Interview With Evren Ozka: He Ran Across Seven Emirates

by Alexandra Mansilla

Interview With Evren Ozka, a Man Who Ran Across Seven Emirates

15 Apr 2024

Evren Ozka, an Englishman in Dubai, is a businessman and the founder of Mallet, a premium footwear and clothing label based in London, as well as Everybodies, a nutritional supplement brand.

Now, he is also known as the man who set a world record by running across all seven Emirates in just five days and twelve hours. But here is the twist: Evren actually hates running.

Just three years ago, he was 25 kilograms heavier, smoked, drank alcohol, and ate junk food. Then, one day, he realised it was time for a change — and there was no turning back. This is the story of how he transformed his life and overcame an immense distance.

— Evren, hello! First off, how did you end up living in Dubai? You spent your whole life in London, didn't you?

— Yes, I was born and raised in London. When I was about 21, I moved to Istanbul, where I lived for five or six years before moving to Dubai.

— Why did you move to Istanbul?

— I have a family manufacturing business, so I moved there to become more involved in it.

— And then to Dubai. Why?

— Moving to Dubai was more of a personal decision. At that point, our kids, two boys, were getting a little bit older, and it was time for them to start school. So, it was either moving back to London or moving back to Dubai, and we chose Dubai because of the safety and the general living conditions there. That was about a year ago now.

— Three years ago, you made the decision to change your life, to quit smoking, drinking alcohol, and eating junk food. How many kilos have you lost?

— I think it was about 25. So it was quite quick because I wasn't just overweight. I was quite addicted to food, cigarettes, and alcohol. I had major problems. I tried to quit and change my lifestyle many times, but it just wasn't working. I was in a dark period in my life.

Business-wise, everything was perfect. I was successful, but my personal life wasn't. I was happily married, had two boys — everything I ever wanted. But there was this emptiness inside me, and I was just covering it with food, cigarettes, and alcohol. It was a cycle I couldn't break. I tried multiple times, but it was deteriorating the quality of my life. My wife tried to help me, but I didn't want to be helped. Eventually, I realised I had to do something because my kids were getting older, and I was their role model. It is one thing to mess up your own life, but it is a bigger responsibility when you are responsible for others. When the kids got a bit older, I decided to give it one more chance. I stopped and tried to replace those addictions with something else. I knew I had to become mentally tougher, so I started running. I thought, "Everyone's running, so I'll try it too.”

— But you hated running.

— And I still do! I don't understand how anybody can enjoy it. It is a struggle every single time, really difficult. Yet, I decided to try it to become mentally tougher. After about a week of stopping all addictions, I thought: “I’m gonna run five kilometres today.” I thought I could do it. But after about a kilometre, I had to stop and walk home. I felt lost and unsure of what to do next. I knew I needed to find a motivation, so I started looking for races. However, due to COVID-19, everything was cancelled. I was in Turkey at the time, unable to travel.

The only race I found was a 160-kilometre trail race. I thought it was a joke at first, but it turned out to be real. I couldn't even run a kilometre, let alone that distance. I thought my running attempt was over. But then I realised completing such a race would be an incredible transformation and story. So, I signed up for it.

Four weeks later, I participated in the race. Going into it, I gave myself no option to quit. I burned all the bridges and boats. It was either completing the race or nothing. And I finished it in just under 28 hours. That marked the start of my running career. It was my first experience before running a 10k race or a marathon.

— How did you feel right after?

— It was a combination of feelings. I don't think that has ever been done before: someone with no athletic background or experience going and completing 160 kilometres, especially with the challenge of mountains. It opened up a whole new world to me. Four weeks ago, I couldn't even run a kilometre. Seeing this distance, it seemed impossible, yet I completed it. It made me wonder, what else is possible? How much have I been leaving on the table?

So, I felt a combination of pride and disappointment. I realised how much time I had wasted over the years. Since then, I haven't wasted a day. Physical endurance helps me in every aspect of my life. It makes me a better businessman, a better husband, a better father. That is why I do it.

— And how did your body feel?

