{"id":76709,"date":"2025-04-09T14:01:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T06:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/?p=76709"},"modified":"2025-04-09T18:31:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T10:31:52","slug":"haftu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/features\/haftu\/","title":{"rendered":"Haftu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Written by Jaryd Clifford | Runner&#8217;s Tribe<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twenty years ago, in the mountains of Tigray, a young shepherd boy herded cattle for his family. The rugged terrain was this boy\u2019s comfortable place, his first home. On April 27, that same young boy from rural Ethiopia will stand on the start line of the Hamburg Marathon. The life of Haftu Strintzos has traversed an incredible path from those long days in the mountains to being on the cusp of debuting over the most hallowed of distances.\u00a0 No longer a boy, Haftu has now cemented himself as one of the rising stars in Australian distance running after clocking 60:36 at the Marugame Half Marathon earlier this year. This hasn\u2019t happened overnight, there\u2019s been toil and heartbreak over the years, but also the love of community, an Olympic dream, and a declaration for Hamburg:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haftu has requested a 63-minute pace group through halfway in Hamburg, a pace that if maintained would threaten the Australian record of 2:06:22 set by Andy Buchanan in Valencia last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is his story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">~\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The type of resilience demanded by the Marathon has likely lived within Haftu since his very first steps. As is custom in the farming regions of northern Ethiopia, much of his childhood was spent in high altitude mountains looking after animals. The days were long, but for him this was all he knew.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI was out in the mountains the whole day looking after cattle,\u201d he says. \u201cI ran around a lot, got used to the terrain. The childhood things you get used to. It was my comfortable state.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2007, aged 8, Haftu met Maria Strintzos, an Australian aid worker and founder of the Hawzien Orphan Project assisting children in the Tigray region. After three decades volunteering around the world, she decided to take one more life changing step and become Haftu\u2019s mum. After living for a year together in Addis Ababa, they moved to Maria\u2019s childhood home of Melbourne. On the brink of his teenage years, Haftu suddenly found himself immersed in a world nothing like the one he knew before. Through all the challenges, it was running that fatefully helped make him feel more at home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_76710\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-76710\" style=\"width: 312px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-76710\" src=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/att.fJ1-VXp5h-JaSDTt6lS_Y8cMTuo6_6bob4NtsmMLZdA.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"312\" height=\"531\" srcset=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/att.fJ1-VXp5h-JaSDTt6lS_Y8cMTuo6_6bob4NtsmMLZdA.jpg 376w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/att.fJ1-VXp5h-JaSDTt6lS_Y8cMTuo6_6bob4NtsmMLZdA-176x300.jpg 176w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/att.fJ1-VXp5h-JaSDTt6lS_Y8cMTuo6_6bob4NtsmMLZdA-247x420.jpg 247w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-76710\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haftu as a kid is with his grandmother when he first joined Mum&#8217;s orphan project in 2007.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWhen I got to Australia, running was a reminder of home. Running was a way of connecting to my childhood self. It was something that was familiar amongst all the unfamiliar things,\u201d he reflects. \u201cIt was a way for me to connect with the people around me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Haftu rose through the junior ranks in Victoria representing Glenhuntly Athletic Club and Haileybury College. An array of state titles ensued before he fell 0.61-seconds shy of a 5000m berth at the 2018 World Under-20 Championships. He then took his running to college in the United States where he raced for Villanova University under the tutelage of Irish three-time World Indoor 1500m champion Marcus O\u2019Sullivan and assistant coach Matthew Valeriani.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCollege was challenging,\u201d Haftu reflects. \u201cI grew up a lot through the program. I got to find out what worked and what didn\u2019t\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite finding some success, particularly in cross-country where he placed 9<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the NCAA in 2021, his results often ebbed and flowed in a pattern perhaps symptomatic of the personal turmoil he experienced during those years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On 3 November 2020, as the world was distracted by the United States Presidential Election and an unrelenting global pandemic, civil war broke out in Haftu\u2019s homeland of Tigray. Over the next three years, an estimated half-a-million civilians lost their lives in the horrific conflict that left entire communities displaced, including many members of Haftu\u2019s family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cLooking back, it feels like a very bad dream,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got siblings and extended family in Tigray. That was a very, very difficult time for me. For two years, I had no idea if my family was alive or not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In between his training and studies, Haftu attempted to find back channels to communicate with his family. Late at night, he would trawl the internet for information, but as allegations of ethnic cleansing grew stronger, desperation did too. Although he didn\u2019t know if his family was safe, he raised funds in the hope that he could eventually send it their way. Once his Villanova teammates realised the burden he carried with him every day, they too rallied around him and his family.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even now, despite an official truce agreement, tensions in the region still flare up at times, and it remains a constant in Haftu\u2019s life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cStuff like that, when your mind is not in it with running, and it\u2019s always in the back of your mind, it was very difficult,\u201d he says. \u201cIt definitely did influence my mental state and even the simplest tasks would become extremely hard. I had to put a lot of things aside when that was happening. But there\u2019s no pause on anything in life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI definitely didn\u2019t think about quitting. I just thought of this as another big challenge. There\u2019s always a light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d he continues. \u201cRunning became an outlet for me. It helped me get my mind off things and to be present in the moment. I just kept trying to do the best that I could.