I Ran with Kenyans. Here’s Their Secret…
Ever wonder what makes them so fast? Well, there are a number of reasons…
And we’re back! Here’s what we’re covering this week.
Miss the film on Tsavo National Park? Help it get over 600 views!
See ya in Smyrna!
I Spent 7 Days Running with Kenyan Marathoners
Humility. You don’t truly know the feeling until you’ve run with the Kenyans.
After four days of luxuriating in the heavenly confines of Tsavo National Park and the Finch Hattons campground, I head north to Iten –– a rural Kenyan village that’s built a reputation as the Home of Champions thanks to its incredible roster of locally produced runners, like Eliud Kipchoge, Mary Keitany, and Wilson Kipsang.
For the next week, I’ll run, I’ll eat, I’ll work out some more, and I’ll eat some more to fuel the next day’s run. When I’m not running, I’ll go to Iten town, hike to the nearby waterfall, shake fire ants out of my pants –– yowza –– and chat with Kenyans in an attempt to learn more about the secret sauce that makes runners from around here so successful. But hard as it may be to believe for some runners, there’s more to life than splits, paces, and PRs. So I’ll also head out to the countryside to learn more about how running is building homes for those in need.
Welcome to the Kenya Experience.
Berlin, Germany A Travel Guide
Berlin can be a polarizing place. Some love it. It’s the place they’ve been looking for their entire lives. The sense of freedom that you can be whoever you want to be is palpable. Others hate it. They describe it as a sprawling mess of concrete, devoid of sunlight and teeming with grumps.
If you’ve never been, then it’s hard to say where you’ll fall on the spectrum. Either way, you need to visit Berlin. And eventually, you’ll decide for yourself.
See ya in Smyrna!
Okay, it’s Not called Smyrna anymore. It’s called Izmir these days and it’s in Türkiye. But c’mon! “See ya in Smyrna” sounds fun, like a 1950s buddy comedy or something.
On Thursday, we’ll fly out to Izmir and run our first trail race of the year in Selçuk, a small town near the Ancient Greek city of Ephesus. But it’s also a homecoming of sorts. Melanie’s great-grandmother, Vasillia, was born in Smyrna and fled during the Greek genocide between 1913 - 1923. Back when we did some genealogy research on her, we found out she was on one of the last ships to the US before the anti-immigration laws of the early 1920s passed that targeted, among other groups, Jews (some of my ancestors) and Greeks (some of Melanie’s ancestors).
In other words, time was on our side to meet almost a century later. Now, Melanie will be the first in her family (we think) to return to Smyrna.