Running for My Life: One Lost Boy's Journey From the Killing Fields of Sudan to the Olympic Games

by Lopez Lomong

  I also saw the mothers who brought their children to me, desperate for help. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that image out of my head. I have to do something for them. I knew God had not brought me this far for me alone. He did not give me the ability to run just for me to go out and win races or even to support my team. He had something much bigger planned. God, help me know what to do, I prayed as I ran.

  The faces of my own family flashed in my mind as I ran. I closed my eyes and saw my mother and father, sister and brothers. My relationship with them changed after actually spending time with them. Talking on the phone, I knew this was my family and I loved them. But after spending two weeks in Africa with them, my heart ached for them. The money my American parents sent them each month made a tremendous difference in their lives, but I did not feel right about asking Mom and Dad to continue supporting my family. After Dominic, Peter, and I graduated and moved out, the Rogers brought in three more lost boys to live with them. Mom and Dad had done enough for me already. I needed to take over this responsibility myself, but how could I do that and remain in college?

  The questions in my head grew louder and louder the closer I came to the start of the cross-country season. I knew I had to do something. I felt like it was time for me to turn pro. This wasn’t the first time I’d considered becoming a professional track athlete. After I won the 1500 NCAA championship, reps from different shoe companies let me know in a roundabout way that they would be open to sponsoring me when and if I decided to turn pro. I talked to Coach Hayes at the end of the 2007 track season. He knew this might be a good time for me to go pro, but also knew how important it was for me to stand on the podium at the National Cross Country Championships with my NAU teammates. Nike really wanted me but I had an obligation to the team that had become my family. We decided that I would stay at least through cross country. Coach Hayes left NAU during the Summer to take the same position at the Air Force Academy. I trusted his judgment and stayed through Cross Country. The Olympic trials were coming up in June. Turning pro after the fall 2007 semester would set me free to train exclusively for the Olympics. “You can always negotiate to have your sponsors pay for your college so you can go back to school during the off season,” he told me. I liked the sound of that. I wanted my degree, which is what made this decision so difficult.

  I knew after making this decision that I had to make another phone call. I didn’t want to call, but I knew I had to. I took a deep breath, dialed the number, and said a quick prayer while the phone rang.

  “Hello,” Mom said.

  “Hi Mom, it’s me, Lopez.”

  “Joseph, it’s so good to hear your voice. Everything okay in Arizona?”

  “Yes, everything is great. But I need to talk to you and Dad about something. Is he there?”

  Mom paused. “Yeah, let me put him on the other line.”

  A few moments later he said, “What’s going on, Lopez?”

  My heart raced because I did not know how they would take my news. “I have decided to drop out of school and turn professional in track,” I said. Before either of them could say anything, I added, “I only have three semesters of work left to finish my degree, which I can do during the off seasons. I give you my word that I will get my degree.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Mom asked.

  I knew she was worried I would not reach the goal the two of us shared. “I will make sure any contract I sign has money set aside just for school. I promise. I will graduate; it will just take a little longer than I first planned.”

  Neither of my parents said anything for what felt like a long time. Finally Dad said, “You don’t have to do this because of the money. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Dad, Mom, you have been great parents to me. You have given me so much. But now it is time for me to support myself and to support my family in Sudan.”

  “We—” my dad tried to interrupt.

  “I have to do this,” I said, “and now is the best time to do it. The Olympic trials are in June. If I am going to make the team, I need to start training full-time. Coach Hayes said I can work out with the Air Force Academy team. He’s even going to let me live with him until I am able to move into the US Olympic training center in Colorado Springs.”

  Another long pause on the other end of the phone. “As long as you finish your degree, we support your decision 100 percent,” Mom said.

  “We can’t wait to go to Beijing and watch you run,” Dad added. He sounded excited. “You’re going to make the team and we will be there to see it all!” I’d only talked about the Olympics for six and a half years. My dream had never been so close. Mom and Dad believed in my dream even more than I did, if that were possible.

  Now that I’d made my decision, I had to break the news to my teammates. “Guys, there’s nothing I love more than running with you. But there’s something I have to do. I am going to leave school and turn pro as soon as our season is over.”

  “You’ve got to do it to get ready for the Olympics, man,” one guy said. “We understand.”

  “That’s part of it,” I said, “a big part.”

  Someone shouted from the back, “If I could run like you, I’d do the same thing. What are you waiting for?”

  I laughed. “Thanks for understanding. The way I see it, if this is my last season, I plan on making it my best ever. I say we go out and win a national championship.”

  We almost reached that goal. At one point in the season, we were ranked second in the nation. I won the individual conference title, while our team won conference for the second year in a row. We qualified as a team for the national championships in Terra Haute. I finished third individually, while our team finished fourth overall. Our new coach, Eric Heins, was named Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year. I was even named the NCAA Mountain Region male track athlete of the year. Any way you look at it, 2007 was a very, very good season. I ended my collegiate career on a high note.

