Mohamed Lahna is a Paralympic medalist, endurance athlete, and one of the world's most accomplished para-triathletes. Born without a femur in his right leg, he didn't begin running or cycling until his twenties. On July 29, 2026, he completed a self-designed triathlon across America: a 28 mile swim around Manhattan, a 3,000 mile bike ride from New York to Las Vegas, and a 350 mile run to Venice Beach. He completed the journey in 47 days while raising more than $150,000 for Save the Children and the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
Mohamed Lahna is a Paralympic medalist, endurance athlete, and one of the world's most accomplished para-triathletes. Born without a femur in his right leg, he didn't begin running or cycling until his twenties. On July 29, 2026, he completed a self-designed triathlon across America: a 28 mile swim around Manhattan, a 3,000 mile bike ride from New York to Las Vegas, and a 350 mile run to Venice Beach. He completed the journey in 47 days while raising more than $150,000 for Save the Children and the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
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Shelby Stanger:
On July 29th, 2026, para-athlete Mohamed Lahna crossed the finish line of the biggest wild idea that he'd ever dreamt up, a triathlon across America. Though he'd been competing in triathlons for almost two decades, Mohamed had never done such a long event before. To be honest, he wasn't even sure a project like this was possible for him. Mohamed was born in Morocco without a femur in his right leg, and he spent much of his life getting around on crutches. Eventually, through perseverance, a love for the outdoors, and a little bit of serendipity, Mohamed learned how to run and bike when he was in his 20s. Since then, he's become one of the most remarkable para-athletes in the world with one of the most inspiring stories I've ever heard.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
Mohamed has done some pretty wild things in his life. He swam across the Strait of Gibraltar, ran across the Moroccan desert, and brought home medals in multiple Paralympic games. His most recent project was self-designed. It consisted of a 28-mile swim around Manhattan Island, a 3000-mile bike ride from New York to Las Vegas, finishing with a 350-mile run to Venice Beach, California. He completed this challenge in 47 days, raising over $150,000 for Save the Children and the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
Mohamed Lahna, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You just completed one of the most insane wild ideas. 3,300 mile cross country triathlon in 47 days you just finished a couple days ago. There's so much I have to talk to you about.
Mohamed Lahna:
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Shelby Stanger:
What was it like to finish this huge triathlon?
Mohamed Lahna:
Being able finally to cross that finish line after all this work is just such a relief that a big challenge like this, finally I made it because there is a lot of uncertainties, especially on the run. Running with a prosthesis for 300 miles in the desert, in the Mojave Desert was very, very challenging. Some days I had to use crutches to get started. We had to stop every two miles to clean the leg, wipe it, disinfect it and start over. But it's such a relief that it's over.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, but this was a wild idea. You had to overcome some serious adversity. You didn't even really start running or doing triathlon until age 20. But I think for people to understand your journey, we got to go back. You weren't born here, you didn't have the easiest start. So talk to me a little bit about your childhood and how you even eventually got into triathlon at age 20, because I imagine young Mohamed never thought this was possible.
Mohamed Lahna:
No, never. So I was born in Casablanca, Morocco in a very modest neighborhood back then. I think things have changed a lot now, but back then in this neighborhood, when it's time for the mother to give birth, they just call this specific special woman that knows how to deliver a baby. So they called her to help me bring me out to this world and it was not easy. I was breached. I came with legs first and then one leg is longer than the other one and my left arm got stuck, so she had to break my left shoulder to bring me out and save my life. And my mom was telling me, "Even though your shoulder was broken, we were just looking at the legs, why they're so different?" Yeah, that was a big shock for the family. They took me to all the doctors, tried to figure out what to do, and all the doctors said, "Take your kid home and just take care of him." So they did.
My mom, she never went to school. She didn't know how to read or write. My dad was a taxi driver and they just did their best to raise me. It took me a while to adjust because sometimes kids call you with your disability and sometimes I would go home crying and my mom would just send me back, "You need to learn how to be rough and this is the real world." So yeah, I grew up, I started playing soccer with crutches. I got really good at it. And then one day my dad was taking somebody to his destination in his taxi and this guy has a disability and it turned out that he was a Paralympic swimmer. Basically, so far, he's the only Paralympic swimmer in Morocco who won a Paralympic medal in swimming.
