In association with the Beirut Marathon, a new storytelling event called Move for Good will be launching Friday evening.
Serving as a platform where individuals will share stories of how athletics has positively affected their lives and the lives of others, storytellers have come from around the world to speak at the event and participate in Sunday's marathon.
Ibrahim Safwat from Egypt will share his personal story with fitness at the event. Deciding that he needed to get in shape, Safwat started running. After losing a lot of weight, he decided to spread his personal initiative.
"I organized with my friends our first run in 2012, three years ago. We were 60 people running this run and then we decided to do a program for people. Each week we increased the distance by one kilometer," Safwat told StepFeed.
The event has since grown and become known as Cairo Runners, taking place every Friday morning and bringing together thousands of runners. Safwat's group has also organized three half marathon events in Egypt and plans to organize the first international marathon in the country soon.
Hailing from the United States, David Silver will also be sharing his personal story with fitness. Although he had no connection to Lebanon, Silver decided to come and run the Beirut Marathon five years ago. Since then he has kept coming back and this year will mark his fourth time participating.
"This marathon is really introducing the culture of running to the region and then [there is] all the social good it promotes, it's just something I want to be a part of," Silver said.
Ultra endurance athlete Rich Roll from the US will be sharing the story of how he went from being overweight and unhappy to being named as one of the world's "fittest men." He is also a best-selling author.
"I had such a great experience when I was here a couple years ago, I'm excited to come back and mainly not because of doing the race for myself but because of what the race means for the city and to the country," Roll said.
To hear more about the inspiring stories of these individuals and several others, you can attend the event on Friday at 6 p.m. at the Beirut Arab University. You can also follow the event on social media at #M4G2015 .