By Kyra Hill
On July 18, 2018, Write on Sports interviewed Vincent Kibunja, a cross country runner at Goshen College. Vincent Kibunja was born and raised in Kenya located in East Africa, he did soccer and track there. At first, he thought running was boring because he did soccer and that was his passion, but then he did the more he loved it. Vincent Kibunja went to New York at Monroe College, but it wasn’t working out there. He choose to go to Goshen College and he would always tell the track coach at Goshen, “God is great.”
Kibunja got hurt when he was in college and there was a cross country meet. Kibunja had a feeling that he had to be there with his team, he cheered them on, he motivated his team, even though he was hurt he still needed to cheer them on. He cheered them on and said, “yes you can do it believe in yourself you can’t die but keep going.” They are his team and even though he couldn’t run he still wanted to be there for them. In East Africa, he had to do his jobs that his parents have him do and he went by this when he lived in Kenya, “you have to work the farms, you have to work in the fields, you have to work in school, and for me I also had to train for running.”
Kibunja’s first race was a half marathon, he hadn’t ever run a half marathon before, not in practice or anything. There were these guys going fast and he wanted to give up and just walk the rest of the way. Instead he thought, “instead of giving up and walking it would be better to jog the rest of the way, you can’t die and you can’t give up.” Kibunja has been running for nine years, his slow pace is 7:10 per mile. Kibunja trains mentally and physically because, “you train to be fast but when you get tired you have to think to yourself and keep going.”
Kibunja fastest mile time is 4 minutes 57 seconds, but he wants to train and his goal is to get his mile time down to 4 minutes and 15 seconds. He runs 70 miles a week. Once in college, he wanted to get 70 miles in a week but he knew he was really busy on Sunday and he couldn’t get many miles in. On Saturday, he ran the most he ever ran before and it was 15 miles at once. When Kibunja was living in Kenya, he ran six miles to school and six miles from school. Vincent Kibunja’s overall goal is, “one day I want to see myself in the world champs and feel the medal around my neck.”