Shelby Stanger:
I just got teary-eyed. I don't know why. I just may be emotional today, but that's amazing. What fate and serendipity that that happened, that that guy was in your dad's car.
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah, crazy. The crazy part of that, he said, "I want to see your kid." So he brought him home first. And I remember that moment very clearly. I was so shy.
Shelby Stanger:
Instead of taking him home, he just drove in the taxi to your house?
Mohamed Lahna:
Yes. And my dad came home with this stranger. He was a very tall guy and I was hiding behind my mom and he said, "Come say hi." And I remember shake his hand, he has these massive hands and he was tall and he told me, "Do you want to go to the swimming pool?" I had never seen a swimming pool before. So I think a couple of weeks later he came and he took me to the swimming pool. I remember every detail of this day because this is the first time I smelled the chlorine of a swimming pool.
Shelby Stanger:
Whenever he was in town, that Paralympian named Jalal Biar would take Mohamed to the pool and give him a swimming lesson. That experience made a mark on Mohamed, especially because he was already an active kid. He loved playing soccer and spending time outside, although his parents wanted him to focus more on school. They eventually secured him a spot at a school for students with physical disabilities. He went to a school where all the other kids had a physical disability of some kind. Yes. What was that like for you?
Mohamed Lahna:
Well, this is why I'm doing this because somebody back then, long time ago, donated to Save the Children to fund the school that affected hundreds of kids back then in the '90s where our society back then, families, they didn't expect much from kids with disabilities, so nothing is required from him. So they would not go through education. And for me, that was a good place to have a good foundation for education for the future. And my parents was so into it. Like, "This is a priority for you. There is no question."
And going back in time, I reflect on that, how important Save the Children, and they do this across the world in war zones, in the US, also some rural areas where they support kids for their education. So they do an amazing work around the world and the impact they'd have on the world is huge. So this is why I'm trying to give back to Save the Children because there is a lot of kids around the world who don't have access to school. And yeah, I feel like education is very important, even though I just want to play outside.
Shelby Stanger:
I mean, at this school, you played outside as you could and it wasn't weird because all the other kids figured out a way to play outside as they could too, I'm guessing.
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah. Oh yeah, 100%. You had all sorts of disabilities and at noon break or between a recess, like soccer all every day, every day, nonstop.
Shelby Stanger:
Besides playing outside at school, Mohamed didn't participate in any organized sports. Instead, he focused on studying and getting good grades. It wasn't until years later when Mohamed was in his mid 20s that he discovered endurance sports were even a possibility for him.
So at what point did you start competing in sports and realize, "Maybe I could actually do this."?
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah. So at the age of 24 year old, I got my first prosthesis with an articulation with the knee and that for me changed my life because now I can ride a bike for the first time at the age of 24.
Shelby Stanger:
You were 24 when you got your first prosthesis?
Mohamed Lahna:
Yes.
Shelby Stanger:
That's crazy.
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
So you never had ridden a bike before. Was that hard? Was it scary?
Mohamed Lahna:
It was scary, but I was excited because-
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, freedom.
Mohamed Lahna:
It was exciting for me, freedom and just feeling the wind blowing on your face for the first time while biking, it was amazing. And I was working as a graphic designer back then. And then my prosthetist who's from France but lived in Morocco also loves cycling. So we started doing a lot of mountain biking. I'm not kidding. Our office work locations were close to each other. Friday around 5:00 PM, he will pull next to my workplace with loaded car, camping gear, and we will drive three hours to this place, camp there and do mountain biking for the weekend, come back. And we did that for years just together. And I got to visit a lot of parts in Morocco that I never visited before. And if you add camping experience to it and just go and spending the weekends in the Atlas Mountains or go in the Sahara Desert, that first phase was really awesome.
