On Running, Motherhood, and Paying It Forward – runnersworld.com

Today, she’s a professional marathoner. But back in 1993, Jane Kibii was just an 8-year-old girl with a three-mile round trip to school and no other way to get there but to run.

“In Kenya, we don’t have school buses,” the native of Moiben (a town northwest of Nairobi) explains. And so she ran. Not for sport or for exercise or even just for fun, but to get to class—in a full school uniform with a bag of books bouncing at her side every step of the way.

Around seventh or eighth grade is when Kibii remembers her running turned competitive. She joined the cross-country team first, then signed up for track, where she competed in the 400, 800, and 1500 meters. She continued racing through high school with moderate success. Enough that when she graduated and learned her father didn’t have enough money to send her to college, a thought percolated: perhaps she could run for a living.

Since then, Kibii, now 34, has proved that thought—and so much more—to be possible. She has expanded her skillset from track sprints to long-distance road racing and earned podium finishes at major international competitions; given birth to a daughter, Belvia, now 6; and earned enough money to build her parents a new home.

It hasn’t been an easy road juggling the roles of single mom, professional athlete, and homesick woman living across an ocean from her parents, but Kibii stopped taking the easy road the first time she stepped out in her school uniform, book bag in tow.

The early years of her career were, at times, a struggle. The former track standout disliked long distances, and even the simple task of running for 60 minutes straight—practically a warmup for an elite marathoner—seemed unappealing.

“Forty minutes was okay,” Kibii remembers. “But one hour? No.” Yet her coach at the time kept pushing her to run further, and she gradually ramped up her mileage until she was ready to enter her first marathon.

At her debut at the 2009 Las Vegas Rock ’N’ Roll Marathon, Kibii finished in 2:40:12, about 6:07 per mile. For context, that’s five minutes under the current “B“ qualifying standard for the Olympic Marathon.

Still, Kibii says, “It didn’t go well. I didn’t like it at all.” She continued to press on, and five years later entered the California International Marathon in Sacramento. She finished second in 2:32:24. Since then, Kibii has returned to the podium often, including a second-place finish at the 2015 Twin Cities Marathon and wins at the 2015 Grandma’s Marathon and 2016 Twin Cities Marathon, among other achievements.

When asked to describe Kibii as an athlete, her manager, Brad Poore, has a fitting opening response: “She’s a tough racer.” However, he’s quick to add that Kibii can outsmart the competition just as much as out-grit them. “She listens to her body well, and if the pack goes off too fast, Jane will often hold back a bit and catch them later in the race,” says Poore.

Kibii has also made smart choices off the roads that have allowed her and her family to benefit from all those podium finishes. Most of Kibii’s career earnings have gone back to her parents in Kenya to help them build a nicer home, one that’s big and doesn’t leak when it rains. The structure—which has four bedrooms, one bathroom, and a sitting room—is now about “99 percent” finished, says Kibii. Her mother, father, and younger sister currently live there, and she talks to her family regularly through Whatsapp and video calls.

Still, she admits, “I really miss home.” Since 2006, Kibii has traveled back and forth between Kenya and the U.S. for her career, spending most of that time sharing a spare bedroom in Poore’s Auburn, California, home with Belvia. With Belvia now school-aged, the two haven’t been back to Moiben in a year. Kibii may have learned to cover 26.2 miles with relative ease, but being 9,306 miles from her homeland is a struggle. “It’s very, very hard for me,” she says.

“I think sometimes, as a result of being so far from home, maybe she doesn’t always feel the support and the positivity that would really help her to excel even more,” says Poore. “I think sometimes she’s a bit shackled like that.” Even so, “she’s very resilient, keeps her head down and keeps plugging away,” he adds. Belvia, who Poore describes as “a little firecracker that is 100 percent positive energy, 24 hours a day,” also provides a much-needed daily lift.

While Belvia and Poore do their best to provide Kibii with a strong support system far from home, there’s still the challenge of training for elite competitions while living in the California Gold Rush town of Auburn. Though it’s home to the finish line of the Western States 100, marathoners don’t flock to Auburn the same way they do to places like Mammoth Lakes, Eugene, or Flagstaff.

There is a local pro and occasional training partner in Shadrack Biwott, who placed third at the 2018 Boston Marathon. Sometimes, Kibii will lace up alongside several women with the Sacramento Running Association, or join a local group, Moms Run This Town, for an easy social workout. But on the whole, Poore says, “She’s kind of isolated.”

Six days a week, you’ll find Kibii running, mostly solo, on the roads in Auburn or around nearby Folsom Lake, logging morning miles while Belvia is at school and fitting in evening workouts when Poore comes home and can help babysit. With summer temperatures consistently climbing high and early, Kibii says she’s tackling less mileage than usual, averaging 60 to 70 miles a week.

When she’s not training or traveling for races, Kibii is teaching Belvia math and reading. She wants her daughter to build reading comprehension skills at a young age, something she didn’t master herself until she was older. “If she knows how to read, then everything will be easier for her,” Kibii says.

In turn, Belvia makes the marathon road just a little easier for her mom. Kibii credits much of her recent success and podium finishes to Belvia, who occasionally travels to races and greets her mother, clapping and smiling, at the finish. Kibii’s biggest motivation for running, she explains, is to support both her daughter here in the U.S. and her parents back in Kenya.

Despite Kibii’s achievements, solid sponsorships have been tough to come by, which has made it “super hard” to support Belvia. But the single mom forges on, as she has since she was her daughter’s age. “You have to accept challenges,” Kibii says. “You still have to fight. That’s what life is.”

As for her future, Kibii hopes to one day make the Olympics, acknowledging she faces fierce competition from fellow Kenyan athletes. In the short-term, she hopes to break 2:30 in the marathon (currently, her PR is 2:30.01), perhaps at the California International Marathon in Sacramento this December.

Beyond that, she’s focused on providing Belvia with the education and opportunity to chase her own dreams. “I will support her whatever she wants to be.”

Contributing Writer Jenny is a Boulder, Colorado-based health and fitness journalist.