it … let’s jump off the bridge!’
Everyone started cheering. Great idea! Two o’clock in the morning, freezing cold, jump in the river. Classic. Soon we were arguing over who was going to jump into the water first.
‘If you do it, I’ll do it,’ one guy said.
‘Only if you go first,’ I replied.
‘No, no!’ Tom declared. ‘Tell you what, boys. We’re all going in at the same time!’
Suddenly, a few of the lads went quiet. Jumping into the Thames didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. Soon everyone else had bottled out, leaving just Tom and me, who were still up for jumping off the bridge. We stripped fully naked. I handed my clothes to Big Frank and made my way to the middle of the bridge. It was a freezing night and the water looked properly cold, black and slimy. Tom and me both stopped at the edge. Well, this was it now. No going back.
We looked at each other as if to say, ‘Are you really going to do this?’
Kingston Bridge is not some tiny crossing over a little stream. It’s a long stone bridge that’s roughly the same length as the 100-metre distance on the track. Fall over the edge and you’re hitting the water with a bang. I looked down. It had to be a drop of 10 or 12 metres from the arches to the water. I didn’t know what I was doing up there. I couldn’t even swim properly. In the distance I could see Bushy Park. I remember shuffling further along the bridge, thinking it through in my head. ‘Right, I’ll aim for the edge of the river because that way I’ll land closer to the bank, so I won’t have as far to swim to the bank.’
We both took one final breath. One, two, three …
Then we jumped.
BOOOM!!!
I fell hard. Felt a sharp stinging pain hit me, like someone had slapped me across the chest. I’d hit the water flat. I saw black for a moment. Couldn’t tell which way was up or down. The water was like ice. Then I came up for air. I looked around for Tom. He’d crashed into the water a metre or so away from me. I started flapping around, while up on the bridge Big Frank and the other lads were killing themselves with laughter, leaning over the arches and waving down at us both. At that point one of the boys pointed somewhere down the bridge and shouted, ‘LOOK! POLICE! LEG IT!’
In a panic, Tom and me both swam frantically towards the edge of the river. Tom was a much better swimmer than me; I arrived at the bank after him, my arms splashing water all over the place. We climbed out, dripping wet and stark naked, and raced in the opposite direction from the police, using our hands to shield our privates. Big Frank still had our clothes. My teeth were chattering from the cold. I was dripping wet and chilled to the bone. Steering clear of the main road, we legged it as fast as we could down this dimly lit footpath. Then we found some thick bushes and decided to hide in them. We must have stayed hidden there for a good fifteen minutes before Big Frank and the rest of the boys showed up, laughing out loud. Tom turned to me and growled, ‘Those bastards are winding us up!’
Big Frank chucked us our clothes. We quickly got dressed and headed back to the campus before the police showed up for real.
The next day I hopped on a flight to Boulder, Colorado, where I
was due to train at a high-altitude training camp. I didn’t feel too good at check-in. By the time I got off the plane, I was feeling properly ill. I was coughing loads. My body was sore all over. I had the chills. I couldn’t even turn my head to the left or right because my neck muscles were badly strained. For the whole week I felt really bad and did as little running as I could get away with. I tried to hide my symptoms from the other guys at the camp, but one or two caught me having a coughing fit and asked what was wrong. I just muttered something about coming down with a cold. I left out the bit about jumping off a bridge into a freezing cold river in the middle of the night.
Throughout my time at St Mary’s I stayed in touch with Tania. We had remained close friends after leaving school, spending time around each other. That closeness between us – it was always there. Around this time I picked up an injury that prevented me from running. As part of my rehabilitation I had to do regular sessions of something called aqua-jogging. This basically involves performing a low-impact running motion in a pool. It’s a good way to keep your fitness level up without putting pressure on the muscles and risking aggravating the injury. Tania offered to come along with me and do the aqua-jogging together. She’d stopped running by this time, but because we were such good friends she wanted to help me out and knew I would get bored going down to the pool by myself. As we still lived near to each other, we got into a routine of meeting up somewhere between our homes in the evening. Then we’d jump on a bus together and head down to the swimming pool, listening to Tupac tunes on my iPod, one earphone in my ear, Tania listening through the other earphone. Tupac was our favourite artist. By the time we got to the pool it was late in the evening and the place was deserted. Often we’d be the only ones there. The two of us aqua-jogging together. At the end of the session we’d hop on the bus again. Ride home. Listen to some more Tupac. Being injured is never fun, but hanging out with Tania made it manageable.
In the spring of 2003, I learnt that Hassan, my twin, was getting married. We had managed to speak on the phone a few times, although getting hold of him was fraught with difficulties. He had moved into a house with Mum and a few relatives, and he now worked as a mechanic at a local garage. I had to smile at that. I’d had my heart set on being a mechanic as a kid, whereas Hassan had never really given it a moment’s thought. It’s funny how things work out sometimes.
As soon as I heard the good news, I knew that I had to fly to Hargeisa, to be there with my family, to see my twin brother get married.
I was going back to Somaliland for the first time in sixteen years.
8
GOING BACK
HASSAN’S wedding was good timing as far as I was concerned. I’d been thinking for a while that I needed a break from the track. I’d made lots of friends at St Mary’s, had some happy memories of my time there, but the truth of it was that during the first half of 2003 I’d lost some of my enthusiasm for running. That season I placed seventy-fourth overall in the World Championship Cross Country in Switzerland and finished second in the 5000 metres in the European Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland – the same race I’d won two years before in Grosseto, Italy. Chris Thompson won the race. My results had nothing to do with Alan Storey. For whatever reason, my heart just wasn’t in it. More than anything, I needed a break.
