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| DAY 1 |
Thursday, Feb. 3 |
| After a night at our
gathering place, Nairobi's Fairview Hotel (an elegant,
old-fashioned establishment on the outskirts of town),
we drive across the Great Rift Valley to Eldoret, arriving
in time for lunch at our home base, the Eldoret Club.
We spend the afternoon walking around Eldoret, visiting
its teeming market, stopping at Kipchoge Stadium, where
elite runners train among school kids, and dropping in
at the book shop and office of the man for whom the stadium
is named, two-time Olympic Champion Kipchoge Keino. We
return to the Club, driving past a few mansions belonging
to newly wealthy runners, and arrive in time for a run
on the golf course and perhaps a swim. We have supper
at the Club with a few local running celebrities as our
guests. (Possibilities include Keino, Patrick Sang and
Moses Kiptanui.) |
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| DAY 2 |
Friday, Feb. 4 |
| After a morning run on
the golf course with a local Olympian or two, we drive
to Kipchoge Keino's nearby farm, Kazi Mingi, bringing
our running gear along. Kazi Mingi is the site of a training
camp sponsored by the International Olympic Committee
and the International Association of Athletics Federations
for runners from all over Africa. We tour the camp and
have lunch with the runners. After lunch, we drive to
Kaptagat (about 20 miles), the site of separate camps
sponsored by Fila, Nike and adidas. Adventurous group
members can join a few camp athletes on a relaxed seven-mile
run overland to picturesque Kaptarakwa on the edge of
the Rift Valley. Others drive the long way around. We
have tea at Kaptarakwa at the home of a prominent runner
from the area (e.g., Sammy Kipketer, Richard Limo, John
Kibowen), and return to Eldoret for supper at the home
of another well known local athlete, followed by videos
showing the exploits of some of the runners we've just
met. |
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| DAY 3 |
Saturday, Feb. 5 |
| After a morning run,
we drive to the town of Iten (20 miles), bringing our
running gear. We visit Lornah Kiplagat's Iten High Altitude
Training Centre, the subject of a recent PBS documentary.
It was built with the aim of encouraging the area's female
runners. After lunch at the Centre, we walk through Iten
to St. Patrick's High School, founded in 1961 and since
then the alma mater of more world-class runners than any
educational institution in the world. We tour St. Patrick's
with retired headmaster Bro. Colm O'Connell, a garrulous
Irishman who still coaches the school's track team. Back
at the Centre, we take an afternoon run with athletes
training there, then shower and change. Supper is at nearby
Kerio View, a luxurious private lodge recently built by
a Belgian industrialist and running enthusiast. The lodge's
dining room overlooks a spectacular panorama of the Rift
Valley. Our guests: Bro. Colm and local runners such as
Christopher Cheboiboch and Magdaline Chemjor. |
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| DAY 4 |
Sunday, Feb. 6 |
| The Eldoret Half-Marathon
sets off in mid-morning through the streets of the town
and nearby countryside. Members of our group who take
part will find the competition ruthless (Kenyans don't
do fun runs) but the spectators welcoming. Being among
the very few foreigners in the race, our people are certain
to be crowd favorites. The rest of the day is for golf,
swimming and relaxing at the Eldoret Club, which, on Sunday
afternoons, is a gathering spot for some of the town's
running luminaries. Supper, with a few of those luminaries,
will be at the Club or the Spice Palace, a local Indian
restaurant. |
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| DAY 5 |
Monday, Feb. 7 |
| We set off early, with
running gear, for Kapsait, a remote village 10,000 feet
up in the Cherangany Hills. Our destination is Fila's
newly built marathon training camp, supervised by Eric
Kimaiyo, a world-class marathoner who grew up in the area.
This camp is turning out many of Kenya's most promising
young runners. We join the camp athletes for part of their
mid-morning run, then join them for lunch. After a stop
at the local school and Tegla Loroupe's nearby childhood
home, we take the scenic route back to Eldoret. |
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| DAY 6 |
Tuesday, Feb. 8 |
After a morning run,
we leave Eldoret, packed, for points south. Our first
stop is the town of Kapsabet and its surrounding area.
