Meet Adedayo Oyebade Akinbode: Nigerian woman who ran 112 marathon races in 77 countries across 7 continents

Ever known that a Nigerian woman has participated in over 100 marathon races in 77 countries across the five continents? That the woman in question has an iron plate fitted with screws buried in her left leg? Yet she has covered far more distances than any other Nigerian long distance runner, dead or alive. More intriguing is the fact that Adedayo Oyebade Akinbode is not a professional marathoner. She doesn’t run for money, yet she has a global network of friends, she calls the running community.

Dayo is a graduate of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering at the then University of Ife, Osun State. She is a member of ICAN (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria) and CIPS (Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply).

Dayo’s professional career started out as a Management Trainee in Cadbury Nigeria Plc, where she rose through the ranks to become the Planning Manager. Thereafter she was head hunted by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company where she rose to become the Low Risk Contracting Team Lead.

Dayo makes a special case study of sorts. She never participated in sports in her prime up to the university. As a very senior staff of the multinational, she was comfortable as she had a lot of staff at her beck and call. Never had cause to sweat to have anything done. Chauffeur driven and had everything to live a luxury life. But luxury has a cost. Apart from material cost, one’s health is also at stake. And that was the case of Dayo Akinbode.

She told us her story. “One day in 2012 when I went for my annual routine medical check and the doctor told me that I was obese with a high cholesterol level That I needed to change my lifestyle if I did not want to die young. He also told me ‘don’t eat this, don’t eat that’ and all the things he told me not to eat are the things I loved most. I just put the report aside and did not do anything about it, although I didn’t want to die. In 2013 I returned from leave and I noticed everybody was getting involved in one form of sporting activity or another.

I asked what was going on. I was told the company too was participating in the Global Corporate Challenge which involved physical exercises. We formed groups of 7 each and that we should be taking ten thousand steps everyday for one to be normal. Luckily for me, that was the last day for enlistment for the programme. I was one of the last people to join a group. My source of motivation was that each member of the group was given a bag and a pair of socks. When I joined that was when I started finding out what it was all about.

We were also issued with speedometers to be able to know how many steps we took each day. They told us that the first two weeks, we should not bother ourselves about doing anything from our usual movements but we should log our steps everyday. I was logging like 700, 500 or 800 steps on a good day. Despite the poor return, I was still top of the log. When the programme started we started logging our daily steps globally and saw what others were doing globally, I now realised that in a country of the blind, the one eyed man is a king. I was the king in Nigeria with 800 but I was seeing the Germans, Canadians, Americans and others logging 27000, 30,000 and so forth in a day. I became enmeshed in the whole idea and was wondering how they were able to achieve such high figures in a single day.

“All my life, I have been very competitive. I have never shied away from competition. My problem now was how to get to do the thousands of steps in a day like my counterparts from other countries. We had a platform where we exchanged ideas and I asked how they were able to achieve such high numbers in one day. One told me she commuted to work, she did not use the elevator. And she moved around the office to carry out certain functions instead of sending her subordinates.

“My office was on the 14th floor. The first thing that I did was to stop using the elevator. The next thing I told the driver to stop dropping me near the elevator. I instructed him to be dropping me right inside the car park so I could walk down the staircase then I would go up. That was how I started to increase my steps. We also had an energy room; where we went for tea and we also had tea girls. They would go round the tables serving tea. If you wanted a photocopy, somebody was always there to do it for you, and stuff like that. So it was like one virtually sat down the whole day.

“But all that changed when I started going to the energy room to do my tea by myself. I went to do my photocopy myself. It got so crazy that even when I was doing the photocopy I would be jogging in one place. All that was to ensure my daily steps got higher. I also stopped using the intercom to talk to my colleagues or pass instructions. I would walk to them. Moving around the office, I then realised that I was getting the right results.

That too, helped in increased productivity because instructions were carried out spontaneously. It became a very effective management method. There was something that was happening that I did not know. I didn’t know that I was dropping weight. That weight the doctor told me to drop last year. All I was interested in was to increase my daily steps and see the result in my speedometer. Monday to Friday I was showing a lot of improvement as I was clocking 5-8000. Weekends were worse because I was virtually at home.

One day I got home with a record of over 9000 steps and I said this was close to the 10000 they are talking about. After parking the car, I decided to walk up and down the street. I got 10,000 and I was on top of the world. From then on, it became a goal for me that everyday, I must get at least 10000, except at weekends.

So I asked myself, what do I do to improve beyond the 10000 steps threshold? On Sundays I would go to church and dance, dance and dance. That shot up the number and the problem became Saturdays. I decided to leave the house and walk around the area. The people around started looking at me. Some people, including my driver, started asking questions. When people saw me then, instead of asking after my family, they rather ask, ‘madam, what happened to your car?’ They thought there was something wrong.

