THE CHALLENGER

AFTER YEARS AS A RUNNER-UP ON THE WORLD MARATHON STAGE, EVANS CHEBET HAS BEEN ON A WINNING STREAK. CAN HE UNSEAT HIS HERO?

- BILL DONAHUE

BEFORE HE WON the Boston Marathon, before he won New York, and long before he built his mother a new home, Evans Chebet rented a small one-room house for $12 a month about 45 miles south of Kondabilet, the tiny mountain village in Kenya where he grew up. The home was sparsely furnished with a stool and an old table. Chebet cooked outdoors-usually sukuma wiki (similar to collard greens) and ugali, a traditional cornmeal porridge-and in the long hours between training sessions, he sat outside and stared at the red dirt and the evergreen forest of the Kenyan highlands, reflecting on his luck.

It was 2007. Chebet was a 19-year-old aspiring distance runner, and he'd come to seek his fortune. He was living outside Kaptagat, a town of about 2,500 people, hoping to work his way into Kenya's talent pipeline. Many Kenyans who race internationally, including marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge, live in spartan high-altitude training camps in Kenya's Great Rift Valley, sleeping in tiny unadorned rooms and sharing housekeeping chores and communal meals. Chebet was trying to gain entry to a camp run by Rosa & Associates, an Italian sports management company.

Although he grew up with few financial resources, he was now-thanks to an uncle's largesse-rubbing shoulders with running's greats. "I was so happy to be there," he says.

Chebet was hardly a shining prospect. He'd never raced on the track. Indeed, he'd scarcely raced at all, and he was resigned to waiting outside the Rosa camp, and tagging along on the athletes' brisk morning workouts. "I'd start out with the front runners, trying to show my talent," he says. "But I'd get dropped."