Here we pass the childhood homes of Kipchoge Keino, Wilson
Kipketer, Henry Rono, Mike Boit, Paul Bitok, Ibrahim Hussein
and half a dozen other Olympic medalists and world record
holders, all within a few miles of one another. This is
the Kenyan equivalent of the Hollywood Stars tour. Lunch
is at the home of one of the area's newly prosperous runners,
after which we move on to the village of Nandi Hills.
There we walk to the historic hilltop Ketbarak, which
offers a dazzling view over the Lake Victoria basin. The
spot is also the site of the most notorious incident in
Kenya's early colonial history -- the assassination of
the Nandi "orkoiyot" (ritual leader) by a British officer,
ending the fiercest resistance the British experienced
from any Kenyan tribe. From Ketbarak we drive to Kericho,
where we move into rooms at the Tea Hotel, a once-grand
colonial establishment overlooking rolling green hills
of tea that stretch for miles. Supper is at the hotel
with prominent local runners, such as Joyce Chepchumba,
John Korir, Simon Rono and William Chirchir.
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| DAY 7 |
Wednesday, Feb. 9 |
 We
take a morning run through the tea plantations with local
athletes and then set off for Maasai Mara, via the village
of Bomet, where we meet a few more runners for lunch.
We reach Maasai Mara in time for a late afternoon game
drive and a leisurely supper at our lodge, Mara Simba. |
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| DAY 8 |
Thursday, Feb. 10 |
 A
day at Maasai Mara, with elegantly prepared meals, a luxurious
swimming pool and morning and evening game drives among
Africa's most spectacular wild herds and predators --
a break from our steady diet of running. |
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| DAY 9 |
Friday, Feb. 11 |
 After
a morning game drive, we're off for Nairobi. We move into
rooms at the Fairview and spend the afternoon strolling
or shopping downtown, with a late-afternoon run in Uhuru
Park. Supper is at the superb Indian restaurant Haandi
with our guests, a couple of European runners' agents,
who will be scouting talent the next day at the National
Cross Country Championships. |
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| DAY 10 |
Saturday, Feb. 12 |
 We
set out early for Ngong Race Course and the National Cross
Country. After six fiercely competitive races in a bustling,
carnival atmosphere, we lower the intensity with a visit
to the nearby Karen Blixen Museum, once the home the Danish
author of "Out of Africa." We return to the hotel to pack
before supper, which is at Nairobi's justly celebrated
tourist restaurant Carnivore. The evening ends, and so
does our Safari, in time for us to catch our late night
flights to Europe. |
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| OUR GUIDE, John Manners,
spent part of his boyhood in colonial Kenya and returned
as a Peace Corps teacher and track coach. He has been
back regularly ever since, and has been writing about
African runners for Runner's World and many other publications
for 30 years. He now heads a special Africa project for
the International Association of Athletics Federations.
No one outside Kenya -- and hardly anyone in the country,
either -- knows Kenyan running and runners better than
John. |
| |
 MICATO
SAFARIS manages travel logistics for the Runner's World
Kenya Running Safari. Micato is a family-owned, deluxe
safari operator based in Nairobi and New York. It was
voted "The World's Best Tour Operator & Safari Outfitter,
2003" by the readers of Travel + Leisure magazine.
|
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| Rates (per-person, double-occupancy):
|
| Land-only: $2,860 |
| Land and international
air from New York or Boston, coach class: $4,350 |
| Single-room supplement:
$650 |
| Air transportation available
from other cities. Phone for details. |
| Rates include: all accommodations,
all meals, all transportation within Kenya, game park
entrance fees, game drives, porterage and unlimited bottled
water. Rates exclude: international airline taxes, visa
and passport fees, travel insur-ance, gratuities and personal
items such as laundry, beverages and phones. |
| A 20% deposit is required
to hold your reservation.
|
| Rates are based on a
minimum of 15 travelers; should the group fall below that
number, a surcharge may be applied or the trip may be
withdrawn. Accommodations of similar quality may be substituted.
|
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Contact Information:
Toll-free in North America: 800-642-2861
International: +1-212-545-7111
www.micato.com/runnersworld.html
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