One particular Saturday, I was walking along the street and it started drizzling. I refused to go back home because if I did that I would not achieve my 10000 and I would be wet, so, I decided to continue so that I could achieve my target.

I noticed another woman on the other side of the road jogging. She was so excited when she saw me and crossed over to me. She said thank God, at least she had seen another mad woman because people around were already thinking that she was mad. I told her I was also experiencing such snares from the people in the neighbourhood. I noticed she too had her speedometer as she told me her company too was participating in the Global Corporate Challenge. From then on, we started coordinating our activities together. So one day, she asked if I knew we could register to run a marathon. I then asked her what a marathon was. She explained to me and said we could register to run 42 kilometres. She said the distance could be like from here to Ibadan. I asked her how a human being could run from Lagos to Ibadan.

She advised me to do research on marathons when I get home. I went to YouTube and searched for the New York Marathon, Boston marathon, among others. I watched the New York marathon and I loved it. I called my friend and asked her if we could do it. She said we could but that we have to train. She also told me that there was also a half marathon and all that. She now told me that she had found the Accra Marathon. That was held on September 11th, 2013.

She registered about five of us and started training us. She was a bit more enlightened in the races than the rest of us. We were given bips with our names inscribed and numbers (mine was 969) on them. After the race, I felt so excited. I felt as if I was on a big stage like Michael Jackson. At the hotel, I felt I wanted more marathon races. I went into another search, this time, it was the search for marathons. There was none nearby. The closest I found was the Dubai Marathon in 2014.

The Dubai Marathon had just two distances, 10k and 42k. I felt I should go for the 42k because I couldn’t have done 21k in Ghana and go to Dubai and run 10k. I signed on for 42 k, booked my ticket and accommodation. But my friends entered for the 10k race. They even doubted that I could cover the distance. I trained and trained. and went to the extent of buying a book on marathon – training for your first marathon. I followed the book to the letter. The agreement we reached was that when they finished their race they should wait for me at the stadium, so that we would all go to the hotel together when I finished my race. I did that marathon in 5 hours,14 minutes. When I finished, I did not see my friends.

Before we took off from the starting point, some people saw me and told me I was in the wrong place. I asked them why? They said my mates(thinking I was an elite athlete) were far up there and asked me, ‘are you not from Kenya. I told them I was from Nigeria. They now started laughing because they believed Nigerians don’t do long distances. They said Nigerians cannot run marathons but noted that we were good at the short distances. They said the farthest a Nigerian could go was 1500 meters.

I don’t give up easily. When the race started I was in it. After covering 35 kilometers on the opposite side I was seeing 40. The maximum I did when I was training was 30. But in Dubai, I covered 42 kilometers and I was in tears because I didn’t know I could do it.

The next Marathon I did was in Tanzania, because there was none in Nigeria as at then. In Tanzania I had the misfortune of meeting other people from other parts of the world. I saw one Japanese, very short, who was boasting that the Tanzania Marathon was going to be his 1000th marathon.

Dayo is not just a runner, she does not just complete Marathons, she is a Record Breaker. In 2014, she and a group of friends climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the only highest lone standing mountain in the world. That experience ignited a desire to take up more challenges. Thus in 2015, she joined another group of adventurers on the Triple 7 Quest – 7 marathons in 7 Continents in 7days. Sadly, due to adverse weather conditions, the group completed the challenge in 11 days instead of 7 days. They had to wait in Punta Arenas , Chile in South America for an additional 5 days for the weather to improve and obtain clearance to fly to the 7th Continent of Antarctica.

In 2019, she participated in the maiden Edition of the Khunjerab Pass Marathon, the highest road marathon in the world. This Pakistani adventure admitted all Finishers into the Guinness World Book of Records. Her quest to run a marathon in every country was brought to a halt with the advent of the pandemic in March of 2020

Dayo has gone on to run 112 Marathons in 77 countries and 7 Continents since completing her first Marathon in Dubai in 2014, including 8 balcony Marathons and 11 virtual Marathons. Dayo’s signature to completing every race is to fly the Nigerian flag as she crosses the Finish Line. She says she likes to hear the commentators, spectators and other athletes say the name of her country as she approaches the Finish Line. She drapes herself in the Nigerian flag, not only representing Nigeria, but also adding her story to change the Nigeria narrative around the globe.

All Dayo’s efforts to date have been self funded. She takes delight in raising the Nigerian Flag at every Finish thus putting the name of her country in a positive way on every lip at the Finish Line. She is rewriting the nation’s narrative on the global stage one country at a time.

She is now soliciting for support from well meaning Nigerians to help her continue her quest to take NigerIa to the world, create health awareness through her Ile-Ife Heritage Marathon Organisation and bring Non-Nigerians to experience Nigerian hospitality through the same Ile-Ife Heritage Marathon Organization.