How Hellah Sidibe’s 3,350-Day Run Streak Rebuilt His Mind

**Hellah Sidibe** (0:00)
I ran this morning, it's day 3349 consecutive run. Hellah Sidibe is a New Jersey based YouTuber.

**Rich Roll** (0:08)
Known as Hellah Good to his massive YouTube following.

**Hellah Sidibe** (0:11)
Ran from LA to New York in just 84 days. My number one run streak rule, it has to be outside no matter the circumstances. Treadmill doesn't count. I have run two miles outside when I had oral surgery, and I had an implant and a wisdom teeth removal at once. So within one mile, my mouth was full of blood. When I went to Australia in 2019, I took four flights to keep my streak alive. When you start telling your brain, I'm good enough, eventually you're going to prove to yourself that you were right about it.

**Rich Roll** (0:38)
What do you think is the biggest thing that people misunderstand about you and this run streak and what you're doing?

**Hellah Sidibe** (0:46)
Okay, so.

**Rich Roll** (0:49)
All right, everybody. Your favorite run influencer, runner is here. The guy who ran across America, the guy who is on year nine of his run streak. The Hello, My Beautiful People man himself, Hellah Sidibe is in the house. How are you, my friend?

**Hellah Sidibe** (1:05)
Thank you. Thank you for your time. I'm excited to be back. It's been five years.

**Rich Roll** (1:09)
Almost exactly like I checked. I checked the date. It was July of 2021 when you did the show.
So lots to catch up on. The run streak is intact. You look good.

**Lex** (1:21)
You have a smile on your face, as you always do.

**Hellah Sidibe** (1:24)
You look great as well. You look great.

**Lex** (1:26)
Good to see you.

**Rich Roll** (1:27)
How are you doing? What's been going on?

**Hellah Sidibe** (1:29)
I'm doing incredible. That's all I can say, because I'm still doing what I love, which is running.
And there's nothing to it. Sometimes you think about how the future might look like, and then you have the way you envision the future. But the biggest thing for me was I want to keep running forever, and we're still here five years later, and that's why I can't complain.

**Rich Roll** (1:49)
So in May, you eclipsed your 8th year and you're into your 9th year.

**Hellah Sidibe** (1:54)
Yeah, I did 9 years. So you're into your 10th year. I'm in my 10th year. It will be a decade next year.

**Rich Roll** (2:00)
That's insane.

**Lex** (2:01)
So how many days is that?

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:03)
So today, I ran this morning. It's day 3,349 consecutive runs.
And so by the time we hit another 365 days, it will be more than 3,700 or 800 days.

**Rich Roll** (2:20)
Well, 10 years, wouldn't that be 3,650 days?

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:24)
Yeah, I think that's what it is, if I'm correct.

**Rich Roll** (2:26)
I can do that kind of math.

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:28)
365 times 10 Exactly.

**Rich Roll** (2:31)
Is there ever, I know the answer to this, but I want to hear you say it out loud. What do you do when you wake up and you just don't want to do it?

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:39)
I've never had that.

**Rich Roll** (2:41)
See, I have never had to.

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:42)
Is that true? 100% Rich. I'm telling you.

**Rich Roll** (2:44)
There's never been a day in the last nine years where you woke up and you didn't want to go running.

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:51)
No, there's never been.

**Rich Roll** (2:52)
And I'll tell you. How?

**Hellah Sidibe** (2:53)
This is what happens.
Okay, so there's been time where I'm injured. Well, there's an injury learning to run, and I hate the run because I'm in so much pain. I can't enjoy what the run gives me because you're just in pain. When you're in pain, your mind goes to the pain, and I can't even enjoy my scenery. When I run, I daydream, so I look forward to every single run because I'm talking to myself. I used to ask my grandfather, I used to ask my dad, so why does grandpa is always talking to himself? Is he crazy? Because he just isn't mumbled. And then now I find myself talking to myself. So when I go running, I'm talking to myself, I'm daydreaming, I'm pretending I'm in a race, I'm pretending that I'm envisioning what my future will look like or what's gonna happen when I get home or what I'm about to do. Or when I'm angry, I talk to myself out of it, look at life in a different light, so I'm not feeling the same way when I get home. So I look forward to those moments when I go running. And when I do feel like I don't run, there's something wrong. So we came up with this term and you're gonna hear it first time in The Rich Roll Podcast. I've mentioned it in one other podcast, but no one's ever heard of this and I'm patting this word. You know you get hangry, I get wrangry. Meaning you get angry if you don't run.