I figure my boys are growing up way too fast and with all the working hours I need to generate one on one time where I can. I decided that a week long adventure before each of their 14th birthdays is the way to go.
The Kenya idea got incubated about 9 months ago. The charity work / running combo with a marathon thrown in in the Mecca of long distance running ‘Kenya’ appealed no end!
You can read about 5 Talents on my charity page but the ethos is allowing families to get a start in life by accessing loans by way of micro finance - something l’ve had an interest in for some time.
We initially flew to Frankfurt (where T was born) and then the 6.5 hours to Nairobi with Lufthansa. We were picked up there by the gregarious Elisha from the Impact Marathon Series team. He greeted us with the phrase: ‘Hey - was your flight safe? ....was it safe?’ And the classic: ‘welcome home, welcome home!’.
We then congregated waiting for the other team members to arrive in front of Kenya’s version of Costa (Cossta Caffee). During the 2 hour wait we got to know Ally and Stewart Pepper (nice and like minded people) as well as Martin Yelling's team. Martin is one of the leading Marthon coaches in the UK his wife having medalled at the distance at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games - he also was an elite runner in his time (and pretty sure his sister was too).
Then it was case of piling into the bus to the Nairobi Safari Hotel passing the billboards of the great man David Rudisha and straight into bed. It’s probably the only country in the world where the runners get as much air time as the footballers in fact on the main billboard Rudisha was front and centre with footballers only making up the background numbers. According to Elisha, 3 of the Kenyan BIG 5 are: Rudisha, Kipchoege and Kipsang.
Full marks to Tommy today after dragging him out of bed super early and then roughing it until gone midnight.
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