  As soon as the cross-country season ended, I contacted Nike to tell them I was ready. Coach Hayes recommended an agent who negotiated the deal for me. I moved to Colorado Springs in early January after returning to Kenya for the second time to spend Christmas with my family.

  The Air Force Academy had just returned from winter break when I arrived. I was a little nervous about training with a new group of guys, but Coach Hayes put my fears to rest. “You’re going to love it here,” he told me. “I know I do. These athletes are different from any I’ve ever been around. Don’t get me wrong. We had a fantastic team at Northern Arizona, but there’s just something about a team whose sole focus is on something much bigger than themselves. Their purpose for being here transcends sports. You’ll see.”

  After one or two workouts, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I found myself drawn to the cadets’ sense of purpose, ideals, and their sacrifice to serve the United States. I am a very proud American, but these guys had a deep love and pride for our country unlike I had ever encountered. Every day I came away from practice inspired.

  Even though I was at the Academy as a guest of Coach Hayes, I quickly fell in with the team. Everyone here had a nickname. My friend Ian McFarland was Baby Mac, because everyone said he had a baby face. The team named Kevin Hawkins, who stood nearly seven feet tall and ran the 800 meter, “Carl,” after the giant in the movie Big Fish. Kenneth Grosselin was Kenny G. He couldn’t play the sax, but he finished at the top of his class. He inspired me both on and off the track. I already had a nickname, Lopez, so I fit right in with the guys. Before long, my new training partners felt like family, very much like my friends in Kakuma.

  I dove into my training at the Academy. I came here to train without distractions. However, I never counted on a beautiful blonde distraction finding me. On the first day of hurdle drills, Coach Hayes and I stood to one side talking, when a sophomore cadet girl came right up to me. “Hello, my name is Brittany,” she said with a huge smile. “Welcome to Colorado Springs.”

  I am a
talker, but I get tongue-tied and shy around girls. I blurted out something like, “Hi, I’m Lopez.”

  “How do you like the Air Force Academy so far?” Her eyes danced. I could not believe this girl was talking to me!

  Coach Hayes gave me a look and put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

  “I like it very nice,” I said, or something that eloquent. I could not get over how happy and cheerful she was.

  “Good. I love it here, and the track team is great. We’re like a big family here. I’m sure we’ll see lots of each other. I’m on the girls’ team. Maybe we can run together sometime.”

  “Okay, yeah, sure. I would like that,” I stammered.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m glad you’re here,” she said before turning and running back to a group of girls. I watched her the whole way back. Immediately I felt myself falling for her.

  Over the next few weeks I had more conversations with Brittany at practice. None of them were anything earthshaking, but I felt myself being drawn more and more to her. The problem was, I had no idea how to approach her to let her know how I felt. Back in Kakuma, I would have asked my family of boys for advice. In Colorado Springs, I went to the closest thing I had to my family back in the camp.

  One day during practice, Baby Mac, Kenny G, and I were out on the track running laps. When I run, I talk, so I confided in them. “Guys, I think I’m falling for Brittany.”

  Kenny G laughed. “So you’re going for a cadet, are you? Well, that didn’t take long.”

  Baby Mac joined in. “So, the big, bad pro athlete gets his heart taken by a little blonde runner, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. What should I do?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about girls and relationships.”

  “Who does?” Baby Mac laughed. “Just talk to her. Ask her out. You should go for it, man.”

  I listened to his advice, and I really wanted to follow it, but I could not bring myself to say the words, “Will you go out with me?” At the same time, I could not hide my feelings forever. I knew eventually they would come spilling out. I only hoped I wouldn’t make a fool of myself when they did.

  A few months later, after an especially hard workout together, I limped into the trainers’ room for an ice bath. They call these things baths, but only because you immerse yourself in water while wearing athletic gear. The trainers’ room is very cold and sterile anyway, like a medical facility. The ice baths make it that much colder. I hate the cold, and I hate ice baths even more. If not for the way they made my muscles heal, I would swear them off forever.

  Both the men’s and women’s track teams share the trainers’ room. Even so, I was more than a little surprised to find Brittany in the room that day. She also had a difficult workout as a member of the women’s track team and needed to soak her sore muscles, just like I needed to soak mine.

  The moment I saw Brittany my heart started to race. I started to turn around and walk out, but I knew I couldn’t. Ice baths were a crucial part of my training routine. With the Olympic trials just around the corner, I could not afford to skip them.

  “Hi, Lopez,” she said. “How was your workout today?”

  I could hardly hear her with my heart beating so loud in my ears. “Okay, how was yours?”

  “Brutal, otherwise I wouldn’t be in here.”

  “Same here,” I said. “Have you been in there long?”

  “Just climbed in,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my head to keep me warm. I climbed into a tub on the opposite side of the room from her. Running track all through high school and college, I often found myself in the trainers’ room with members of the opposite sex. Even though you soak in the ice tub fully clothed, I always keep a distance between myself and the girls in the room.

  “Good?” Brittany asked with a laugh. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I just meant, that will give us time to talk.”

