Gebrselassie crosses the line in a Two Mile World best - 8:04.69 (© Getty Images)
Haile Gebrselassie is a busy man nowadays and not just with his running. In the first of his journals for the IAAF internet, the quadruple World 10,000m champion gives us a small insight into his daily life –
“I still get up just before 6am and go to training, which I do until about 9.30. On somedays when I am training in Addis Ababa stadium perhaps I will finish earlier, maybe 8am, and then take the opportunity to run outside the city.
My house is just 5 kilometres from the track, and I take the car. That’s not because I don’t or wouldn’t want to run, it’s just that the city is a very crowded place, and I would never make it on foot!
Certainly by 10am I have finished my training and I take a shower and some breakfast and then it’s time for me to go to my office.
I have a real estate company, we build a lot of houses, even a school, and the latest project has been a cinema and a health facility, you know with a steam sauna and weight training.
It’s very much a family affair. My wife Alem does most of the day to day work but I have everyone involved my uncles, cousins…
The business is all over Ethiopia not just Addis Ababa, and we employ more than 220 people.
At about 12.30 each day I go back home and eat with my wife and family, though two of my three daughters are nowadays at school and so eat with their friends there. Eden is the oldest (5 years), then there is Melat (3 years, 6 months), and the youngest Batiy (1 year, 6 months).
Lunch is a very important time for me. It is social but also a time for business. It is the time of the day when I am fully in control because unlike in the office when there is always someone who wants to ask you something, at home it is much more relaxed.
So it is at this time that I have my most important meetings of the day. Some times I eat with my architect, sometimes with my administration chief…it’s different most days. It is what you would call a business lunch in Europe.
After lunch I try to relax a bit but unlike most Europeans we still have a big family based social life in Ethiopia. The extended family is large and there is always someone sick who you must visit, a wedding to go to, a funeral, a family party. As a European you would be surprised how busy an Ethiopian family’s social life can be.
I try to sleep for one or maybe two hours each afternoon if there really is nothing to do, and then at 4pm I go to training. Usually this is not quite so serious as my morning session. A long slow run or work in the gym.
For me personally, the next few hours in the day is the happiest and most important, as it is my chance to be with my children after they return from school and before they go to bed. We watch cartoons together. My youngest daughter loves the “Power Girls”, she loves just loves them and it’s lovely to sit watching it with her.
I then discuss business again with my wife. You know when you have your own business, it’s very difficult to shut off and end the day. There is always something to discuss.
That’s my day finished and at about 10pm I usually go to bed."