— I felt absolutely broken. Initially, I felt good, but once I got in the car, my body just broke down. My friends didn't take me home because it was far but to one of my wife's relatives. I couldn't sleep or eat for the next three to four days. I was bedridden, coughing up blood, experiencing all sorts of bodily dysfunctions. It was embarrassing, but I didn't want to drink water because I knew it would be challenging to go to the bathroom. So, I stopped drinking water altogether. It was a terrible few days.

Instagram: @evrenozka

— However, how did you recover from it? For example, did you start eating a bit?

— Yeah, just a bit because it is strange when you do something like that. You are obviously starved of nutrients and food. You are really tired, but you can't sleep, and you can't eat, so you just have to do what you can. It took me so long to recover because it was just a shock to the system. When you are in that kind of mode of go, go, go, your body's rushed with adrenaline the whole time. It is like a primal experience because you are out there in the mountains, most of the time alone. You go into survival mode, thinking, "Do I survive or not?" Once that adrenaline rush turns off, you start feeling everything — the pain intensifies. While you are out there, you feel it, but after you stop, everything just rises to the surface.

— So, about these addictions that you had. What was the hardest thing to give up? I'm curious because you indulged in drinking and smoking for a long period of time. Once you decided to quit, what thoughts did you have during the first few days? Do you remember that time?

— Yeah, I remember that time, and it was probably the most difficult period in my life. It was so tough because, as you mentioned, it becomes deeply rooted in your identity when you go through such a long period. You start thinking, "This is who I am. I'm a heavy drinker. I'm a smoker. This is how I eat." It becomes part of your self-perception. So when you take it away, it feels like your personality is being stripped away, too.

It was challenging to change, but I knew I didn't have a choice. Whenever I thought about going back, I had very little hope. I thought, "Let me just give it one last chance and see what happens." It reached a point where even my kids were getting older, and my wife was fed up. She told me she had had enough of trying to help me. To be fair to her, she had put up with a lot over the years. She said, "I didn't sign up for this. We have two kids, and I need to do what is right for them." It was a tough period for her, too. I knew I had to do whatever it took because I could never have given up if it were just for me. But thinking about my kids and my wife, doing it for them, made it a bit easier.

— I noticed a post on Instagram about your granny. The caption caught my attention: "My grandma said this morning, 'If you're going through hell, keep going. Why would you stop in hell?' That really moved me." Can you share more about her?

— Here, that is actually my wife's granny. It illustrates how much of a special bond we shared, especially during a dark period for me. This was about five or six years ago when we first met. She must have been around 85 or 86 at the time. This lady was brimming with wisdom; she had a way of offering profound insights. She would often say things like, "Just keep going," and her wisdom resonated deeply with me.

There were times when I would struggle with something for days, unable to find a solution, but as soon as I shared it with her, she would offer a simple sentence that put everything into perspective. It was truly remarkable.

Instagram: @evrenozka

— So, seven Emirates in five days and twelve hours. Can you recall the specific day when you made the decision to undertake this challenge?

— After completing that first hundred-mile race, my perspective on what is possible changed. I always wanted to push the boundaries and do more challenging things, so over the next three years, I participated in many different races and challenges. I was always searching for the next big thing.

Once I moved to Dubai, I was just looking to do something local. So, I thought about what the biggest local challenge could be. I wondered if I could run the entire length of the country because I know that people in England do that all the time. So, I wondered if anyone had done that here, and I found out that someone had. I decided to try to beat that record. That was about a year ago, and it has been on my mind ever since.

— Did you have any fears before the run?

— No, I didn't have any fears because I have always convinced myself that I can't die from running, and I carry on pushing myself. I have done a lot worse things to my body over the years.

When you are pushing really hard, there comes a moment where you want to stop. All you can think about is stopping. But when you push through that barrier, you just start flying again, and you feel phenomenal. So it is just about pushing through that barrier, really.

— How many pairs of sneakers did you take?

— I took about nine pairs of sneakers with me because I knew I was going to be changing them frequently. So yeah, I did switch quite often. I found one pair that worked really well, but by the third day, they were causing my feet to swell up, especially my toes. Losing a few toenails is normal, but yeah, my toes were banging into the top of the shoe. So I just cut the shoe open and turned it into a sandal-running shoe hybrid. And yeah, I finished the race.

— Maybe it is an idea for Mallet to create such types of sneakers.

— Exactly. Maybe we will actually do that, the sandal runner!

