Strong is
something
you build.

I grew up playing ice hockey, and I loved having something that challenged me and made me feel strong. When I stopped playing, I started going to the gym instead.

It was during COVID, the gyms were quiet, and I had a lot of time to learn. I started teaching myself how to lift, how to eat, how training works, and why certain things actually make a difference. The more I learned, the more interested I became. I loved seeing myself get stronger and realizing how much my body was capable of.

At the same time, I always felt like something was missing.

In hockey, I was often the only Muslim girl in the room. Then I got into the gym and found a different problem. Everyone was doing their own thing. You put your headphones in, work out, and go home.

I had all these things I wanted to do. I wanted to get stronger, run, hike, try new sports, and keep challenging myself. I just wanted women around me who were excited about those things too. As I got closer to my faith, I also wanted to be around women who shared the same values and understood that part of me.

Over the years, I have seen how much better my life feels when fitness is part of it. I have also seen how much of a difference it makes to have like minded women around you who motivate you, support you, and make you want to keep showing up.

That is something I really want to share with other women. I genuinely believe everyone can benefit from feeling stronger, trying new things, learning more about themselves, and having good people around them while they do it.

I came to it as a hijabi, and for a long time that meant doing it alone. Running clubs, race mornings, even just heading out the door, I was almost always the only woman who looked like me. I loved the sport, but I felt like I had to choose between showing up as myself and showing up in the room. So mostly, I just ran by myself.

Then a few years ago I was diagnosed with endometriosis, and running stopped being just a hobby. It became one of the only things that kept me sane, physically and mentally, on the days when my body wasn’t cooperating with me. Movement was the one thing I could control. It gave me somewhere to put the pain and the frustration instead of just carrying it around.

That’s part of why I started runloogirls, a run club for women in Waterloo, which is where I went to school. I didn’t want another woman to have to choose between her faith, her body and a sport she loves, or to lace up alone because there wasn’t a group that felt like hers. I wanted the room I didn’t have.

sa’i is that same instinct, just bigger. Fitness has been my outlet through a health condition that doesn’t always let up, and my way back to myself when everything else feels out of my hands. I want other women to have that too, and to have people beside them while they find it.

Growing up, I was always involved in some kind of movement. Taekwondo, skating, swimming, you name it. But as I got older, school, work and life naturally started taking priority, and taking care of my health became something I put on the back burner.

As life started throwing curve balls, I started to see movement differently. Prayer has always been a pivotal part of my life, but my worship started to take on a new shape. I would pray Fajr and then go for a walk. Those quiet walks became some of the most grounding moments of my day. Moving my body, being outside, and having that time to reflect became a small but meaningful part of how I found my way back to happiness and peace.

That experience changed the way I thought about health. Movement wasn’t just about fitness or how my body looked. It was something that made me feel more present, more grateful, and more like myself.

I also grew up seeing women in my community get older and gradually lose their strength, mobility and independence. There can be an expectation, especially culturally, that as women age, being taken care of by their families is simply part of the process. I want to challenge that for myself.

I want to be able to carry my own groceries, get up from the floor, travel, and feel capable in my body for as long as I can. I don’t want to wait until I lose my mobility to realize how important it was to protect it.

That’s a huge part of why we created sa’i society.