It was more about enjoying nature and just having fun. And later on, you met more people. I heard about triathlon and I got curious about triathlon because I did some swimming and now I cycle, but I had to figure out a way for running. But my doctor, because I'm missing the hip joint and there is no way you can run without the hip joint, without the femur. So we said, "Let's figure out, find a racing wheelchair." So I don't know if you saw those racing wheelchair, they're two wheels in the back and small wheel in the front. They're very fast and it was too expensive for me to get one. And with my prosthetist, he was looking in France to see used one for cheap. We couldn't find anyone. And after two years he said, "Why we don't make it ourselves?" Literally like this.
We were just sitting and I looked at him, I was skeptical, like, "I don't think we can do that, but..." I didn't believe in that. I wanted to be polite because he wanted to help me. And yeah, he was working full time. I was working full time and every day after work we would meet in his lab where he has a lot of tools. He bought a welding tool and then I started to learn how to weld and buying just pieces of metal scrap. And we spent a month working on this project and we made one actually. And that moment was a critical moment for me because it taught me a big lesson. Instead of waiting for things to happen or come follow the sky, you need to do that first step even though it's not perfect. So this wheelchair was so heavy, basically, I don't know, 10 times the weight of a regular wheelchair or something like that.
And every time I do a kilometer or two kilometer with that, something will break and we have to fix it again. But I was so happy. I was over the moon that we're able to do this. There is so many lessons from this story for me and for people. It was not perfect. I started using it. I didn't have space at home, so I will go to his place where he works and I will take it before work for a spin for half an hour and then come back and then go to work. And I did that for six months and his boss saw this whole thing, the project, the training. And then one day he brought a real one because he contacted one of the sponsors and they paid for a real one. And it's like, "Wow, that's crazy." It was like a brand new one and have both of them in front of me.
Shelby Stanger:
Armed with his new racing wheelchair, Mohamed entered a paratriathlon in Tunisia, but when he learned the rules wouldn't allow him to use both an upright bicycle and his wheelchair for the 5K run, he made a bold decision. He would complete the entire race on crutches. It was absolutely grueling, but Mohamed loved it. Before long, he was traveling around the world to participate in more endurance events. At one triathlon, Mohamed met another athlete born with the same condition he had. His encounter with her changed everything. Even without a hip socket, he learned it would be possible to run with a prosthetic leg. He'd never known this was even an option for him, but Mohamed quickly applied for a grant to get his first ever running blade.
Mohamed Lahna:
It was November or December of 2011 when I first started running and it was very, very hard, very challenging. I was out of breath running just two blocks.
Shelby Stanger:
And how did it feel against your socket? Because sometimes they rub and it hurts.
Mohamed Lahna:
Oh, yeah. We were prepared for that. You're going to get blisters, you're going to get chafing, that's normal. But just like I was very active, but still trying to run for the first time. It was a different beast, very difficult. It took time. My wife was with me for the first steps and I was just suffering.
Shelby Stanger:
While it was incredibly painful at first, Mohamed kept running. Once he adjusted to the blade, he started training for something specific, a famous multi-stage race in Morocco called Marathon des Sables. This race is known as one of the most difficult ultra marathons in the world, where for six days straight, athletes run a marathon a day through the scorching Saharan desert. When Mohamed registered for the event, he had never run farther than three miles.
You went from no running to being like, "I'm going to do six marathons."
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah, I went 2013. I was on the start line. Yeah. So I'd never done a half-marathon or anything. I just went straight to it. It was a bad idea. But anyway, I remember at 7:00 AM in the middle of nowhere with like a thousand people have the start line and AC/DC blasting in the middle of the desert. It's just like a Mad Max scene going on here. And all right, let's go. And I brought a pair of crutches with me just in case if something breaks. Basically you have this local people with their camel and they are the last people to go. It's like the sweepers. And basically if they pass you, you're out of the race. You are the last one basically. You need to either pick up the pace or that's it, call it a day. And I said, "I'm going to finish day one," too much confidence. And within six, seven miles, I turn around and I can see them behind me because the blade is narrower compared to the foot and it will dig into the sand at every time.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah. That blade isn't made for sand at all.
