For the last year, I’ve run at least half a marathon every single day. That is 21 kilometres every day, and lately I have been thinking a lot about what that means.
I spend on average two hours a day doing something really tough. The only way to get through that tough thing is to tell yourself that you are the person you want to be. I tell myself that everyday, that I’m the hardest working, most mentally tough person I know. If I was going to describe myself with no shame, I would say I’m that; the hardest working, most mentally tough person I know. But to understand why I run, and why I have to keep telling myself that, you have to understand where I came from.
I grew up inside IITA, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, in Ibadan Nigeria. It’s one of the most beautiful places with a lot of nature around. Then at age 10, I moved to Oregon in the United States with my family. When I meet somebody who is Nigerian, I don’t even tell them I also am because growing up inside IITA was not very Nigerian. Everybody I knew was European and my dad was gone a lot so I didn’t get much of the real Nigerian culture. Our neighbours were researchers from Europe, scientists from India and China, and professors from Ghana. I had like about 20 good friends in Nigeria. The people I spent my whole life with. And when I moved to the US, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t understand the culture. I didn’t fit in. And I was sad. I was really sad for a long time.
It was just harder, you know, it’s like more animosity, more cold. I thought people were really mean. They weren’t the people I had grown up with all my life. I would cry by myself in the room every night. Soon, I started to make friends by adopting the culture of the people around me. The kids were rude and mean, so I got rude and mean. I at least felt like a part of something. So I became an asshole and my mom’s nightmare for 10 years. University was the first time I realized that there are other people. I didn’t have to be like these people who had personalities that I thought were cold and mean. And so in university, I got in touch with my old self and softened up a little bit. I began playing basketball so I hung out with my fellow basketball players. That was how I found my people, and eventually, how I found running.
I played basketball most of my life and we always had to run as punishment if we did something wrong. I realised through that, that I was pretty good at running. When I finished playing basketball, I was looking for something that still gave me the feeling of giving all of my energy to something, that’s when I started running. The type of running for punishment in basketball, suicide drills, is different from how I run now. Luckily I don’t have to change direction so much. If I had to do that, I would always be worn out. My overall conditioning now is much better, like I can run a half marathon, a full marathon. My lungs and ability to run are much better. But there is no direction changing anymore like in my basketball days. It’s been over a year since I played basketball. And now, running is not just something I do, it is my work.
I quit my job about 14 months ago to start running. It hurts to run everyday. I look forward to the feeling afterwards when I get to look back and say “wow, I’m proud of myself” but sometimes it’s tough. Today for example, I am not looking forward to running tomorrow and when my energy is low or I’m not feeling well, it goes from being a physical test to a mental test. But honestly, the decision to quit was the easy part. What took years to figure out was learning how to stop trying to do everything at once.
I am ADHD diagnosed and also as a lifestyle. I always try to do a million things. Nobody ever taught me that you could say No to something. So anytime I ever met somebody who was doing something I thought was interesting, I would do it too. Beginning in 2024, I was training for a triathlon. So every morning I would run and then swim. Also my mum is a really good piano player and she encouraged me to try to have a musical pursuit. After my training in the morning, I would try to play the piano for an hour. The rest of the day will be dedicated to work and in the evening, I would do boxing for an hour. This was my Monday through Friday schedule. I also had a running club on the side and another community project also. When my contract with work ended, I needed to find something to fill the time, and get paid. This was when I decided maybe I would just take a little break and focus on something I really looked forward to. The one thing that was giving me the most joy at that time was the running community.
Quitting my job, I focused full time on the running club and tried to make a living as a community organizer. I poured a lot of love, time, thought and intention into it and it has grown like crazy. This really big community I have here in Berlin is like my family now. The thing with the running club is that we had already gotten some jobs with brands and made money while I was still doing it part time. So I thought, maybe if I invest more time in this, more stuff will come out of it. So I decided to do just that.
I started looking online about how to intentionally build communities then I stumbled upon a video from this guy Alex Hormozi. He has this one video on how you get so rich that you question the meaning of money. Basically what he says in the video is to pick one thing, do that thing and say no to everything else. He said “how are you going to compete with people who are focused on one thing if you are trying to do ten different things?” When you look at people who are insanely successful, they’re not doing 10 things. Like Lebron James, the basketballer, is not also a famous piano player. The actual mark of what all of these people are famous for is one very very specific thing. This resonates with me because I have basically spent my life trying to do ten things at one time and never felt like I was getting the recognition that was worth the amount of work that I was putting in. I decided “I am going to pick this running club that gives me the most happiness and quit everything else”.
I built a community called Run and Rave. I used to DJ also and organize parties. I like the feeling of a party, meeting new people and just connecting. But I hate being up at 2am, taking drugs and getting drunk. I hate that part of the culture. So we wanted to create this party feeling but do it in a way where it didn’t mess up your life. Someone then told me about these morning raves that they used to go to, and I was like okay I want to do that. But I also wanted to combine it with some sport and that’s how Run and Rave came to be. We decided we would go for a run, have breakfast then afterwards do a little rave.
A day at Run and Rave starts at 7am so I get up at 6am. We run from 7am to 8am and do some exercises as well. Then 8 to 9 is music, some coffee, breakfast and people get a chance to get to know each other, and then everyone goes to work.
We have been building Run and Rave for two and a half years with 20 organizers and a couple thousand members. We have an office in a co-working space where the organizers have a card so they can come and work from there anytime. So we are usually 5 to 10 people in the office together during the week. We have creative sessions on Tuesdays open to anyone but usually we have ten to fifteen people at a time. Thursdays, we run in the morning. Then after work on Friday, we have a phone free Friday where you come at 5pm, drop your phone and then just read, play games or whatever. Just something offline and then on Sundays, we have a long run. It’s a really big community we have here in Berlin, it’s like a family now. We get a lot of people who are new to the city and they come for a run then suddenly they have 100 friends you know. None of this came for free though.
Quitting a job to build a running community required real sacrifice. For me, I had to have enough savings that I could quit my job and potentially make no money for a year. I had little jobs that came here and there, and I just hustled. I have an extra room in my apartment, which I rented out. I dog sat — I still dog sit sometimes, just for a little bit of side money doing something that I actually like, just to smooth out the bumps. You definitely have to make some sacrifices. Despite the sacrifices, the happiness I get from the community is priceless because it is something that means a lot to me.
I think our actions define who we are. Your perception of yourself is not that important if it’s not reflected in your actions. Ask yourself: if you lived on a desert island or if you’re the last person on earth, what would you do for yourself? I think that’s how you really connect with what brings you joy and what you gladly do. That’s your inspiration, your source of life. You should try to do as much of that as possible. It works itself out.
For me, I chose running, community and the beautiful stubbornness of showing up every day. What we have built, is perhaps what I needed when I left Nigeria and moved to Oregon crying alone in my room at night. A place to belong. And every morning, before the city wakes up, I lace up my shoes and run my 21 kilometres, not away from something, but running to myself. As proof of who I am, Ben Olayinka: the hardest working, most mentally tough person I know.
