Welcome to Kenya...

Tuesday 28^th December and this is where the journey begins, started the day with 5 x 1mile threshold in Tiptree, my last run in the UK for quite a while. Checked I had everything packed then double checked. My parents took me to Heathrow stopping off along the way in St-Albans to meet Rebecca who also came to the airport to send me on my way. After spending pretty much every day over the last 6.5 years with Rebecca it's going to be really strange not seeing her for so long and I know I'm going to miss her (even though we have split up). So at just after 9p.m. I flew out of Heathrow for my running adventure in Kenya.

Arrived at Nairobi airport at 9a.m., my flight to Eldoret wasn't until the afternoon so I had some time to kill, I could have gone to Nairobi but didn't due to my tight budget, instead I got myself a SIM card and read my book. Arrived at Eldoret at about 4.30p.m. And after a little confusion with timing I finally got picked up by my new room mate Edwin Kipyego. Edwin had borrowed a friends car so we had to pick him up along with some girls who had a fascination with stroking my hair!! Kenyan driving is something to behold as apart from roughly driving on the left hand side of the road there doesn't seem to be many rules and it's every man for himself. We arrived at Camp in Iten where I met a few of the other guys and Ken Kibet the camp manager/coach, everyone so far has been really friendly and all welcome me to Kenya. After dinner of Ugali and stew I was shattered so went to bed (bottom bunk) and straight to sleep.

I wish someone had told me how hard it is to run at altitude before you acclimatise as my first run in Iten nearly killed me!!! Edwin took me out for an easy hour but after about 10mins I was breathing heavily, after 20 my legs started to go and I dragged myself around the last 40. My only consolation (apart from getting back to camp) was that we overtook Asbel Kiprop the Olympic 1500m champion, and I guess the first one was always going to be the hardest...

Breakfast of bread, jam and banana plus lots of Kenyan tea, which is basically half tea, half milk and a tonne full of sugar (good for energy, bad for teeth). Into Eldoret for lunch with Edwin where we did a bit of shopping and ate at a random restaurant for more Ugali and stew. Back to camp after lunch where I helped Edwin update his facebook account, we also found a random photo of the Bristol half this year where me and Edwin were standing next to each other on the start line.

Run-Fast Camp, Iten Kenya

47min easy run in the afternoon, luckily for me an easy run in Kenya is just that, pretty much jogging. Lots of stares from the locals, probably as I am the only mazungu training in a group of kenyans. After training we had a massive plate of Ugali and stew watched a random Nigerian film then an early night. So far so good....