Alone Through Iran
2 November, 2015
About the adventure
So far, all the adventures and challenges I had done was about to develop as a human being. But here, it was something completely different – I wanted to influence the world. During the world records on treadmill, I had seen that I was able to reach out, and during the run from Turkey and at home, I had seen that most of my prejudices were wrong. In my opinion, xenophobia is based on fear of others, and those fears leads to prejudices. The most pronounced fear I saw was between West and Islam. I had decided to never let fear rule my life. I did not want let it rule the society as I am living in. What if I could contribute to more trust instead of fear? The decision to run, as a single western woman through a Muslim country, was to put my trust in the hands of “the others.” The run through Iran was an experiment – What if I trust worked? And if it did, how would my action influence the Western world?
Overcome fear
I had a lot of prejudices before I started my run – would I be beaten, raped, robbed, imprisoned, murdered? I was also afraid of the traffic mortality, which I knew was one of the highest in the world, and for the heat. A key to daring was to sit down and write down everything I was afraid of. When I saw the list of 22 fears, I felt – I can handle this. I went through what I could do to prevent the fears from happening – that is, to secure success. By doing so, the fear was manageable. But, there’s always an irrational part of fear – I have to jump in the cold water to see if it’s really cold – or wonderful.
Results
I was met with incredible hospitality and kindness. Today, more than 32 million people have watched movies from my run and the book “Running through fear” is sold internationally. By showing trust, I contributed to create more trust in the world – not only in the Western world as my intention was, but also in Iran. Running through Iran has contributed to that millions of people see that the innermost part of humankind is love, friendliness and fellowship, no matter where on our globe we are.
Alone Through Iran
date: 5:e september – 2:a november 2015
activity: running 1144 miles from Bazargan, on the border between Turkey and Iran, to Bajgiran, on the border between Iran and Turkmenistan
goal: to act for a world of trust. I was tired of the fear I saw growing in Sweden and Europe, the fear for people who are different from myself. I thought the world would be better off with more trust between people. Running through Iran was my way of showing trust in people who were unknown to me.