First, though, I needed to save up for a plane ticket. Flying to Somalia wasn’t cheap. The airport at Mogadishu had been closed down since the civil war began, meaning I’d have to fly to Djibouti City, then catch a chartered plane across the border to Hargeisa. I wasn’t exactly rolling in cash. I had my lottery funding, which covered my basic costs, like food and kit. I also had a bit of sponsorship money, but that was about it. To earn more I pulled extra shifts at the Sweatshop, working at the weekends and fitting in extra hours whenever I could. It was tough, combining my training with all the hours at the shop. But eventually I had saved enough – about £500 – to buy a return ticket to Djibouti City. There was just enough left over to pay for my onward flight to Hargeisa, plus some wedding present money for Hassan and his bride-to-be.
My last race of the season took place on 8 August. I was competing at the Norwich Union Grand Prix at Crystal Palace in the 5000 metres; I came home in ninth place: 13:38.41. I’d already told Alan Storey that I’d be going home for Hassan’s wedding. He was cool about it, and anyway, it was the end of the athletics season so I was due a break. The plan was, I’d go home for a couple of weeks, rest, see my family, and be back in time for the start of the cross country season.
The next day I flew out of Heathrow.
I flew minus my hair. Sporting plaits in Somaliland was a big no-no. The tradition for Somali men is to keep their hair cropped short and to grow a beard. With plaits and no beard, I’d stand out like a sore thumb around Hargeisa, so I decided the hair had to come off before I saw my family. Out came the clippers, off came the hair. After that, it just seemed easier to keep my head shaved rather than grow it again.
On arrival in Djibouti City, I caught a charter plane to Hargeisa Airport. When I boarded the plane I couldn’t believe it. There were no seat belts and condensation was dripping from the cabin ceiling onto the passengers. After a shaky journey, we landed in Hargeisa and I got off the aircraft and looked around. All I remember is Hassan coming up to me, giving me a big hug and a kiss on my cheek and saying, ‘My brother, my brother, my brother!’
Twelve years is a long time to be away from someone you love. It’s hard to describe the joy of that moment. It felt like a part of me had been missing the whole time I had been growing up separately from Hassan. The way I see it is, we’re not different people – we’re part of the same person. At last, the void in my life was gone.
All I could think was, ‘It’s been so long. So many years.’ And yet in all that time Hassan had never been far from my thoughts. I knew he would’ve been thinking about me a lot too. Seeing him again filled me with this sense that things were complete now. The fact that our mum was there too made it even more special. Now the three of us were together again I had this feeling that there was nothing else for me in life. The rest of it – athletics, races, my time at St Mary’s – it had all seemed really important before. But standing there at the airport, I realized that all I’d ever truly wanted was to be with my family. Now they were here, I didn’t want or need anything else.
I was truly happy.
So happy, in fact, that I ended up spending two months there.
There was so much to catch up on. Hassan explained that everyone in the family had been following my athletics career. You’d be surprised what people have out there. Most homes have got some kind of satellite dish that can pick up thousands of channels. People in Hargeisa probably have more TV channels to choose from than anyone in Britain! If they couldn’t follow me on TV, they’d tune in to the BBC World Service for Somalia and wait for the news broadcast. People did whatever they could to keep track of my results. I was touched. That meant a lot to me, the fact that people in Somalia were taking pride in my achievements. Hassan, in particular, has followed my career very closely. To this day, he can list my time and position in just about every race I’ve competed in since my junior days.
Being able to be around Hassan again was such a wonderful feeling. In a way, it was like I’d never left. We instantly clicked. That was the strength of the bond between us. We hadn’t seen each other for more than ten years, and then to be able to meet up and resume our friendship like we’d never been apart – it was amazing. We even got back into the habit of wearing each other’s clothes. We still had the same build, and almost everything Hassan owned fitted me nicely.
Some things had changed, though. The city was mostly peaceful, but the long-running civil war meant that inflation had gone through the roof. I remember changing a small amount of US dollars and getting back this massive wedge of Somaliland shillings. It was like lugging around a brick. I saw people carrying shopping bags of money when they went out to the markets.
; Hassan had changed in some ways. He now had scars across his body from an accident he’d been involved in not long after I left Djibouti to live in England. One sweltering hot day Hassan and a friend had stumbled upon this strange object lying at the side of the road. They didn’t approach it because it looked like a bomb, but Hassan being Hassan, he decided to find out whether it was a bomb by hurling rocks at it from the other side of the road. His first couple of attempts landed wide and short. The third rock hit the target. The bomb exploded and a huge boom echoed around the street. Hassan, just a few metres away, was blasted with hot bits of shrapnel, smoke and dust.
He spent the next fortnight in hospital recovering from his injuries. The doctors decided against removing the shrapnel – it was too risky – so Hassan still has bits of metal embedded in his body to this day. Every time he goes through an airport metal detector he sets the machine off big time. I listened to this story and was like, ‘No way!’ Even I never did anything as nuts as that.
Other things were different too. Like the fact that Hassan now chewed qaat, a plant that’s supposed to give you a bit of a buzz. All grown-up Somalis chew this stuff. It’s like a mark of becoming an adult. You find qaat in a lot of countries in East Africa and in most Arab countries too. Some people see it as a drug, although for Somalis and Muslims generally, it’s a social thing, like drinking coffee or having a beer in a pub in England. I couldn’t help noticing that Hassan was chewing on this big ball of qaat. I asked him what it tasted like and he immediately offered me a bundle to chew for myself. I sort of hesitated.
‘Try it, walaalaha,’ Hassan said. ‘Everyone is doing it now.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it’s all that good for you.’