Desiree Davila Is Training in Kenya for Boston Marathon

Published by Runner's World on January 10, 2014

Desiree Davila, hoping to return to the form that made her an achingly close second-place finisher at the 2011 Boston Marathon, is currently in Iten on her first training trip to Kenya and her first prolonged stint at altitude. She’s expected to be at Lornah Kiplagat’s High Altitude Training Center for much of her time in Kenya.

Davila arrived in Kenya on Wednesday and will be there “five or six weeks,” according to Keith Hanson, who with his brother Kevin is founder and coach of the Michigan-based Hansons Brooks team, of which Davila is a member. “She’s going to do her base training [in Kenya], and then her Boston-specific work will be done when she returns” to the United States, said Hanson. Davila is scheduled to be at the Boston Marathon starting line on April 21.

“Kevin and I and her sat down and she asked about our thoughts about going to Kenya,” said Hanson. “We were all for it. It was something that helps to motivate her. It was her idea and it was something that Kevin and I felt would be a good idea.” At this time of year, much of the Hansons team regularly leaves Michigan for warmer climes in any case; Keith Hanson was speaking to Runner’s World Newswire from Reunion, a community near Orlando, where the team has a house until March 7.

Davila’s original plan was to train with 2012 Boston Marathon champion Wesley Korir, who has a home an hour outside Nairobi, “but there would have been just a couple of people there,” said Hanson. “She decided she would have more options” in Iten.

In the 2011 Boston Marathon, Davila traded leads with Kenya’s Caroline Kilel on Boylston Street before settling for the runner-up spot, two seconds behind Kilel, in 2:22:38. It was the closest an American woman had come to winning in Boston since Lisa Larsen Weidenbach (now Rainsberger) triumphed in 1985.