What Running in Kenya Can Do for the Soul

I had been wanting to visit this mythical place for the longest time. I’m not a professional. I’m just a dude that loves running. Iten is the heart. 

Winter 2022, I had lost a number of great things in my life at that point. My father passed away. I broke up with my girlfriend. And just as the year was to close, I lost my job. 

I did the only sensible thing and booked a ticket to Kenya. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I met Jake and Magz Robertson both on separate occasions when they raced the TCS Toronto Waterfront marathon. I called them and said I was coming.

It was 36 hours door to door. I finally made it. I drove under the mythical “Welcome to Iten” sign. It was surreal. The second I threw my bags in my room, I ran down the red dirt road. It was awful. The ground is so uneven and rocky, the altitude hit me hard and the heat was scorching. This was instant regret. 

There’s no way I was surviving a month here. Jake’s words stayed with me: “Iten is what you make it.”

I took that to heart right away. I wanted to be at the heart of Kenyan culture. I found myself in really odd places wondering how the hell I got there.

I got beat up really bad. I found myself so exhausted, getting ripped apart at local workouts and even easy runs. My ego was thrown out the window a number of times.

I loved it. 

A year after this trip, I was about to run my first Boston Marathon. It took me a decade to qualify. It just made sense to go back to Kenya. 

The second visit was a lot easier. I knew where everything was and who was who.

My coach Rejean gave me my workouts and really had to estimate paces and times because numbers don’t make sense there. 

My friend Lecia was also doing her first trip there, and it was beautiful spending a few weeks with someone who had the same passion, if not more. 

The morning of February 12, 2024. The town woke up to the news that the fastest man on earth, Kelvin Kiptum died. The crash occurred not far from me. I went for a run and saw another runner on his knees crying. This was real. This was a tragedy. 

We had originally planned a big run to end this trip. Jake also suggested a route that went straight uphill, 35K long, 750m gain, at 2500m altitude. Sometimes you only get one shot at things in life, so I went for it.

It was just the two of us. One running, one driving. I was so high in the sky, I could touch the clouds. We passed 35K. Jake was asking where I was going. 45K, I made it to Chepkorio, Kelvin’s birthplace. 

Home of Champions to Home of The Champion. I looked up at the clouds in disbelief. Exhausted. Shattered. Proud. 

As a regular person, what the hell was I doing on the other side of the planet doing a make-believe tribute to a person I didn’t know?

As a runner, this just all made sense.