The race of distance runner Wesley Korir's life

After leaving Kenya, he wound up living the American Dream in Louisville

BY KATYA CENGEL • [email protected] • DECEMBER 6, 2009

Wesley Korir plops into his boss' plush office chair. His 5-foot-7-inch, 120pound frame is nearly swallowed by the chair, but Korir doesn't let that stop him from settling in and using his boss's computer.

Fred Whitehouse smiles; he knows he has momentarily lost Korir to the Internet, and his desk to Korir, but he doesn't seem to mind. Like almost everyone Korir has met since coming to Louisville half a decade ago, Whitehouse has fallen under his spell.

There is something about Korir that Whitehouse and his University of Louisville properties maintenance crew noted almost immediately: “The positive feeling that he gave us all.”

Whitehouse has a wife and two children, but his screensaver is a photo of Korir, his assistant maintenance supervisor. A wall in the maintenance room is covered with newspaper clippings exalting Korir's distance-running ability. In the center of the clippings is a map of Kenya, where Korir was born in a village in the west of the country. He ran barefoot on dirt roads until he was 18. He had no coach, just a mother who threatened punishment if he didn't run to the store fast enough. There was no running water and he had never ridden an escalator, let alone been on an airplane.

How he went from there to winning the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon, a Nike endorsement and a home in Louisville is as improbable as it is inspiring. It is as if Cinderella married her prince, but kept on cleaning houses.

When he was on call recently, Korir received two early morning complaints, one of which came at 3 a.m. and concerned a flooded toilet. Although he won $160,000 and a 2009 Honda Accord EX-L in L.A., he told Whitehouse the only reason he would quit is if Whitehouse left. His winnings also did not affect his choice of home, a small beige-paneled shotgun-style near campus that he had chosen before winning in L.A. and which he bought after he returned, said his “American mom,” Linda Stiles. It is this humility that really makes him distinctive, she said.

“He knows where he came from and he knows who got him to this place, and so he's not trying to get the credit.”