To illustrate how devoted they are to this cause, the team went for an hour’s training at Kensington Gardens, two hours after their arrival/PSCU
These were the words uttered by Margaret Kenyatta on March 9 this year after finishing the 21km inaugural First Lady’s Nairobi Half Marathon.
True to her words on the morning of Tuesday April 8, the First Lady and her team alighted from a Kenya Airways flight at London’s Heathrow airport in readiness for Sunday’s marathon.
Alighting from the aircraft, one could see her determination and devotion to the cause of ensuring women and children of Kenya get access to better healthcare.
To illustrate how devoted they are to this cause, the team went for an hour’s training at Kensington Gardens, two hours after their arrival.
The First Lady and her team have been training hard under former London Marathon champion Douglas Wakiihuri.
The training has seen the team get first-hand experience of the terrain and weather conditions of Iten, Eldoret and Sagana where they set boot camp for weeks for high altitude training.
On Thursday evening, the First Lady was invited by the Standard Chartered Bank to speak at a forum of raising awareness about the cause.
It is here that one would sense the seriousness, devotion and commitment that she has towards achieving the goal of ensuring women and children access better health care in Kenya.
This is what she said touched well-wishers including the chairman of the bank Sir John Peace.
“On the 13th of April this year, I will participate in the London Marathon. I will run to make a difference. I will run for the possibility of a healthy generation that is HIV-free, for the elimination of HIV transmission from mother to child. I will run to raise funds to increase access to better health care through mobile clinics that will bring services closer to Kenyans. I will run to keep mothers and newborns alive.”
“As I run, I will be thinking how every mother needs to see her children grow up and how devastating and heart breaking it is for a mother to lose her child. I will be thinking of the children left without a mother because they could not access proper health care. I will run because I am a mother, and I believe motherhood is a blessing not just to a woman, but to a nation. I will run because every mother should be able to hold her baby and take her baby home, and that baby should live to be strong and have many more birthdays. I will run until we go beyond zero.”
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