After 16 hours of running through the mountains, Ahmad Al Janahi found himself struggling to climb from Italy into Switzerland.
He was exhausted, suffering from severe stomach pain and questioning whether the two years he had spent working towards the race would end without him reaching the finish line.
“I was telling myself, ‘Ahmad, you waited two years and now you are here, but you cannot finish it.’ I was very negative towards myself,” he told Khaleej Times.
But Al Janahi continued, eventually completing the 174km UTMB World Series Finals in Chamonix in 37 hours and 50 minutes.
The course has 14 checkpoints, each with its own time limit. Competitors who fail to reach a checkpoint within the allotted time are removed from the race, while the full course must be completed within 46 hours.
For Al Janahi, simply reaching the starting line had required two years of preparation. He completed three major international races in 2025 before being selected to compete alongside approximately 3,000 runners in Chamonix.
A thunderstorm delayed the race by two hours, but as the rain cleared and sunlight appeared over Mont Blanc, Al Janahi found himself reflecting on everything he had sacrificed to be there.
“I was in tears,” he said. “Then I thought, ‘I am here. I am at the starting line. I need to focus and achieve this because it is not only for me, it is for my country.’”
That sense of responsibility remained with him throughout the race, including during his lowest point on the climb into Switzerland.
For the first time during the event, he took out his phone and called his coach,Ole Brom.
“I told him, ‘Coach, I’m suffering. I’m suffering a lot,’” Al Janahi recalled.
His coach encouraged him to reach the next checkpoint, eat something and reassess how he felt. Al Janahi followed the advice, pushing forward despite having little energy and being overwhelmed by negative thoughts.
“I was crying, not because of the pain, but because it was a mixture of feelings,” he said. “When I reached the checkpoint, I had some good food and things changed.”
Encounters with other runners also helped him continue. “Everyone was suffering, not only me. When you talk to someone, motivate someone and they smile back at you, it lifts your spirit.”
Al Janahi did not sleep at all during the race. To prepare his body for the strain, he had trained overnight in the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah throughout the UAE summer, sometimes beginning at 11pm and continuing until 6am or 7am.
He also carried mandatory equipment to cope with rapidly changing conditions, including a jacket and gloves for cold, windy mountaintops. During the day, runners faced strong sunlight and high temperatures.
“You need to adapt to the situation,” he said. “We trained for this moment.”
As Al Janahi approached the finish, he expected a friend to be waiting with the UAE flag. Instead, he was surprised by Sheikh Omar Bin Saqr Alqasimi, who had travelled to celebrate his achievement and joined him for part of the final stretch.
Al Janahi asked him to run alongside him before continuing alone for the final 200 metres, carrying the UAE flag towards the finish line.
“I felt like the dream came true,” he said. “I did something for my country. This race was for the UAE, it was not only for me.”
His family had tracked his progress throughout the race. His mother stayed awake, monitoring his arrival and departure at every checkpoint and calling his sister whenever he appeared to be taking longer than expected.
After he finished, she sent him an emotional voice note.
“She was crying and saying, ‘Ahmad, I’m proud of you,’” he said. His four children also followed the race remotely, with his daughter particularly excited by his achievement.
Balancing fatherhood, his role as senior sales director at DAMAC and five years of competitive running has required strict time management, he said.
“My priority is my family. When I go to my family, I switch off from training and work. When I’m at work, I give 100 per cent, and when I’m training, I give 100 per cent. It is about knowing what really matters and making sacrifices.”
Despite feeling physically well after the race, Al Janahi’s coach instructed him to rest for 10 days before returning to training. His next target is a 150km race in Oman’s Hajar Mountains on December 10.
“There are always challenges,” he said. “You need to recover, go back to training and work on the areas where you can improve.”
Source: Khaleej Times
