Arif Kazi ran down Peachtree Street in the July heat, pushing himself, flanked by hundreds of volunteers at long tables offering him paper cups of cool, refreshing water.
He passed, and he passed, and he passed. For the whole grueling 10K of the 2015 Peachtree Road Race, as temperatures edged toward 80 degrees, Kazi didn’t take a sip. The race that year fell during Ramadan, the month of the Islamic calendar that is observed with fasting, prayer and reflection. (Because Ramadan follows the lunar cycle, it occurs during different months in the Western calendar.)
“You don’t eat or drink anything from dawn to sunset,” Kazi, a devout Muslim, explains. “So during the Peachtree, that includes not drinking water.
“I didn’t want to break my fast. I wanted to be faithful to my religion and at the same time be an American.”
He finished in one hour and six minutes, running a bit slower than he usually would to avoid dehydration and muscle cramps.
Avoiding water during the race was not too difficult, he says, because he had trained for it. “But waiting another 12 hours afterwards to take a sip of water was very challenging.”
Kazi started running back in 2008 when he received a bad cholesterol report and decided he needed to change his sedentary lifestyle.
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
“Running was never a thing for me,” says Kazi, 44, who emigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 1988 as a boy with his family. “I was watching the New York City Marathon, and I had a bucket list, and I put ‘marathon’ at the very top. I said, OK, now I’ve got to do something about it.”
Before long, Kazi fell in love with running.
WXIA/Channel 11 did a story about Kazi’s Ramadan Peachtree Road Race, and a lot of Muslims saw it. “People said, ‘You need to start a group and get our community more involved with exercise and physical activity.’”
And so he started the Atlanta Muslim Running Club.
In 2016, the Peachtree fell during Ramadan again. “I thought if I can do it, other people can do it,” he recalls. “I had 12 others (Muslims) doing it with me.
“The issue with our community is we are not very active when it comes to getting out and exercising,” he continues. “Muslims are from all over: South Asian, Middle Eastern, African, European. But we see common health concerns within our culture that come from a high carb diet, and common issues of diabetes and high blood pressure.”
According to a scientific paper published in the World Journal of Diabetes in 2016, there is a diabetes epidemic among Arabs. “Although genetic risk factors can’t be ruled out … factors such as obesity, rapid urbanization and lack of exercise are key determinants,” it reports.
“We need to become more active and health conscious,” says Kazi, an engineer with Cox Communications, a division of Cox Enterprises, which also owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“My goal in part was to change our community.”
Today the club has about 300 members with a core group of about 20-40 who show up for weekly events. About 25 members are registered to run the 2024 AJC Peachtree Road Race.
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
One recent sunny Sunday morning, about 25 club members, ranging from elementary school age to senior citizens, gathered bright and early at Willeo Park in Roswell for their weekly training meeting. The sun sparkled on the Chattahoochee River next to a picnic pavilion where the runners warmed up with jumping jacks, stretches and running in place.
Kazi told the group they would train on the river walk, with intervals of four-minute runs and one-minute walks, to prepare for the Peachtree. But really, members can move as fast or slow as they want. Kazi is a strong runner who starts at the front in the Peachtree A wave, but others are dedicated walkers.
“Having a community around you, especially the Peachtree community, it’s just so inspiring,” says Laila Kashlan, a pharmacist whose family emigrated to the United States in 2007 when she was 14 years old. She is part of the admin team that coordinates the club’s activities.
“Different ages, different abilities, walking, running, everybody gathered; it’s just beautiful.”
Many members wore the turquoise club T-shirts printed with the club’s motto — “I believe / I pray / I run” — on the front, and a quote from the Islamic Book of Hadith on the back: “Indeed your body has a right upon you.”
Kazi explains the logo: “We believe in the oneness of God, we pray for the whole of humanity, and the running is to keep us healthy.
“We want everyone to see we’re Muslim, but we’re the same as everyone else,” he adds.
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Mehdi Ibrahim, a freshman at Taylor Road Middle School in Johns Creek, bounced around the park; even after a half-hour run, he was throwing off teenage boy energy.
He ran his first Peachtree last year and remembers getting temporarily separated from his family and overdosing on Chik-fil-A Peach Sunjoys after the race, which he recalls with a look of bliss.
“So many people were waving their county’s flag,” he says. “It was good to see so many people showing their pride for their country.”
Kashlan and most of the women in the club wear the hijab, even on training runs and in the race.
“It is an order from God,” she says. “That is my primary reason. But it is also a symbol of modesty and religious identity for me.”
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
When Yousra Mohamoud, an epidemiologist specializing in childhood and maternal health with the Centers for Disease Control, ran her first Peachtree Road Race last year, she knew that the right running outfit was crucial. After all, it’s the Peachtree.
So she and her niece, Karima Ahmed, wore head coverings in American patriotic colors over their hijabs. “We did the whole red, white and blue thing,” she says proudly.
Mouhamad describes the response from non-Muslims as “amazing.”
“It was a real bonding experience; it was like a party,” she continued. “A lot of people commented and asked us where we got them.”
She grew up wearing the hijab in the United Arab Emirates but did not really think about it much until she came to the United States to attend college.
“I realized that it is broadcasting my identity and my values,” she says. “Although sometimes it’s more about the perceptions of others of my values rather than what I believe.
“When I’m running sometimes it motivates me to run faster. I feel like I’m starting to slow down, but then I think: This is representing more than me.”
She laughs. “And I push a little bit.”
EVENT PREVIEW
AJC Peachtree Road Race 2024. 8:30-11 a.m. July 4. Begins at Lenox Square, 3393 Peachtree Road NE, Atlanta, and ends at Piedmont Park at 10th Street and Allen Drive. www.atlantatrackclub.org
Stories, photos, race info and more for the 2024 AJC Peachtree Road Race, go to www.ajc.com/peachtree
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