IT’S A BOY!!!!! (HURT loosely adopts a sick 800m runner from Kenya)

Hujambo HURT rafikis!

Congratulations!  We have a 140 lb., 5’8" 25 year old who ran a 1:52 800m on a dirt track at altitude in Kenya! 

To make a long story short, Lesley and I are back from Africa where we have been traveling for the past six weeks with our buddy Todd (my teammate from last year’s Maunawili Out and Back, incidentally)

While in Kenya, we came into contact with Nick Yegon, a crazy fast runner who only faced a few more hurdles to getting to the U.S. this fall on a full XC and track scholarship to a small Christian college in Missouri called Lindenwood.  We helped him set up an appointment at the embassy in Nairobi and he got his VISA!  The last thing was a one way plane ticket, and three HURT rafikis ("friends" in Kiswahili) stepped up and got together enough cash for the ticket!!!!  An incredible show of aloha!

He arrives in the U.S. in three weeks, and I thought it would be fun to send him a HURT shirt and track his racing progress this fall on the blog as he punishes mzungus (white guys) in the midwest.  This is a HUGE opportunity for him to come to the U.S. and get a western education, and I’m really, really, really proud that HURT has the kind of people to step up and make things like this happen.  You all rock!!!!

aloha,
Matt Stevens

(Click on photo to enlarge.  Nick is the second from the right.  Todd is on the left, and the other
Kenyan dude is Nelphat, another sick runner who I actually taught at
Bonjoge Boys Secondary School 8 years ago)