In the packed school hall where Efrem Gidey is speaking, there is a question from the back about injury and recovery. It’s pertinent and astute, especially coming as it does from one of the fifth-class pupils.
Because Gidey knows all about such challenges, and not just running-related. At 24, his career is soaring, and over the last nine months, he’s broken three Irish records between the track and the road, finished fourth in the European half-marathon, then won the European 10,000m Cup in Pacé, France.
“With injuries, I’m not any different,” Gidey says. “Everybody has to recover, so healthy food, also some physiotherapy, ice bath. Then to never give up, to be better, and to improve. And I’m so proud to do that, and so grateful.”
It’s Thursday morning at Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál in Inchicore in Dublin and the entire school of 300 pupils, from junior infants to sixth class, are hanging on his every word. Gidey had arrived on his Trek racing bike and is here as guest speaker with The Daily Mile, the now global campaign that promotes basic physical fitness in primary schools, encouraging 15 minutes of activity each day, or the equivalent of running one mile.
In introducing Gidey, school principal David Gough emphasises the simplicity of running and the benefits for physical and mental health. Gough also hangs on the injury question, the two-time All-Ireland football final referee having suffered a torn hamstring in the Down-Louth game last Saturday, likely ruling him out for the rest of the championship season.
Gough talks of Gidey moving from Eritrea to live in Ireland in 2017, at 16, keeping it understandably subtle for this audience. But then no one, only Gidey, can truly understand or even imagine what he endured during that time, fleeing war-torn Eritrea in 2016 and ending up in a series of refugee camps, including several months in the northern French port city of Calais, where conditions meant it was branded as “the Jungle”.
From Calais, Gidey travelled here as one of several unaccompanied minors under the Irish Refugee Protection Programme, put under the care of Tusla, and housed in temporary accommodation in Hollystown in Mulhuddart, in northwest Dublin.
He attended Le Chéile secondary school in Tyrellstown, while a care worker in Hollystown also contacted Clonliffe Harriers athletic club in Santry regarding Gidey’s possible athletic potential. Within two years, he was Irish Schools champion, on the track and cross-country, and later in 2019, just days after gaining eligibility to represent Ireland, Gidey won bronze in the under-20 European cross-country in Portugal, that race won by a rising Norwegian star named Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
“It’s not running only, it’s about being healthy, and being happy,” Gidey says, when asked by another pupil what he likes about running. “And being positive. Just for five minutes, or 10 minutes, when you run, you are healthy.
“When I started running, I was 16 years old. At that time, my first 5km time was around 25 minutes. Then with consistent training, and other people’s help, I just keep improving ... And then in a race, if you challenge yourself, you are always the winner.”
It hasn’t been all smooth running since he arrived in Ireland. Gidey has had several knee and hip injuries, one sustained after falling off his bike while he worked for Deliveroo, often seven days a week, and long into the nights too. A year after his European under-20 success, his coach and Clonliffe stalwart Joe Cooper, who had also become a father figure to him, died after a short illness.
Later, Gidey joined the fifth-class students for a mile run around the beautiful gardens of the Oblate House of Retreat and Church of Mary Immaculate, adjacent to the school, where the benefits of The Daily Mile are further evident. Promoted here by Athletics Ireland, and now run in 1,424 primary schools across the country, it also helps when an athlete like Gidey is leading the way.
He is fast becoming an inspiration and role model for young Irish athletes; not yet at Rhasidat Adeleke levels, just not as far off as you might think. Two days before he was invited back to Clonliffe, after his victory in the European Cup, the juvenile club athletes lined up out the door to greet him.
The run ends with more high-fives and more rapturous applause.
“It’s exciting, the high-fives, they are so happy,” he says. “It’s nice when you can make other people happy running like that, and not just yourself. And I am happy to help them get a little bit more motivated. And you know, they can always get better, maybe someday break a world record.”
Back inside the school, Gidey sets out his ambitions for the rest of the season. Since running 60:51 for the half-marathon in Copenhagen last September, breaking the Irish record by eight seconds, then finishing his studies in business and logistics at Cathal Brugha FET College, he’s been training full-time with the Hoka elite group, guided by London-based coach Andy Hobdell.
Under Hobdell, he’s significantly increased his weekly running total from 60-65 miles to 100-115, as well as spending weeks at a time at altitude training camps in the French Pyrenees and Arizona. This enhanced dedication is paying dividends, Gidey clocking 27:26.95 for 10,000m on the track in California in late March, breaking the Irish record by 13 seconds.
That still doesn’t get him to the World Championships in Tokyo in September, so he’ll race the UK 10,000m championship in Birmingham next Saturday, hoping to go a little faster again.
“I’m working hard for that, I still need to get a better time,” he says. “With Andy [Hobdell], he’s one of the top coaches, not just for me, for the whole Hoka team. He makes the plan to add some mileage.
“And to win the European 10,000m Cup, I think to win that, it wasn’t my personal best. So it wasn’t a big surprise for me. Because I knew my time [27:26.95], how hard I’m working, and to win, by just being smart.”
For all the difficult twists and turns in his journey, he gives the sense he’s still just starting out. Still, there are unimaginable challenges. He’s never been reunited with any of his family, who live in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. He says his father is dead, and though he sometimes speaks to his mother, he feels he doesn’t know her after so long apart.
“Yeah, sometimes it’s difficult for an athlete, it’s hard. As an athlete, you need to be happy, to be healthy, mentally. But in everything, there is hurt. In life, there’s hurt.
“You know my journey, but you don’t have a choice. If you need to have something, to be successful, need to change your life, to get on in life, there is sometimes hurt. To live life is sometimes painful. But it’s good, you know?”
