It's not every day you get to hang out with an Olympian. It's even rarer still to hang out with a medalist. I mean, you might see them, or even get an autograph at a track meet, but you get limited access and a handshake. So the fact that we found ourselves hanging out with not one, but two Olympic medalists on the same day was pretty crazy.
We started out by watching Catherine Ndereba (pronounced without the "n") run the 10,000m at the National Championships. 
Catherine was the silver medalist in the marathon 4 years ago at the Athens Olympics, and will be representing Kenya again this summer in Beijing. On an interesting side note, 
both Catherine and her husband Anthony have "day jobs" working as prison guards - it turns out that many elite Kenyan runners are sponsored by the prison system, the armed forces, or the police. Anyway, we talked to Anthony (see photo on left) before the race, and he told us Catherine was just using it as a workout. Personally, I don't know why you would want to do a fast 10km race in the heat, at altitude, for a workout. But, I'm not an Olympic marathon medalist, so I will defer to Catherine's judgment. In any case, Catherine succeeded in hitting her goal time and almost won the race, but ended up getting out-kicked during the final 200m by one of her Kenya Prisons teammates and finishing 2nd (see photo above; Catherine is in the blue shorts).
After Catherine's race was over, we headed to "Upper Hill" in Nairobi, where the 
Kenyan Olympic Committee has its headquarters. Outside the HQ building is a sculpture depicting the steeplechase, an event Kenya has dominated for years. Our reason for visiting was to have tea with Dr. Kipchoge Keino, head of Kenya's Olympic Committee. For the non-runners out there, Kip shocked the world by winning the 1500m at the '68 Mexico City Olympics over then mile world record holder (and now former Congressman) Jim Ryun of Kansas. 
Kip also won a silver in the 5000m in '68, then came back 4 years later to win a gold in the steeplechase and a silver in the 1500m (behind a Finn who later admitted to blood doping). So yeah, he was pretty ok back in the day, I think. Kip has managed to stay busy since, founding an orphanage and a primary school (with plans to break ground for a secondary school later this year), managing a tea farm, and building a high altitude Olympic training center near his hometown of Eldoret. Anyway, Kip graciously set aside several hours to chat with us over tea about Athletes in Action's mission, 
and even sent us on our way afterwards with Kenyan National Olympic Committee ties. The following day, Kip recognized several of us as we arrived at the National Championships, and waved us over so that he could escort us into the national stadium via the VIP entrance and seat us next to the area where Kenyan President Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga were going to be sitting to watch the meet. Talk about hospitality!
After our meeting with Kip, we headed back to David Nyamu's house (head of AIA in Kenya) 
for dinner with Catherine Ndereba and her husband Anthony. Catherine & Anthony are both originally from Nyeri (near the base of Mt. Kenya), but didn't meet until they were graduating from the prison guard university. They are both strong Christians, and have a vision for a training center in the Ngong Hills (where 5x World XC champion Paul Tergat hails from and trains) after Catherine's career is over. In addition, Catherine has helped AIA produce a DVD of Christian Olympic medalists and how their faith impacts their athletic pursuits. 
Catherine is an amazingly humble person, with an incredible smile. After dinner, as we sat around and chatted, Catherine autographed a bunch of photo postcards for us, and Anthony added his trademark signature as well - "Husband." Actually, Anthony was a pretty darn good runner in his own right; he just wasn't an Olympian. Anthony's absolutely hilarious, and has kept popping up all over Nairobi wherever we've been, kind of like 'Where's Waldo?'. 
For example, we first met him outside a grocery store near the airport, then bumped into him multiple times at the National Championships (he even came and sat with us), and finally ran into him outside the Nairobi West Prison (he was dressed in his uniform, headed to work as a guard) a couple of days after we had dinner with Catherine & him. An amazing couple, both on fire for Christ.