Posted: October 2, 2004

Athletics: Micato And Runner’s World Introduce Kenya Running Safaris

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Runner’s World magazine and Micato Safaris* have devised a tour that will take runners of all levels to Kenya’s western highlands, home of the world’s greatest distance runners. Tour members will be exposed to scenic and cultural wonders of rarely visited parts of Kenya as they mix with the country’s athletic elite.

Runner’s World executive editor Amby Burfoot and Kenya expert John Manners will introduce the travelers to some of the brilliant runners who won 12 of the past 13 Boston Marathon and 18 of the pat 19 World Cross Country team championships. Tour members will visit the runners’ villages, schools, training camps and homes; they will talk with the athletes, eat with them, even run with them. Many runners have expressed eagerness to welcome visitors in an effort to boost tourism in their homeland.

The ten-day Running Safari is based in Eldoret, Kenya’s running capital, 200 miles northwest of Nairobi, in the middle of rolling green hills at a bracing altitude of 7,000 feet. Tour members stay at the Eldoret Club, a colonial-era countryclub with clean, airy rooms equipped with full bathrooms. Near the end of the tour they will spend two days at the celebrated Maasai Mara Game Reserve, one of the world’s outstanding wildlife sanctuaries.

The trip culminates at Kenya’s annual National Cross Country Championships, widely held to be the greatest mass display of running talent on earth, with a farewell meal at Nairobi’s justly famous restaurant, the Carnivore.

The tour runs from February 3 to February 12, 2005. Cost, which includes all meals, is $2,360, land only, or $3,850 with economy class airfare from New York.

For further details,
John Manners (RRW subscriber): jhmanners@aol.com
Visit www.micato.com/runnersworld.html
or phone Micato Safaris at 1-800-MICATO-1.

* Voted World’s Best Tour Operator for 2003 by readers of Travel + Leisure magazine -- End of update of news here -->