bookfin

The
Marathoner

Me!

GARRY HOTTER
ft. JOHN JAFARI



P R E FA C E
This book is all about the Olympic winner, Social
activist, Orator and motivator John, and contains
excerpts from a brief session which I had the op-
portunity to have with him. The excerpts from
some of his interviews are incorporated as such in

his own words!

John: “Hi, myself John, the Marathoner. I am an
Ost r ich and an Af r ican native. I am t he world’s
largest bird as you might be knowing and I dont’t
fly; Running is way cooler! I m 40 and have atleast
35 ye ars lef t to s et more re cords! We ost r ichs are
omnivores and can easily survive without water!!
Keep reading to get to know a lil more about my

fellow ostrichs and me!”

Q: Can you tell us a brief about your schooling and the exper-
ence you had ?
J: I hated going to school but I definitely had a wonderful

teacher; an old fellow, quite strict. But yeah, I feel thankful
that I had him! I learned quite a lot from him; Running,

hunting and even learnt about plants, edible ones and the ones
with a lot of water content!!



Q: How did you end up being an athlete?
J: After education, I began taking running quite seriously. I even took part
in various competitions, won titles and even started working as a coach.
Moving forward, I even started a campaign; this was mainly to motivate my
fellow people, spread awareness even for the generations to come to stop
feeling inferior, left out just because of not being able to fly! we are all birds
afterall!!

The campaign John started in early 2000s,

Why Fly, If you can
“Fly” Run?!!!

Some Ostrich Facts!
Found across Africa’s hot savannahs and open woodland, the ostrich is the
world’s largest bird. It stands up to a massive 2.7m tall and weighs as much
as 159kg – that’s around 1m taller than the average man, and the weight of
two men combined!
This flightless bird has a long, bare neck, long, sturdy legs and a bulky body
covered with feathers.
Ostriches huge eyes (which are bigger than their brains!) give them excel-
lent eyesight!
The ostrich might not be able to fly, but boy can it run! Using its long legs,
powerful thighs and strong feet, this big bird can cover five metres in a
single stride and reach speeds of over 70km per hour!