On Wednesday, July 29, Mohamed Lahna became the first athlete with a prosthesis to complete a triathlon across the United States in this format: swim 28.5 miles around Manhattan, bike 3,000 miles from Manhattan to Las Vegas, and run 350 miles from Vegas to Venice Beach in California.
To kick off this incredible adventure, Mohamed had to lock in on the swim.
“I had only one shot,” he says. “I had to be within certain points within certain hours, or I had to stop the swim.”
And the organization that guided his swim only has so many openings. If he didn’t complete it during his scheduled time slot, trying again the next day wasn’t an option. It’d be weeks or months until he could make a second attempt. The Triathlon Across America, as planned for this summer, would be over in an instant.
To give himself the best shot at making the cutoffs, Mohamed enrolled in an intense ultraswimming camp in Croatia. He completed his first-ever 6-hour swim as part of a five-day, 59,000-yard training block – just two weeks before jumping into the East River.
“The long swim camp gave me confidence. The other thing it really helped with was feeding.” Mohamed figured out what would work for his body during hours in the water. The answer: Warm liquids. Every 30 minutes. (Or so he thought…)
Then, sometime around 7 pm on June 13 – you read that right, he swam through the night – it was go time.
“This project was a year and a half in the making. All the sudden you have to jump in the water and get started. It’s nervousness. It’s excitement. It’s everything.”
The waves were crazy when he first jumped in. “I felt like I was not moving forward, just swimming up and down,” he says. He had trouble seeing his kayaker. “It was chaotic the first half an hour.”
The conditions calmed, but his stomach didn’t. He couldn’t keep anything down. His leg started to cramp from kicking so much in the tumultuous, wavey beginning. But he kept going, counting bridges for a while, then breaking everything down by half hour feeds.
“Once the sun went down and it got dark, I was really hoping I could see Manhattan from the river. But I was really sad because I breathe only on the right side,” Mohamed jokes.
He loved the night swim. “It was peaceful, quiet. The city alive, light everywhere, people doing what they’re doing while I’m swimming, nobody knowing. I really enjoyed it.”
Ultimately, the swim took Mohamed 7 hours and 44 minutes, finishing after 2 am.
“When it was over, I went with my wife and kids to have a sandwich somewhere in the city at 3 am then went to sleep.”
The next day, he’d embark on his 3,000-mile bike ride to Vegas, a rolling buffet during which he tried to eat as much as he could, knowing he has a tough time keeping down nutrition while running.
We talked to Mohamed one evening, in the middle of the brutally hot run portion. “The ride feels like it happened last year!” he said. “My takeaway from the bike is: America is so beautiful. The landscape changed dramatically. But also, the people are really nice. Supportive, generous. I loved that aspect of this journey on the bike.”
The run took Mohamed through punishing 100+ degree desert landscapes. He’d have to stop every 2 miles to apply lubricant and take of his prosthesis. But he persisted, hitting every waypoint he’d predicted, coming into Venice Beach – home of the 2028 Olympic triathlon – right on time, to much-deserved fanfare.
Mohamed’s athletic prowess is certainly undeniable. But perhaps the thing that stood out the most, in talking to him and in watching his daily updates, was his spirit. His relentlessly positive attitude as he persisted on a tough schedule, day after day.
“Faith helps me keep going, through those tough moments, especially when I’m alone,” he says. “Also thinking about all of the people who’ve supported me: my community, my family, my wife, the kids, the people who came to volunteer for this project, people from abroad who sent messages of support. And thinking about the two charities that support the kids that I want to help out there.”
“In the disability community, we help each other and motivate each other to be active and have a healthy life. The Challenged Athletes Foundation and Save the Children had such a big impact on me. I wanted to do something big to raise awareness for them.”
Mission accomplished, Mohamed.
HOW TO SUPPORT MOHAMED’S TRI ACROSS AMERICA
Mohamed’s goal is to raise $250,000 for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, an organization that powers athletes with physical disabilities, and Save the Children, an organization that funded his childhood school in Morocco.
You can find his donation page here.
Learn more about Mohamed here.
Follow Mohamed on Instagram here.
We’re in perpetual awe of Mohamed and proud to stand in his corner as he takes on incredible endurance feats – and as he jumps straight back into training for LA28.
