Iten, Kenya – Runner Lornah Kiplagat was not going to let a lack of money or contacts, and especially distance, stand between her and the biggest race of her life – the 1994 Kenya Cross Country Championship.
Kiplagat, 20 years old at the time, travelled to the competition with a fellow athlete, and the two slept in a public bathroom while making the 350km journey from their home in Kabiemit in Nandi county to Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi.
“My friend and I looked for some boxes [cardboard], locked the toilet from inside and covered the mouth of the toilet and slept on either side till morning,” she told Al Jazeera. “It was the safest place we could think of to sleep since we didn’t have money”.