Aberdeen athlete Myles Edwards believes his latest trip to Kenya is paying off as he bids for a place on the Scotland Commonwealth Games team and tries to raise money for the children’s charity he has co-founded.
The 25-year-old is currently based at the town of Iten in the Rift Valley where many of Kenya’s best athletes live. This is the Aberdonian’s fifth visit since 2011 and his second in the past six months.
He is convinced living a Kenyan athlete’s lifestyle and training at altitude, will enhance his prospects of achieving a Commonwealth Games 800m qualifying time when he returns to Scotland towards the end of this month. Edwards said: “My trips to Kenya manage to get better each time, both in relation to training and fund-raising. My training was hampered a little bit at the start due to food poisoning, but since it cleared things have been going from strength to strength.
“I have consistently been running twice a day and three times on a couple of occasions. On the days I have run three times we will be out for the first run at 5.30am in the dark with our head torches on. It is an awesome feeling to be finishing just as most of the Kenyans are starting their runs.
“I then head back to bed until around 9.30am before doing a track session at 10am. Again, it is great feeling to have had two runs done by lunchtime.
“The third run is always really easy, at around 4pm, just a 40 to 60-minute recovery jog.”
Aside from training, Edwards has also been spending time on his charity work, helping youngsters at the Pavilion Village in Karatina, a facility which provides secure accommodation for more than 20 children, most of whom have been orphaned, abandoned, or abused.
He has been raising funds with the help of Kenyan middle distance runner Gideon Gathimba, and the pair have ambitious plans to broaden their work.
Edwards first met Gathimba when the Kenyan international came to Scotland to compete in an invitation mile held to mark the opening of Aberdeen Sports Village in 2009 and they have remained friends.
They have set up the Gathimba Edwards Foundation and living in Iten means Edwards bumps into world and Olympic champions on almost a daily basis and he has persuaded some of them to support his work.
He said: “I met the world and former Olympic 1,500m champion Asbel Kiprop a few days ago. He signed a Kenya vest which we will auction at a fund-raising dinner we are organising in Aberdeen early next year. The other day there was a big parade celebrating Florence Kiplagat’s recent world half marathon record and I was invited to be in the lead car as we drove through the streets. It was so nice to sit with her and other champions such as Mary Keitany, Edna Kiplagat, Wilson Kipsang, Linet Masai and Maggie Masai at the ceremony.”