Abdul Hussein

At six years old, Abdul Hussein was racing his friends at an after-school program in Regent Park. At seventeen, he was racing through the streets of Chicago in one of the world’s toughest marathons. What began as showing up for a free pair of shoes turned into finding a community that pushed Abdul to see how far he could really go.

“I started running at the age of seven at an after-school program called the Running & Reading, aka Start2Finish. What got me started was that I was just able to challenge my friends, and I also just loved running. I'm originally a soccer player, so running came easily to me.”

“Obviously, as a kid, if you're asked, ‘You want to run 5 kilometres or 2 kilometres just for the sake of running?’, it's hella boring to even think about doing something like that. But what drove me to do it was the fact that my friends were doing it, and there was competition among us–who doesn't love competition as a young kid? That led me to finding this mentor there, named Quinton Jacobs. He was a huge influence of mine–he made a very positive impact on my community. So I had always looked up to him.”

Running gave Abdul a connection to a community, with Quinton Jacobs as his mentor. But as he grew older, that same feeling became harder to find.

“From grades 9 to 11, I really struggled with finding a sense of community. Especially even after COVID, where we were super isolated. You lack the sense of community and friendships you once had. Especially when I moved to a new school, you struggle with that, right?”

“I enrolled in an independent school called Crescent School. It was very new to me. It was a culture shock for sure because I came from an underrepresented community. And to be in that environment was, I guess, sort of eye-opening throughout the four years.”

“I was born in Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea. And there was some trouble there back home. So my parents decided that we should move. With my mom and brother and sister, we arrived at Toronto Pearson Airport in January of 2014. We arrived at a women's shelter and stayed there for three weeks, and then we moved to another shelter–government housing, and we were there until grade three. We're here now at a different government housing. That's all in the communities of Moss Park and Regent Park.”

Abdul's First School, Lord Dufferin Junior and Senior Public School, Regent Park

“The region is filled with a wide range of cultures from all over the world, including Middle Easterners, Africans, South Asians, Southeast Asians, Eastern Europeans–all of them, right?...you need to live in it in order to understand what it's like to be in a community like this.”

“So I guess stepping into Crescent, that transition–a lot of independent schools are predominantly either White or Asian–from the get-go, you notice that there's not a lot of diversity. So that can be challenging. And then even understanding that the people there, my peers, the way they grew up was super, super different from the way I grew up. I felt that a lot of them were privileged and in some cases entitled.”

“But obviously, there were a lot in my school that were friendly and weren't bullies, but it was just the fact that it was hard to connect with them, just because we grew up differently.”

“So then I searched all over my community, and one day, one of my buddies came up to me and was like, ‘Yo, are you trying to pull up to this foundation where they give out free shoes?’ I'm like, ‘yeah, hell yeah, why not’. And then next thing you know, he's like, ‘All you gotta do is pull up once a week to this spot for three weeks and on your fourth week you get a free pair I'm like, ‘Sure, I'm down with that.’ Running is easy to me, so why not?”

Kickback is a Toronto-based non-profit founded in 2016 that focuses on empowering underserved youth through gifting sneakers. From run clubs to hosting basketball tournaments, they’ve donated more than 7000 pairs of shoes valued at more than one million dollars.

“At the time when I first started, I was like–because the rule was you participate for three weeks, you get free shoes–I'll just stay for three weeks and then I'm gone. And the next thing you know, I started making new connections and then meeting new people, meeting inspirational people.”

“And I then thought, ‘You know what, I might stick with this program and stay another week and see what it's like for me’. Next thing you know, I get reconnected with my old mentor, Quinton Jacobs. And at that time, I was just like, now I've got to stay here because I'm slowly starting to feel that my people are here.”

“And so as that went on, I saw Kickback take two older guys, they were 2-3 years older, to L.A. and do the L.A. marathon. And I thought, Wow. There's these two guys that look like me, came from the same background as I did, who went abroad to run a marathon. I was like, maybe one day in the future, that could be me. And so that was one of my biggest motivators during my high school time.”

“And then at one point during the summer of 2023, one of the mentors or pacers came up to me and asked if I wanted to run a half-marathon or a 5k for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon.”

“Then, after positive affirmations from the whole community and confidence from the mentors, I signed up for the half-marathon. My mentor, Quinton–we call him Q–and I trained and we trained. I was very fortunate to do it with him, who's had countless experiences running marathons and running the world major marathons, including Chicago, New York, and Berlin. So then I thought, if he's going to be with me by my side the whole time, then what better experience can I have than that, right? So I didn't want to take that experience for granted.”

“I did the half-marathon in 2023. I thought I'd have to wait for at least a decade to accomplish something like that. The next thing you know, I thought to myself at age 16, where can I go from here? You know? At such a young age, I thought I had so much potential. So I thought, next year, I'm going to keep working at it and then see if a marathon is even possible.

