- 09:30
Big-hearted Lebanese-French ultrarunner Ali Samir Wehbi is getting ready to take on the impossible: 50 marathons in 50 days, heading due south toward Mecca. A sporting challenge, a prayer in motion and a message of hope carried to families of children with autism.
He has crossed deserts where the silence hits hard, tamed polar nights where the frost bites, and trained… in supermarket freezers to prepare his body for the Arctic. For 21 years, Ali Wehbi has pushed the boundaries of endurance. The “International Lebanese Desert Runner” has covered more than 18,000 kilometers across the globe, come close to death twice—once in the desert, once at the North Pole—set a Guinness World Record for the fastest crossing of Lebanon, completed five full circuits of the country, and run the entire Lebanese coastline, 245 kilometers swallowed in one go in 39 hours. The resume commands respect, the man himself inspires admiration.
Purpose Before Performance
For Wehbi, performance is never bare: every stride carries a cause. After losing his mother to cancer, running became his language against despair. He has run for cancer awareness, for peace, for autism. He told This is Beirut, “I don’t run against the clock or against others. I run for faces, stories, families. When my legs burn, it’s those names that pull me forward.” “I’m not Superman,” he adds. “I’m a man who hurts, who doubts, but who keeps moving. Endurance isn’t perfection, it’s persistence.”
50 Days, 50 Children
His next challenge is the most meaningful: linking Beirut to Mecca in 50 marathons over 50 consecutive days. The start is scheduled for April 2, 2026: more than 2,100 kilometers of asphalt and dust, a ribbon that runs from Lebanon into Syria, crosses Jordan and descends through Saudi Arabia to the Holy Places. Each day, each marathon will bear the name of a child with autism, to tell families: we see you, we hear you, we’re behind you. Around him, a team as light as it is essential—a physiotherapist to repair, a cameraman to tell the story, a driver-assistant to keep the logistics humming—so the runner can hold the line, the pace and a clear mind. The expedition extends his Green Runner mission: to raise awareness about respecting the environments traversed, and to remind us that protecting the earth and protecting people are the same. The whole journey will be told day by day, on screen and across social media, so that one man’s trajectory becomes a collective ripple.
Running Under Drones, Running Despite Everything
In Lebanon, he has learned to live with the buzz of drones and the roar of bombardments. Carrying on when everything invites you to stop—that is his hallmark, a peaceful disobedience that turns fatigue into a message. Wehbi embodies a Lebanon that refuses resignation and swaps complaint for action.
The Story, the Trail, the Faith
From Beirut to the Holy Places, the route is more than a line on a map: it is a march of hope stitched from kilometers, a succession of dawn departures and dusk arrivals, where faith is conjugated with discipline and organization. 50 marathons in 50 days, a total distance to be swallowed in a single continental sweep, a finale in Mecca like a coda, a cause—autism—that gives meaning to the suffering, and a tight-knit team, operating from the shadows to make the project possible. “If I can keep going, then everyone can,” he repeats, like a mantra to be shared.
At the end of the tarmac, there is not only the Kaaba: there are 50 names, 50 faces, 50 reasons to believe. Ali Wehbi doesn’t run for a trophy case, he runs to uplift the heart. And whatever the stopwatch says, that is often the most beautiful victory.
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