Safia the Veiled Amateur Runner
Safia Massoud is a twenty something year old New Yorker. She comes from an Egyptian background and has recently graduated from Teachers College Columbia University with a Masters of Arts in Higher Education.
But her ambition doesn’t stop there. She is also an amateur runner with hopes of running the New York marathon, and she does it in full Islamic dress: abaya and niqab.
An active individual, she has also been diving and snorkelling while wearing the niqab
Running a marathon definitely comes with its challenges but Safia runs with her face veil on. I asked her if the niqab she wears is specially designed for athletes and activities? She describes the niqab that she wears in general as very thin material and breathable. She admits that she doesn’t know what it’s called but she has them specially made in Egypt.
“I do customise them myself back home, and- I mean honestly, even though there are a lot of websites that do sell them I think they’re most comfortable in this specific material and just getting the right sizing so it’s not too big and it’s not too uncomfortable”
Her interest in racing started back in 2018 when she had her first ever race.
One night when she was on vacation she saw that the New York marathon had just ended and she thought: “You know what? I could actually run that thing!”
Safia says that she had been a regular at the local women’s only gym since high school and had always used the treadmill and elliptical machine. She was determined to take her running to the next level.
She thought that signing up for the marathon would be a straightforward process: just go and sign up. But she discovered that wasn’t the case, there was a whole entire long process to get in.
“You have to find a charity organisation that can sponsor you, you have to collect donations up to $10,000, and I’m like: there’s no way I’m asking people to give me money to run a marathon.”
Marathons are sponsored by huge companies. For her to be sponsored by a company for the cheapest amount would be $10k and if she were unable to raise the full amount she would have to pay it from her own money.
Opting for the charity route was also long winded. Candidates would have to choose their charity and then they would apply as a charity putting forward their sponsors that would be running and the amount that each of them would be bringing in. This option would be very difficult and complicated as it would involve her being the face of a company or an organisation.
The other option of collecting donations was not something she would consider either. It made no sense to her to start asking people for money for something that she hadn’t even started training for. So she looked for other options to get into the race.
She found an organisation called New York Road Runners and if you run 10 races with them and volunteer with them you can run the marathon for just $300. So she ran the 10 races and was able to be accepted into the marathon.
Everything was good to go and she was due to run the marathon in 17 days when the covid pandemic hit and the marathon was cancelled. She has the option to run it ‘virtually’ which means that she would run it alone in her neighbourhood measuring the distance on her apple watch.
With the distance itself being 26.2 miles it isn’t something that she really feels like running alone. So she opted out to hopefully do it in future.
She still dreams of one day running the marathon but is unsure when that could become a reality due to the current global pandemic.
The Niqabi Diaries is a podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of the Muslim women who have experience wearing the face veil.
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