Lanni Marchant to speak at rural Ontario race run by elite couple Tarah and Wesley Korir

The usually quiet roads outside of Waterloo, Ont. will be a lot more busy this weekend with a few notable elite runners present for an annual fall race.

Lanni Marchant is heading to the small town of St. Jacobs, Ont. this weekend to be the guest speaker at the dinner the night before the Harvest Half race. The half-marathon is run by elite running couple Tarah and Wesley Korir.

For runners keen on racing the gravel roads of St. Jacobs and St. Clements, the pre-race spaghetti dinner will be a great source of motivation on the eve of the half-marathon. Guests attending the race run by Tarah and Wesley Korir (the winner of the 2012 Boston Marathon) will be lucky to hear Marchant’s talk just weeks after coming home from racing her historic double in Rio.

At this year’s Olympic Games, Marchant ran in the now iconic women’s 10,000m in which a new world record was set on the first day of athletics at the 2016 Games. Two days later, she returned to run again in the women’s marathon. As the holder of the women’s Canadian marathon record (2:28), Marchant is a well-known figure in Canadian running.

The Harvest Half isn’t your average road race either. Run on the country roads of small farming towns in the township of Wellesley, Ont. (just outside of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.), it certainly has a personality that is hard to replicate. First off, the setting itself offers gorgeous countryside scenery (though punishing hills) and fresh air. As it takes place in Mennonite Country, it also wouldn’t be out of the norm for runners to spend part of their race running alongside a horse and buggy.

But it’s also the history of this event that makes it so special. Tarah and Wesley Korir met while running for the University of Louisville, got married in 2010 and are now based out of Kenya. While Wesley is from Kenya, Tarah is from St. Clements, Ont. For her, this race is run on her old hometown running routes. For Wesley, the country roads (often dirt or gravel) remind him of the terrain run back at home. When he visits Canada, he runs there frequently.

But most important to the couple is the cause behind the race. The two started the charity Kenya Kids Foundation Canada– a charity which raises funds to better the education of Kenyan children. The money goes towards school supplies, scholarships and libraries.

The race is set for 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24. Marchant will speak the night before at 6:30 p.m.

Last year, Tarah Korir made her debut in the marathon distance running it alongside Marchant at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.