Mohamed Lahna:
No, no. So every day you have three or four checkpoints and I said, "At least I'm going to go to the first checkpoint." So I pulled my crutches and I started going. I said, "I'm going to go to the next checkpoint. I'm not going to stop here." And then I kept going to the next checkpoint. I went there, got water again. I went to the next checkpoint. I was basically the last one to finish that day. I was so tired. I didn't have time to eat. I had a bar and fell asleep. I then woke up the second day. I said, "You know what? I'm going to do the same thing again, checkpoint to checkpoint, checkpoint to checkpoint, just with crutches."
So basically, if you follow the marathon this up, people get a lot of blisters in their feet because of the sand and the rubbing, and you see them nighttime lining up in the medical tent for blisters for their feet. And for me, I will have my leg, my left leg, and also my heads from the crutches with blisters and they would bandaid just like a boxer every day, try to put as much cushion on my hands as possible. And yeah, I kept doing that until I finished. It was crazy, but-
Shelby Stanger:
I thought you were going to say you only did six miles and you peaced out. You did the whole thing on crutches?
Mohamed Lahna:
I kept going, the whole thing on crutches. And every day I finish, my confidence keep growing. And the funny thing is, so I was with this tent with all the Moroccan team and they know the race and they are fast. And by the last day when they saw me said, "I'm going to be honest with you. When we saw you the first day, we thought you're not going to last one day and here you are, that's crazy." But for me, I was just trying to see how far I can go and yeah, day by day, checkpoint by checkpoint, that's it.
Shelby Stanger:
After the Marathon des Sables, Mohamed went back to training for the triathlon, competing in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii and the Norseman Extreme Triathlon in Norway in 2014. Then when the Olympic committee announced that triathlon would officially be a Paralympic sport in the 2016 Olympics, Mohamed knew he wanted to participate. He spent the next couple of years training for this pursuit and ended up taking home bronze in the 2016 Paralympics in Rio. He kept at it and then won silver in the 2024 Paralympic Games. But in the back of his mind, he had a bigger wild idea brewing, a triathlon that would take him across the United States.
After years as a competitive para-athlete, Mohamed Lahna designed a triathlon that would take him across the United States. He would start by swimming 28.5 miles around Manhattan, then bike 3,000 miles from New York to Las Vegas. For the final stage, he'd run 350 miles from Vegas to Venice Beach, California. Along the way, Mohamed raised money for a couple of organizations that have been very influential in his life, Save the Children and the Challenged Athletes Foundation. On June 13th, 2026, after two years of training, Mohamed began the first leg of his triathlon swimming around Manhattan.
Mohamed Lahna:
The swim started at 6:00 PM and finished around 2:00 or 3:00 AM next day. The New York Open Water Organization does a good job. They have a crew. They have a kayaker with you. They have a boat in front of you. They manage traffic and everything. But where we started, it was so choppy and the swell was so high. And somehow within half an hour, my stomach turned and I started vomiting in the water. And because we had an observer on the boats, I didn't say anything because I don't want to get pulled of the water, so just kept swimming. And I kept vomiting for the next three hours. I had nothing in my stomach. But after that, things calmed down, the water calmed down. I just went with it and it was fine. It was not that bad.
Shelby Stanger:
Mohamed finished the swim at 3:00 AM and he had about 10 hours to recover before getting on his bike and heading west. His wife and two kids piled into an RV and followed him across the entire country. Mohamed also had a support crew in the form of his two friends, Ryan and Marty.
Mohamed Lahna:
So Ryan and Marty, Marty, they're both riders from the Bay Area and they came to volunteer and Ryan was riding with me and Marty was behind us driving the support car and they both were just the ideal people for this job. I mean, going from East to Las Vegas on the bike, we met a lot of nice people, just amazing people everywhere. I remember this guy, we were stopping at this gas station and we start talking about what we're doing. We're going from this, we're doing this for charity, for Save the Children and Challenged Athlete Foundation. And you can see that guy didn't have much with him. He had three bucks and he said, "Can I donate this to the charity?" And it breaks my heart. So we took it and we added to the donation and put his name. And it's just like people are very nice and people who invite us to meals and just very, very nice people across the country. Very nice.
