Introducing Artisan Kenyan Running Bands
What gets you through those darkest of times? The 6am start on a frosty morning, when your bed is more appealing than pre-work training, mile 21 in the marathon when there’s nothing left in the tank, or when you’re struggling to recover from an injury that’s jeopardising your next big race?
It’s the community you’ve built around you.
It’s your fellow runners who push you to go just that little bit further, who want to see you smash those PBs, and who share the highs and the lows, the wins and the losses. That might be a local running club or it might be a national team, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re there for you.
And what better symbol of the strength and resilience of that community than a running band<link to products> from the home of champions, the mecca for long-distance runners, Iten.
Take inspiration from the greats
Visit Kenya’s high-altitude training camp and you’ll be following in the footsteps of some of the most famous long-distance runners in history. The likes of Mo Farah, Paula Radcliffe and numerous other world record holders have graced the muddy tracks and sweated over the town’s roads.
That’s why it’s called the home of champions. Because alongside the fastest Kenyan nationals, Iten builds, develops and inspires some of the top athletes and greatest Olympians we’ve known.
But it’s about more than that. Iten is a mecca for runners of all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life, drawn together by a love for this wonderfully painful, exhilaratingly excruciating sport. Bound by a drive to achieve their potential, to reach their goals. Whatever they may be.
A symbol of pride
There’s a market just outside the training camp. There they sell Kenyan running bands and African beaded jewellery in a dazzling array of colours and patterns. Each band has a meaning depending on the colours and patterns that appear within it. Runners snap them up as a symbol of pride, a reminder of the inspiration and energy they’ve gained from their trip. A reminder of where they’ve been and how far they want to go.
Mo Farah wears one – to him it symbolises victory and reminds him of the goals he has set himself.
Choose your band, choose your story
But you don’t have to visit Iten to feel the power in those carefully crafted bands. Slip one on and you’ll feel that sense of community, the feeling that you’re part of something bigger, something stronger.
A global community of runners with one common aim: to achieve whatever they set out to do.
Because in Iten, listening to the stories of champions, eating the same food and spending time in the company of greatness, it’s easy to believe that anything is possible.
And there’s a little piece of that belief in every band.