Good Will running

On a Thursday in November 2003, internationally acclaimed distance runner Tegla Loroupe set out with a group of international ambassadors and peace workers on a 120-mile trek in her native Kenya.

The group loaded into a few all-wheel drive vehicles and headed from Kapenguria to the war-torn area of Kamele, where Loroupe was to give a speech about her inaugural Tegla Loroupe Peace Race to take place that Saturday.

Somewhere along that rugged drive, Loroupe's group probably passed Eliza Chemwetich, a 20-year-old who had been through all the rigors of a violent and seemingly endless civil war. Chemwetich was walking the same 120 miles barefoot in hopes of making it to Kapenguria in time for the race.

Loroupe gave her speech and returned home, again passing a walking Chemwetich, a young woman who knew all about Loroupe's rise from the same war-torn region. Chemwetich, aiming to meet Loroupe in person, arrived in Kapenguria at 6 a.m. Saturday, hitching a ride for the last 12 miles.

Three hours later, after a day and a half of walking and little sleep, the barefoot Chemwetich went out and beat the women's field in the 10-kilometer race designed to bring together warring factions from all sides of the regional conflict. She won a $500 first-place prize -- an extraordinary sum for someone from her region. Loroupe knew right then that she had seen the next ambassador for her cause, the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation.

"She had come from almost 200 kilometers away, up the mountains," Loroupe said. "For me, as a Kenyan woman, knowing the way of that walk and the kind of life she was living, it was not easy for her. And to walk at night, it was really dangerous.

"To then see her win, it was something special."

Loroupe took one good look at Chemwetich after the race and could not surmise how she had won after all the effort she made just to get to the starting line.

"I saw her legs, they were so swollen. I couldn't believe she could manage," Loroupe said. "But you know, when you are determined, when you have courage, anything is possible."

That determination and courage will lead Chemwetich, now 24, to join Loroupe, 33, and about 15,000 others on Sunday for the Las Vegas Marathon or its offshoot half-marathon. It will be Chemwetich's first marathon; Loroupe, who won the New York City Marathon in her first attempt at the distance in 1994, is a former world-record holder and one of the best female runners ever.

FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH

Chemwetich's struggles began long before that difficult 36-hour trek four years ago. Like Loroupe, she grew up knowing nothing but civil war from neighboring tribes, or Ugandan tribes crossing the Kenyan border, with the primary goal of killing their rivals to steal their cattle.

Chemwetich's family had to move often to stay out of harm's way, and even that wasn't always enough. A brother died during a move in 1985, when she was 2 years old. And in 1998, she saw another brother shot in a gunbattle. She wanted to carry him to safety but wasn't strong enough to do so with the enemy advancing on her group. Her brother died, but not before sending her off with his AK-47 rifle so that she could protect herself.

Not only did the loss make her vengeful, it also affected her will to live, at only 15 years old.

"I wanted to kill someone," Chemwetich said in her native Potok language, with Loroupe interpreting. "And in return, I wanted someone to shoot me.

"A few days later, I realized that wouldn't help my family and my neighbors."

So Chemwetich continued with the tribe's pastoral lifestyle, primarily raising cattle. But she still carried the AK-47.

Danger always lurked, as Loroupe -- who lost a cousin, and whose sister-in-law lost a brother -- could attest.

"When you bring the cows to the forest (for vegetation), you have to bring a weapon because you never know who's hiding," Loroupe said.

"I was not scared, and I was prepared to kill if I had to," Chemwetich added.

It never came to that for Chemwetich, though. And shortly before her long walk to Kapenguria, she gave up her AK-47, not wanting to allow even the possibility of turning it on someone.

"Because when you keep a gun in the house," she said, "there is still the temptation to use it."

MORE THAN JUST A WARRIOR

After winning that race in 2003, Chemwetich returned home to her mother and sister. Loroupe, as a United Nations Ambassador of Sport, wanted to bring her back to the school and orphanage that Loroupe oversees with the hopes of having Chemwetich begin training with her and join her peace-through-athletics cause.

"She went home for about a month," Loroupe said. "We had to send people to get permission to bring her back for training, and we had to encourage her from where she was.

"We wanted her to see that there is more to life than being a warrior."

It was an intriguing possibility for a young woman from such an extraordinarily humble and strife-filled background.

"In my life, I was not thinking that I would ever travel," Chemwetich said. "I had hoped when I heard about Tegla that I would be able to stay with her. If Tegla struggled and made it, I knew the opportunity was there."

Since returning to be mentored by Loroupe, Chemwetich has made strides as a runner, but probably even more so as an ambassador. Loroupe has had Chemwetich speak to warring factions in her home territory in the presence of international ambassadors, who came away impressed with the young Kenyan's ability to convey how she rose from a traumatic upbringing.

"People listen to her because of the example she has set," Loroupe said. "She's changed her life."

And her family, her neighbors and rival groups in her home region respect what she's done.

"When you work hard, you sweat, and by sweating, you respect one another because that means you're working hard," Chemwetich said. "If I didn't struggle so hard, like Tegla, people would not respect what I'm telling them.

"I do not want to set a bad example. From where I came from, I have to show them that a better life exists."

While she hopes to become an elite runner like her mentor, she wants also wants to affect positive change in her homeland -- also like her mentor. She wants to get enemies to lay down their arms and work together for the common good.

"I want to work very hard to be a good runner, but running will then enable me to get ahead and get a better life," Chemwetich said. "I want to run a few more years, then go back and teach the people in my village. Every time I go home, my neighbors ask what they should do and how I can help them do it.

"I want to succeed as an ambassador, to win more lives, because I have come close to dying."

Loroupe said that first step four years ago was a huge accomplishment.

"She has already succeeded," Loroupe said. "To pull yourself out of that is a big step forward."

As for Sunday's race, the pupil was hardly ready to say she'll keep up with the teacher. Chemwetich has been training in Germany with Loroupe, but the entire experience has been overwhelming. Aside from Germany, the only other country Chemwetich had visited before this week was South Africa.

"These four years, my life has changed," she said, noting that if she hadn't connected with Loroupe, "maybe I'd be dead, or I'd have killed others. I did not have the promise of ever having a better life."

FIRST NEW YORK, NOW LAS VEGAS

Loroupe is running Sunday in an ambassador role, seeking to gain more attention for her school and orphanage in Kapenguria. She did the same in the New York City Marathon a month ago, and despite having no time for training, she still took eighth in the women's field, finishing in 2 hours, 41 minutes, 48 seconds.

She returned to Kenya to oversee her now annual Peace Race on Nov. 17, and flew from Germany to Las Vegas with Chemwetich on Sunday. So there's still been no time to train.

"I've been doing my training on an airplane," Loroupe joked.

Loroupe won't speculate on how she will fare on Sunday, but with what she's seen in her relationship with Chemwetich, she wouldn't be surprised if her protégé did well.

"She's like a sister to me -- I see a lot of me in her," Loroupe said.

"She has determination that reminds me of me. I wouldn't have made it if I was a weak person, and neither would she."

Contact reporter Patrick Everson at peverson@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0353.