Shelby Stanger:
How many miles a day did you ride then? What was your schedule?
Mohamed Lahna:
On the bike, the longest was 130 and the lowest was like 75, something like that. But on average it was 100, 110 on average. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
And you just ate on the bike the whole time and then you'd come home and just eat a huge meal?
Mohamed Lahna:
Oh yeah, I ate a lot. So for me, I cycle with one leg the whole time. So my right side is just attached to the bike. It doesn't have any proportion or any power added to the bike. The only thing that is different is I use a lot of upper body when cycling with one leg because you don't have balance with the other leg. So I use my arms and my core to keep the bike straight because there's too much power on one side.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow.
Mohamed Lahna:
So I cycled with one leg and Ryan with me, he was so surprised how much food. I'm smaller than him. I would eat like four to five meals a day. I remember when we first day in Colorado Springs and I was so hungry and we found this restaurant and the owner cooked for us and I had a burrito breakfast, French toast and a burger in one meal plus soda and stuff like that because I was so hungry. And just like every day I would eat a lot because I didn't want to lose any weight on the bike because I knew on the run I can't have food in my stomach. I know I will lose weight on the run, so I had to put as much weight as possible on me on the bike. So every ice cream place, french fries and ice cream, every burger place, we ate like crazy.
Shelby Stanger:
After cycling from New York to Vegas, Mohamed ditched his bike and started the final leg of his triathlon. This last part, the 350-mile run, was by far the most challenging. The only viable route took him through the Mojave Desert where the rocky sandy terrain made every mile especially demanding on his prosthetic.
What was the run like? I mean, at this point you're probably exhausted your day. How many days had you been on the road? Maybe like 30 by this time?
Mohamed Lahna:
30 days. Yeah, 30 days.
Shelby Stanger:
30 days. Okay.
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah, 30 days. I was worried about the run because I know how challenging, even during my daily regular training for sprint triathlon, once in a while I would get blisters from running and that's not even running a lot. So I knew that I would get blisters and that was the main concern because if I get blisters, then there is other stuff that grows, infection, fever and all that stuff. And if that get to fever, then you're in a bad situation. And then I had to stop every two miles, literally for the whole 300 miles, wipe my leg, clean the area where it touched the prosthesis, put numbing cream, lidocaine, because this way I don't feel the pain and then put a Body Glide or any other cream to help reduce friction and chafing.
So we had to do that every two miles. And some days I will put my leg and I can't press on it for one step and I had to walk a little bit. If it's not, I will use crutches to keep moving. I just need to start moving, let the blood flow, wait for the lidocaine to have its effect, to numb the skin, and then I will get going.
Shelby Stanger:
The run was much more challenging than Mohamed anticipated and he wasn't sure he would be able to complete the triathlon, but step by step, he kept with it. After 47 days on July 29th, 2026, Mohamed made his way to the finish line in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, where there was an entire crew cheering him on.
Eventually you get to Los Angeles.
Mohamed Lahna:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
What's that like seeing the finish line, knowing you're going to finish?
Mohamed Lahna:
So we had this group who came two miles before the finish to run with me the last two miles. And my team, they all know me. I didn't cry the whole time and I broke down the moment because what is this? I still have two months to go and all this happening. I mean, it was an amazing day to finish and have all them there running with me the last two miles and yeah, finishing this journey. I mean, this challenge is finished, but the cause of raising funds for Save the Children and the Challenged Athletes Foundation still continues. We are at 70%, close to 70%. So I'm still trying to continue to 100%, so I'll keep going. The fundraising page is still open all the way until we hit 100% of our goal.
Shelby Stanger:
So far, Mohamed has raised almost $175,000 for both Save the Children and for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. They're still working towards their fundraising goal. We'll put a link in the show notes if you want to contribute. To keep in touch with Mohamed directly, you can find him on Instagram at MohamedLahna. That's M-O-H-A-M-E-D L-A-H-N-A. You can also check out his website, mohamedlahna.com.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Pierce Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motula and Joe Crosby. Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.