Running Across the African Savannah

 "The eye never forgets what the heart has seen" African Proverb

The idea to run the Tusk Safaricom Marathon came from my podcast guest and friend Matt Fitzgerald. He said it was his most memorable marathon. Since then, I was very curious to find out more so I decided to run it myself. It took a lot of planning, preparing and fundraising for this marathon. 

I was fortunate enough to travel to Kenya and run the Lewa Safaricom Marathon through the picturesque Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. It is a very unique race where your spectators are a few humans and a few animals. It’s situated on 5500 feet of altitude, hilly and rocky trails, over 80% humidity and an average of 35 degrees heat. It is a challenging and breathtaking race that cuts across Kenya’s oldest wildlife reserve – the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.

Running the Lewa Marathon is not just about the race. It's an entire experience on its own. From fundraising to school visits to running, to making friends from different parts of the world and expanding your community to seeing many beautiful and endangered creatures.

The fundraising is initiated by the Tusk Trust. Tusk is an incredible charity that works to fund exceptional conservation leaders across Africa. Tusk enables and empowers expert local conservationists who are best placed to direct the protection of Africa's wildlife. Tusk is great because: 

- 46 endangered species benefit from Tusk's projects

- Tusk has secured over 40 million hectares of landscape for wildlife

- Over 4,500 people are employed directly by Tusk partners

- And more than 4million + benefit indirectly from Tusk's work

The entire team of Tusk was present with us and they did a fabulous job!

Practically seeing where the marathon fundraising goes was very fulfilling. We visited two schools – the Lewa School and the Ngare Ndare Senior Secondary School and spent time with the children there – visited them in their classrooms and libraries, saw this amazing nursery that the school children maintain, played and dance with them. There have been improvements in classrooms which was a joy to see. 

I was able to fundraise 70% of the target. I am very grateful to all my friends, family, colleagues from across the globe who contributed to this wonderful cause and what better way to showcase where it all goes - through my posts and blogs.

The Lewa Water project was another fine example to see where and how because of the marathon, the money raised can supply water to an entire village!

The drives from our camp to various projects were game drives on their own. We would be driving past the endangered animals all the time. They were exceptional drives. Some of the creatures of the Lewa Conservancy that I saw were- antelopes, female masai ostrich, gazelles, giraffes, grevy’s zebra, kori bustard, somali ostrich, black rhino and the cats – lions and lioness.

Every aspect about Lewa and Kenya was magnificent. From a day spent at Nairobi – visits to the giraffe center, green outdoor lunch places to visiting the Karen Blixen house to the entire Lewa experience. All so wonderful.

I have returned having created a lot of memories – all happy and fulfilling and I am looking forward to running the next purposeful marathon very soon! Do you have any ideas?

*If you wish to see some of my adventures, visit the following:

MindfulRunning Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@mindfulrunning1710/shorts

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SaumyaMindfulRunning/

Instagram - @mindfulrunning1710