Errol Chen is one of the growing list of foreign athletes training in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County ahead of international marathons across the world.
The Taiwan international will be training in the high altitude area for two months as he prepares to compete at the 2019 Xiamen International marathon to be staged on 6th January in China.
Chen who competed in the 2014 Kass International marathon in Eldoret after training in the region went ahead to clinch the Discover Addu half marathon.
With his preparations to compete at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Chen was optimistic that his Iten training will bear fruits in Olympics.
“I want to make the marathon for my country at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. I want to improve on my time because am training with great Kenyan marathoners in the region and that will make me improve on time and speed,” said Chen.
He says that he trained in Kenya two years ago before turning a professional athlete. He admitted that Kenya and Iten is the best place for marathon training and training will improve his running career.
“Iten is the home of champions especially marathon and off course meeting with greats like Eliud Kipchoge, the world marathon record holder motivates me and I want to be like him,” said Chen.
He added: “Am training for 2020 Olympics though I still have a long way to go though they say that train hard and win easily and that is what am doing up to now. And training here, I try my best to run infront of others at the start and finish behind but I always try to finish no matter how hard the course will be.”
He says that he wants to runs at least 2:20 for me to make it to Olympics especially for the Taiwanese who don’t really run marathons unlike Kenya where they run under 2:05.
“Taiwan government doesn’t care about me. I do some savings and when I realize I have saved enough, I travel to Kenya to train. I want to make my own history to run in Taiwan as having competed in Olympic marathon,” Concluded Chen.