Month in Kenya changes everything for Curtis
Nearly 8,000 miles away from his home in Lake County, Gabriel Curtis did not have time to be homesick.
While he communicated with his parents daily during his month in Kenya last summer, Curtis, a senior on Mount Dora Christian’s boys cross country team, was preoccupied. An eager student in a country that reveres long-distance running, Curtis doubled as a sponge.
He wanted to know: What made the Kenyans great? How did so many of them become elite? How could he acquire that edge?
“It was a good disconnect from everything here that might distract you,” Curtis said. “We didn’t have [Internet] service. We had Wi-Fi some days at a café up the road, if we wanted to walk there. I had a lot of time to just think about things that actually matter and clear my head a little bit and then come back here with that same mindset.”
Heading into the Class 1A, District 9 meet Thursday at Embry-Riddle, Curtis is laser-focused on what could be ahead — a potential second straight state championship for the Bulldogs and a second individual title for himself.
Curtis earned top honors at state in 2016. He has the top five-kilometer time (15 minutes, 28.2 seconds) in his class this season, according to flrunners.com. That is fourth fastest for all classifications.
The state meet is Nov. 10 in Tallahassee.
“If he keeps doing what he’s doing and doesn’t get ahead of himself, then there’s not a single race the rest of the season that I don’t think can be his,” Mount Dora Christian coach Zach White said.
Kenya — home to more than 43 million people on Africa’s east coast — changed everything for Curtis.
The opportunity came about after Curtis and his younger brother, Mitchell, competed in the CARIFTA Games last spring in their father Michael’s homeland, the Bahamas. The games involve athletes from countries in the Caribbean Free Trade Association. The Curtis brothers competed because they have dual citizenship.
Marathoner O’Neil Williams, 35, of the Bahamas took an interest in them and corresponded with their mother, who is originally from Zimbabwe, on Facebook. Williams had a place in Iten, Kenya, and offered Gabriel and Mitchell a chance to train there, 7,900 feet above sea level. Invitation accepted. “[Gabriel’s] always watched Kenyan runners and studied how they run,” said his mother, Suzanne Curtis. “He’s always mentioned to us that that was his dream: to go and train in Kenya.”
Following a program devised by White, Gabriel and Mitchell worked on their mileage while there. They met notable Kenyan runners, including two-time 800-meter Olympic champion David Rudisha. They immersed themselves in a culture that values the concept of “eat, sleep, train,” Gabriel said.
“They’re just really kind people,” he said. “They just want to see you succeed, which is hard to wrap your head around, because these are people that if things work out the way you want to, ... I’m going to be competing against them one day.”
When they were not running, Gabriel and Mitchell played “Mario Kart” and “Uno” on Nintendo Switch late into the night. They observed wild animals while hiking. They gave cows to villagers for a service project.
Kenya provided a totalbody experience.
“Everything they eat over there is natural,” said Mitchell, a sophomore runner at Mount Dora Christian. “A lot of them grow their own food.”
That nurturing environment affected Gabriel.
He came home from the journey of a lifetime transformed. For the long haul. “There’s a lot of documentaries on where we went,” he said. “The Home of Champions is what [Iten is] called. Even then, going there was different, and you get a different vibe.
“You really understand a little bit more.”