On Saturday, the world marathon record holder was at the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in central Kenya for a “recce” ahead of his next big thing: The Virtual Lewa Safari Marathon Challenge on June 27.
With elephants, buffaloes and other wildlife providing a spectacular spectator backdrop, Kipchoge had Lewa’s rangers for pacemakers as he surveyed the now famous Safaricom Lewa Marathon course.
Flown in from his base in Eldoret, Kipchoge joined six rangers for Saturday’s practice run with world half marathon record holder Geoffrey Kamworor in tow.
The Virtual Lewa Safari Marathon Challenge will be run in support of conservation as a stop-gap replacement for the traditional race that has raised Sh50 million annually for conservation, community development and education projects across Kenya
For Saturday’s training run, apart from the rangers, Kipchoge and co. were joined by Sarah Watson, the Director of Programmes in Africa for conservation concern Tusk Trust, and Lewa’s head of anti-poaching Edward Ndiritu.
“I have never taken part in the Lewa (Safari) Marathon before, but it was very inspiring to run with the rangers today in this beautiful conservancy and motivate them.