Instagram: @evrenozka

— You did some stops. Where did you stay?

— We had a crew vehicle equipped with a bed, sofa, fridge, and all the necessities inside. This vehicle followed me the entire time, along with another vehicle. They were always trailing behind me, so when it was time to sleep, I would rest in the van parked nearby. I would sleep for however long I needed and then continue on. Since it was an official Guinness World Record attempt, we had to be extremely careful about where we stopped and started. We had to ensure we stopped and started in the exact same spot and document it with video. We were very meticulous about this. We would find a safe spot on the side of the road for the van to stop, sleep for a couple of hours, and then continue the next day.

— What was your team? Who went with you?

— I had a documentary film crew following me; they were three people. Additionally, I had two drivers. Then, my wife joined for the last three or four days; she was there the whole time. We also had various other people joining in and out over the six days.

— What was your diet during this journey?

— So, I also have a nutrition brand called Everybodies, and we have a product called Activ8. It is incredibly helpful for endurance because it contains everything you need to keep going. Activ8 has carbohydrates that are fast-absorbing but slow-burning, so they don't spike your blood sugar. They can sustain your energy for a long period of time and also contain electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium. It was literally everything I needed to keep going, so I was drinking a bottle of that every hour from the time I started until I finished non-stop.

Other than that, I ate whatever I could. Sometimes, I craved something salty and sometimes something sweet. I was burning anywhere between 10,000 and 13,000 calories a day, so eating that much food, especially while moving, was very difficult. I was literally just trying to shovel in whatever I could, so I picked calorie-dense foods. I had a big bottle of olive oil with me, so I would put olive oil on anything I could. Peanut butter was also good. Basically, anything with calories that I could eat and keep down was the main goal.

Photo: Evren's personal archive

— The toughest part of the run. What was it?

— The toughest part was definitely when the storm started on the last day. That rain was a lot harder than I expected because, first of all, I wasn't expecting a storm.

We were passing through Dubai, and then one of my friends said to me, “Have you heard about the storm? What are you guys gonna do about the storm?” You know, we didn't know about the storm, and he showed me on his phone. It was a map showing the whole UAE in red, especially where we were gonna be in Fujairah. It said, “Stay inside, do not leave your home.” I was like, “What are we gonna do here?” So we kind of tried to forget about it and keep moving as we exited Dubai. After Dubai, there was Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, and for the next few hours, it was kind of... We didn't really speak about it among the team, but everyone was kind of a little bit worried, I could tell. Yeah, we didn't know what we were gonna do, and in the end, I just got my team together, and I said, “Listen, guys. Everyone's telling us to be ready for the storm. Well, the storm better be ready for us. We're coming. It doesn't matter how bad this storm is. We're going for it. We're gonna do everything. We're gonna get to Fujairah, whatever happens. Don't worry.”

After I said that, everyone was kind of in a good mood again, and ready to go. So, we have done Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, and then we stopped for two or three hours, and then we continued into Fujairah the next morning. And that was when the storm started, and yeah, I was just getting drenched. The wind was bad, the temperature was low, and it was a combination of that and also the hills in Fujairah. There are a lot of hills, so you can't really run the hills. You have to walk. So I couldn't run fast to keep my body temperature up. I couldn't keep warm because I was drenched, everything was soaked.

There was wind, and I couldn't run, so I was literally shaking the whole time. So yeah, that was probably one of the most difficult moments. The next six to eight hours were really difficult.

— How do you recover after?

— Well, my body has become quite adept at recovering over the years because I don't sleep very much, and my body has just adapted. So it is quite different from the first hundred-mile race that I did. I finished early on Sunday morning, around 2 or 3 AM, or something like that. I went home, slept, and took the rest of the day off. I didn't really do much on Sunday. Then, on Monday, I had a flight to London.

So, I just tried to make the most of Sunday and do a little bit of active recovery. I have a spinning bike at home, so I did a little bit of light spinning and took a couple of ice baths. I also spent some time with my family. But, yeah, I had to go to London the day after, so I wish I could have had more time to recover. But, you know, life never stops!

by Alexandra Mansilla

Interview With Evren Ozka, a Man Who Ran Across Seven Emirates

15 Apr 2024

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