Hi @chefcurrry - as you can see, this is a 4 kyu kata so it would be a bit easy if you could just use your current solution - indeed, the description says:

"Python: your solution need to work with huge numbers (about a milion digits), converting to int will not work."

That's why you are timing out (you can try 1million digit inputs on your computer, see if your code works with those inputs!).

So you need to find a different approach to solving this kata.