Saturday, August 8, 2015

Amazing Maasai Marathon

A fabulous trip and an amazing race.  This race in Kenya completed my 7 Continents. Before the race itself we did many small safari rides to various game preserves in Kenya.  I saw so many wonderful animals.  It was almost as good as my other safari in Tanzania in the Serengeti.  We also went to numerous orphaned animals sanctuaries.  I got to feed giraffes, elephants, and monkeys.  Went for a ride on a 150 year old tortoise, and got to pet an adorable young cheetah.  We saw many endangered black rhinos, and ran with giraffes and zebras near one of our hotels. A highlight of the trip was visiting one of the girls schools and getting to meet some of the girls.  Most girls don't have the opportunity to go to high school in Kenya.  But some are fortunate and were selected to attend this particular school instead of getting married at the age of only 13.  How sad that most girls have to get married while still children and have to chance of an education.  The Amazing Maasai Marathon was a fundraiser to fund education for girls.  Kenya has a long way to go to fully correct this terrible problem.

The race itself was really fun because the little children would run along with me, usually grabbing my hand as they ran.  The course was kind of tough with lots of hills and very dusty dirt roads and trails.  Again we were lucky because there was a good breeze and the temperature was not too hot.

I felt good even at the high altitude, likely due to the time spent at much higher altitude in New Mexico and Colorado the week before.  I was still just under 7 hours, which is way too long.  I need to get busy training to increase my speed.

Here are just a few of the folks I met along the way!

Kenyan Runners
 
Giraffes

Elephants

Leopard

Zebra

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