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More recently, Haftu has rocketed into the upper echelons of Australian distance running. The first glimpse of this came at the 2024 World Cross Country in Serbia where he placed 22<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as the first Australian across the line. However, it was his 60:36 Half Marathon in Marugame that truly caught the eye, catapulting him to third on the Australian all-time list.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_76711\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-76711\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-76711\" src=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"382\" srcset=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-265x198.jpg 265w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-696x522.jpg 696w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-1068x801.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935-560x420.jpg 560w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_1935.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-76711\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Australian Men&#8217;s Team for the 2024 World Cross Country.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For some, this result came as a shock. In the build up, Haftu had flown under the radar, but he knew that he was capable of something special that day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI knew that sub-61 was on the cards. [Marugame] was an opportunity not to be missed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When asked about comparisons to Australian marathon record holder Andy Buchanan and Australian half-marathon record holder Brett Robinson, two runners that had captured the running community&#8217;s attention in the lead up to Marugame, Haftu is quite assured.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cLet the results speak for themselves, \u201che quips. \u201cMy preference is to just get my work done in silence. I just want to focus on doing what I love doing and the process of getting better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This mindset speaks to Haftu\u2019s calmness. It\u2019s perhaps why he\u2019s struggled sometimes with the chaos of the track. For some time now, the roads have beckoned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019ve known for a long time that I\u2019m more comfortable with the longer distances. It\u2019s like a meditative state, I\u2019m calmer when I\u2019m out there,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have grit too. It\u2019s something you build over the years. After going through tough times, I feel like I understand that. Again and again, if you love the sport and you love what you\u2019re doing, you find a way back. It\u2019s in our nature to bounce back and try again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_76713\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-76713\" style=\"width: 478px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-76713\" src=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-683x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"478\" height=\"717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-1024x1536.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-scaled.jpeg 1365w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-696x1044.jpeg 696w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-1068x1602.jpeg 1068w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-280x420.jpeg 280w, https:\/\/runnerstribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/BBRA0953-original-1920x2880.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 478px) 100vw, 478px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-76713\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Haftu competing in a road 10K in Tasmania in preparation for Hamburg this year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As eyes now turn to Hamburg, Haftu has begun working with Team Tempo coach Adam Didyk and has officially signed on with ASICS, a partnership that has already paid dividends. As the big day approaches, the exuberant young runner has his sights locked on lofty goals. Although Haftu\u2019s request for a pace-group to split halfway in 63-minutes awaits confirmation by race organisers, it demonstrates his ambition, and the mindset demanded of the modern-day marathoner. As the world record nudges two-hours, the definition of conservatism has shifted. Times that were once revered don\u2019t cut it anymore and Haftu knows that. To be one of the greats, he must live by the sword and die by the sword if necessary, and that\u2019s the plan in Hamburg.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI just want to go with it, take the big risk. It could either come off good or terribly, I know. But I just want to go for it, go with the front guys, and see how long I can stick it out for,\u201d he says. \u201cI think Adam is a bit more cautious and we\u2019ll aim for a pace I know I can maintain. I\u2019m just excited to see where I stand and give it a go.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whether Haftu can pull off the dream debut or not, he\u2019s all in on the marathon and Australian running has a new star on the rise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Runner&#8217;s Tribe &#8211; About the Author:<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"164\"><em>Jaryd Clifford is a Paralympic medalist and world champion in middle- and long-distance running. Diagnosed with a vision impairment as a child, he has represented Australia on the world stage, winning medals at the Tokyo Paralympics and World Championships. Jaryd is also a highly accomplished writer, using his voice to advocate for inclusion and share powerful stories from the world of sport.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Jaryd Clifford | Runner&#8217;s Tribe Twenty years ago, in the mountains of Tigray, a young shepherd boy herded cattle for his family. The rugged terrain was this boy\u2019s comfortable place, his first home. On April 27, that same young boy from rural Ethiopia will stand on the start line of the Hamburg Marathon. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12106,16],"tags":[30694,3783,83],"class_list":["post-76709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-column-by-jaryd-clifford","category-features","tag-haftu","tag-jaryd-clifford","tag-top-read"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.8 (Yoast SEO v25.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Haftu | Feature article written by Jaryd Clifford<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The life of Haftu Strintzos has traversed an incredible path from those long days in the mountains to being on the cusp of debuting over the most hallowed of distances.\u00a0 No longer a boy, Haftu has now cemented himself as one of the rising stars in Australian distance running after 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