“But at the time, I wasn't even asked to run a marathon, right? I guess the way it started was me pulling up to Run Club again and again to the weekly Run Clubs for Kickback. Just like being there for the sake of being there, being there with my community and friends and my mentors and pacers. And I think at that time I was also promoted to Pacer, which was really special. In the back of my mind, I knew this was something that was a potential, but I wasn't really pressured to do so. It was more like an option, and people knew that I could.”

“Next thing you know, Q had something up his sleeve. He directed the attention to me [one day after our weekly run club meetup], and he said, ‘So I met this guy when he was like this small at Running and Reading. ’ He then continued to explain how our journeys intertwined again and how that resulted to a half-marathon finish together. Then out of nowhere, he said, ‘Abdul, Toronto is not the first marathon you'll be running. It'll be the Chicago Marathon.’”

“At that moment, I was super overwhelmed and didn't really know how to take it. But the only thing I could do was just smile and thank everybody.”

“Doing anything abroad is something unimaginable. It's crazy. It's expensive. The assumption was Toronto, and everybody's assumption was that. Behind the scenes, we had Q hitting up his friends in Chicago for a bib and Kickback funding. To be enrolled in a world major marathon like the Chicago Marathon is a very difficult task because you either got to know people and be a big donor or you got to have a really good time to compete–one of the two.”

“They obviously supported me with the hotel tickets and food. I was even shown to Mr. Beef–my buddy and I were like huge huge fans [of The Bear] and the next thing you know, on that same day, Q gets a call from another one of his friends and gets us tickets to the Bulls game.”

Abdul never lost his focus, though.

“I got that offer, and I can't let it down because not too many kids in my community or even in my age group get offered that opportunity. I got to do it. I got to do it not only for me, but I got to do it for my community.”

“October came, and I achieved what I thought was unachievable at the age of 17.”

His time: 4:00:35.

Throughout this entire journey, Abdul’s story was documented by his close friend Zach.

“For me, running the half-marathon in Toronto and being a person of colour at a young age and doing something so big was unheard of. So I was like, for sure, I'd love to do a documentary and hopefully inspire others. And then over the summer, we worked on a script, and we sent it over to Q and the Kickback family. And they were like, ‘We can support you for sure.’”

“And then the surprise came, and we were fortunate to get tickets for our cameraman to come out with me to Chicago to capture that.”

Released earlier this summer, “The Journey” follows Abdul’s entire journey preparing for the marathon.

“In my community, especially for the fact that it is underserved and is limited in opportunities, I think that has, at times, driven the youth to not have a safe place to go for what they really want to do or have a safe place to be creative, be passionate about something, you know what I mean? And I think having a home or having a community that supports you in any way or in a certain way can ease your mind. Having the habits, a schedule–just a pattern in your life that's positive makes a huge impact in the way you go about life and in the people that are in your circle because you wouldn't be negative; you wouldn't be violent; you wouldn't be distracted with access to easy sources to dopamine such as drugs, You wouldn't waste your time at home, like say bingeing or whatever. You feel accomplished in a way. And I think that's important.”

“I've been very fortunate to be a part of a positive circle because of the access that Kickback has and the opportunities they provide for youth. And I can only dream of doing something similar in the future.”

“You know, after a training day or even like the lead up to the marathon, and you're sitting all alone at night in your bed and looking up asking, ‘Can I really do this? Like, is this really possible?’ I haven't seen anybody else do it. Or I have seen two people do it, but not a world major, right? So what reaffirmed me was the fact that I had a community and the fact that I had that support, the fact that I had Kickback.”

“Just all the specifics for the goal of doing a marathon and the fact that I did a marathon reinstilled in my mind that I can truly, truly do anything that I put to my mind. If I ran a marathon, what else can I do? How many other things are possible for me?”

Abdul Graduating From Kickback

“I get stuck on that thought a lot. I've done a marathon, like what's next? But what I've learned throughout my journey is that I should focus on the now and the tomorrow, and how I can be better tomorrow, instead of focusing on what comes in a month or two from now.”

“I've noticed that with the marathon, it didn't come from me thinking, ‘Oh no, I'm gonna do a marathon, I'm gonna do a marathon.’ It came from being in my community from a genuine point of view, showing up every day, and then just out of nowhere being asked if I want to run a marathon, right?”

“So I think where I go from now is just seeing how I can impact the next kid tomorrow or today. And if an opportunity strikes, then I'll take it. But I guess for now, I'm not really looking for anything specific. It's just that I want to be happy–and what makes me happy is seeing others happy. I do know that I want to make an impact. If that's through work or if that's through a project, then so be it. We'll see where all that takes me.”

After our interview, Abdul reached out and wanted to leave this message for the audience:

“If I had one piece of advice for anyone who’s worried about not being successful or not feeling accomplished, I hope that my story reinforces that with enough patience and intentional ambition, opportunities will come to face.”