She Ran With Kipchoge Before He Was Famous. Twenty Years Later, Kenya Changed Her Life Again

When midpack marathoner-physician Mary Austin decided to join a runners’ tour of Kenya in 2005, she couldn’t have imagined how the trip would reverberate through her life. 

She didn’t realize, for example, that she ran one morning with a guy named Eliud Kipchoge. Post-run, she shared steaming cups of hot tea with Kipchoge and his training mates. In fairness, no one else in the 15-strong American group recognized Kipchoge that day; it would be eight more years before the Kenyan great ran his first marathon.

Nor could Austin have foreseen that two decades later her cancer-therapy work with a teenage Kenyan-American boy would develop into a CBS Sunday Morning feature.

Austin’s special affinity for Kenya and Kenyans began when she spotted a small ad for a trip to Kenya in the back of Runner’s World magazine. It said: “Run with the Kenyans.” A fan of travel and meeting new people, Austin immediately thought: Why not?

In Kenya, thanks to the guiding hand of John Manners, a longtime friend of Kenyan running, the tour group met many illustrious runners. These included Kip Keino, Paul Tergat, Patrick Sang, Mike Boit, Moses Kiptanui, and Yobes Ondieki.

A Shirt With A Surprising Autograph

One morning, tour members traveled to Kipchoge’s longtime training camp in Kaptagat, about 15 miles outside Eldoret. The camp’s dozen or so Kenyan athletes divided themselves into packs to accompany the Americans on a rolling but easy-paced four- to five-mile run with expansive views of the Rift Valley. Afterward, over tea, the Kenyans answered questions about their training and lives.

At one point, Austin pulled out an extra shirt she had been carrying and asked the Kenyans to sign it with a marker. Back home, the shirt sat in a storage trunk until years later when Austin began reading stories about a Kenyan marathon star (Kipchoge) winning some of the biggest races, including two Olympic Marathons.

She wondered if this runner might have signed her shirt in Kaptagat, so she dug into the storage trunk. Sure enough, there was Kipchoge’s signature. “I was thrilled to show his autograph to my husband and daughters, because they had gotten so tired of me saying, ‘I might have run with him,’ every time we watched a top Kenyan runner on TV. They didn’t believe me, but the shirt proved them wrong.”

Austin was pulled into Dylan Mwaniki’s cancer treatment when his parents brought him from Kansas City to Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, where Austin worked for 15 years. In Kansas City, the Mwaniki family had been told that 14-year-old Dylan had at best 8 months to live.

Austin noticed right away that he was wearing a Kenyan bracelet, and quickly learned that Dylan and his mother were both runners. Dylan’s mother and father grew up in Kenya before emigrating to the U.S.

Austin told the Mwaniki family that Dylan’s stage 4 Renal Medullary Carcinoma was extremely serious, but also counseled them that chemotherapy and surgery offered a reasonable option. Through several years of treatment, Austin and the Mwanikis developed a growing friendship that extended to many social get-togethers. 

Cancer Treatment With A Strong Dose Of Friendship

“I genuinely enjoy getting to know my patients,” Austin says. “If I understand their goals and interests, I can be a better ally in their care.” 

She herself performed Dylan’s kidney surgery and watched with delight as chemotherapy successfully eliminated his other disease sites.

Austin urged Dylan to stay positive even during the darkest days of his long cancer treatment, and promised to attend his high school graduation when he reached that important finish line. The problem: When the day came, Mwaniki was back in Kansas City, and Austin and family had moved to Seattle. In fact, she was scheduled for “on call” duty the day of his graduation, May 17.

But she talked a colleague into switching dates with her, and flew to Kansas City without Dylan’s knowledge. As the CBS video shows, she was waiting quietly backstage after Dylan received his diploma.

Not expecting her, Dylan was initially unaware of her presence nearby. When he finally lifted his gaze and spotted her, his eyes almost popped in astonishment, and he pulled her into a long bear hug. As CBS’s Steve Hartman explained: “Although little was said in this moment, the firmness of their hug and the length of their embrace showed how much it meant to Dylan.”

Dylan says of Austin: “She’s like my partner in crime. I call her my second mom.”

Austin recalled a time when she worried if Dylan would ever reach this day. “It was pure joy for me to be there and share the celebration with Dylan and his family. He experiences his emotions to the fullest, and shares those experiences with everyone around him.”

This fall, Austin and Des Ficker Berry, a former top marathoner-triathlete, are planning to organize a  Shoe4Africa.org race in Seattle. The event will raise funds for health and hospital development in Kenya. And yes, Austin’s planning a return trip to Kenya, this time with her husband and their three daughters, all of whom are strong youth runners.

“It’s hard to put it into words, but the Kenyan people are some of the warmest, most genuine and humblest people I’ve ever met,” she says. “I want to do whatever I can to help them, particularly the Kenyan children.”