With permission from Jonathan, I'm posting his Iten, Kenya XC race report. I'd asked him to write something for our website and he took the time to send me this. He's still in Kenya. I think you'll enjoy reading this as much as I did. - Glorybelle

"My experience in Kenya has been TOUGH, crazy, eye opening, dangerous and most importantly has taught me a lot. To start, my first night in Kenya was spent in the Nairobi airport because my plane came in late (10pm) and then one of my bags didn't come in so I spent an hour or so trying to file a claim for it. Being that Nairobi is so dangerous (especially at night) I figured I'd just stay in the airport that night and just wait for my 6am flight out to Eldoret, so yeah that was rough (haha).

Then the weeks that followed here in Iten were filled with some of the best training I have ever had. Training runs that have varied from a 10 mile progressive run (5 miles easy down hill and then 5 miles back up tempo pace going from 6000ft to 8000ft), to 18 mile runs up in the highest mountains in Iten (where I have seen monkeys and other various animals like that), to trying and doing a speed session with Asbel Kiprop (Olympic 1500 gold '08) in which he completely destroyed me, (but we went to the gym after and there I realized that the kenyan secret has NOTHING at all to do with strength training haha).

Also the food here is something completely different than what I am used to (I've lost 10lbs or so... beer weight i'm thinking - ha). The food is very basic and usually consists of some type of meat or fish with rice or ugali (a sort of mix of flour from maze and water... think of very soggy bread) and to drink there is usually only water or tea if lucky. Also there are only 3 meals a day... no snacking, no beer... and sadly no pizza (haha). So adjusting to that was tough at first.

Also here the power is very sketchy... sometimes we will go days without power or hot water (making showers very fast). For example my New Years was spent in bed and asleep at 9:30 with no power and stuck in the middle of a crazy rainstorm (first time since I was 14 that I haven't been out partying on new years, haha... guess the Kenyan mentality is when it's time for training that is all you do... absolutely no other fun stuff).

Also the culture here is very different. I've been thinking that it has been hard only talking to my family, girlfriend, and coach once a week; when many kenyans come to the training camp here leave their family for months at a time and have no contact with their wife or kids at all. They believe that it will only distract you from training. (Sidenote: we train twice a day everyday, and on workout days we train 3 times: 6am shakeout, 10am workout, 430pm 10k progression run).

With the mention of the culture here being different I've seen an experienced many things that have changed me dramatically. For example, I was out on a morning run one day and I saw a man get beaten almost to death (if he didn't die later that day then he for sure had some life changing injuries) because he was caught trying to burglarize someone's house. This all took place in downtown Iten and a group of about 10 people did the beating. When I asked the policeman to stop them all he said was, " That what happen when you thief in Kenya," and he just sat there and watched the horrific beating.

Also... the other day I took a Matatu (taxi sort of thing) into town and was robbed. Here in Kenya virtually any vehicle is a taxi and they usually have some sort of sign or something on them, well to my rough realization there are also people who pose as Matatus so that they can rob Mazungus (white, or in my case non-Kenyan people). So I got in the back of the truck (which had a cover over the bed of the truck so I was closed off from the outside) and when I went to get out I gave the man in the back the typical amount for the taxi but he grabbed me by my shirt and put a knife in my side and said "t-shirt, shoes and money now". When he did this he tapped the truck twice which let the driver know he should start driving again. I gave him the $20 I had and when I took off my shirt I shoved him and jumped out of the moving truck ('cause I wasn't going to give up my Asics... no way! My Nike shirt yes... Asics shoes no way! haha) So yea, long story short I made it out ok, just scraped up bad from jumping out of the truck and I have about a 4-inch cut on my left side from the knife... lucky for me we have a doctor at the camp and he has been treating my wounds.

Now as for the race... wow that was a tough experience! First of all there was no start gun, no start whistle... the "starter" was just talking in Swahili and then all of the sudden people started running. Now before I talk about how fast the race is let me express that the race is at 8000ft altitude, at noon (in the hot Kenyan sun) and on a VERY hilly course with huge potholes everywhere and with very, very bad trails... so bad that I don't think I would ever consider doing a training run on these trails.

So the leaders went out BLAZING! The first 2k loop was covered in 2:31 and I came by in 2:50... dead last! So i'm guessing the first mile for the leaders was easily in the 4:20's (and remember it's 12k). After the first loop about 50 runners dropped out due to the intense pace (at the end I'd say only 40% of the runners finished.) So by the end I was able to move up to 33rd out of 250ish(???) and finished in 37:25. The winner was the junior world champion in XC from '08 in 35:52. So yeah, I was pretty bummed out but it was a great learning experience."

Thanks for writing this, JC. Travel home safely!