  “Oh,” she said with a funny little tone. “Is there something we need to talk about?” I did not know it at the time, but Baby Mac and Kenny G had already spilled the beans about me wanting to ask her out.

  “Well, there’s, uh, new African restaurant in town.” I paused.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So I was wondering, if you don’t have anything else going on, if you would like to go there with me on Saturday after practice, to, you know, eat something, er, lunch.”

  “You mean, like on a date?” she asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said.

  “I would love to,” she said with a smile.

  “You would?” I said, very excited. “Wow. Great.” After that, I never felt the cold of the ice bath. The two of us talked and laughed until my body went numb. I really hate the cold.

  We went to the African restaurant on our first date. For our second, we went to a celebration in a community of lost boys and lost girls in Boulder. One of the girls graduated from college, which called for a party, Sudanese style. We danced and ate traditional dishes late into the night. I knew Brittany was something special when she joined right in, even though everything was foreign to her. This was the start of a very long and happy friendship for both of us. Brittany not only kept dating me, but she went on to study Anthropology of Southern Sudanese Culture at Oxford. She also became instrumental in helping me realize my dream of making a difference in Kimotong.

  Even though I met Brittany in Colorado Springs, I reminded myself of the real reason I moved there: to prepare for the Olympic trials. I trained alongside the Academy track team and traveled with the team to several meets at which I competed. Traveling with the Air Force Academy was a new experience. The team did not take a commercial jet. Instead we flew in an AC-130 military cargo plane. Instead of comfortable seats, we strapped ourselves into seats that were a step above wooden benches. The roar of the engines echoed through the metal hull that was not insulated at all. Everyone had to wear earplugs to keep from losing our hearing. I thought my first trip with the Academy team would be a good chance to talk to Brittany. Boy, was I ever wrong.

  I ran as a pro for the first time at the Adidas Classic in Los Angeles. I did not win, but I ran well enough to reassure me that I’d made the right choice in turning pro. However, the real highlight of the event did not take place on the track. After my event, I headed over toward the locker room to change out of my race clothes and into my warm-ups for my cool-down laps. I have to do the proper cool-down or my muscles will tighten and put me in danger of injury. My agent met me, and the two of us walked along talking about the race I’d just run. All of a sudden, my agent said, “Hey look. There’s Michael.”

  “What?” I said, looking around from side to side.

  “It’s Michael,” he said again. He pointed across the field to a tall, thin man dressed in jeans and a nice shirt.

  My jaw hit the ground.

  “Let’s go say hello,” my agent said.

  Before I could reply, my agent had already taken several steps toward the man. Worse yet for nervous me, Michael appeared to be on his way over toward us!

  “Michael,” my agent said, “I would like to introduce you to Lopez Lomong. Lopez,” he said turning toward me, “this is Michael Johnson.”

  I felt like I had just stepped into a dream. Standing in front of me was the man who changed the course of my life eight years earlier without even knowing it. He looked very different live than he did on a small, grainy, car-battery-operated, black-and-white television. I looked up at him. He was much taller than he appeared on television.

  “Mr. Johnson,” I said, my voice cracking, “it is an honor to meet you.”

  Michael reached out and shook my hand, “Call me Michael,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said. I could not wipe the goofy grin off my face. To me, this was like meeting royalty. “I watched you run in the 2000 Olympics while I lived in a refugee camp. I am a runner today because of you.”

  “That’s kind of you to say, L
opez,” Michael said with a smile. “I know all about your story. I have to tell you, I’ve followed your career. You’re an excellent runner. I’m proud of you and all you’ve accomplished already. You keep running the way you are now, and you’ll be running in the Olympics yourself soon. I know you can do it.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I walked away from the conversation, but I do not think my feet ever touched the ground. Wow, I thought to myself, if Michael believes in me, I know I’m going to reach my goal.

  My first professional win in the 1500 came at a Reebok event in New York. Later, I won the Sun Angel Invitational in Tempe, Arizona. I didn’t win my next meet, the Stanford Invitational, but I ran well enough to stay on track for my ultimate goal. At this stage, my goal was not to win but to hit the Olympic standard time of 3:36, which is also known as the A Standard. Once I hit this time, I would automatically qualify to run in the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, in June.

  My next chance to reach the A Standard came at the Carson Invitational in Carson, California. The race did not start out well. I took a nasty fall when I tripped in the first 100 meters of the race. Skin scraped off of my shoulder and calf, leaving me bruised, burned, and bloody. Luckily for me, the recall gun sounded because I fell so early in the race. I ignored the pain and chose not to notice the blood running down my leg. Instead, when the race started a second time, I focused purely on my goal. Whether I won or lost did not matter. All I wanted to do was to look up at the clock at the end of the race and see a time below 3:36 next to my name.

  Four laps later, that’s exactly what I saw. I’d reached the first leg of my goal. I’d qualified for the Olympic trials. My dream was within my grasp. Now I just needed to make my final kick and grab hold of it.