{"id":69030,"date":"2022-09-22T16:12:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T16:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run"},"modified":"2022-09-22T16:39:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T16:39:18","slug":"i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run","title":{"rendered":"I want to test my soul, says Helfert ahead of 160km run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Kenya. <\/strong><\/span>After missing out on the 2022 Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa, Czech Republic expatriate David Helfert is planning to fulfill his ambitions with a 160-km run this Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Helfert, an administrator at the Czech Embassy in Nairobi, said he has always wanted to feature in such a long-competitive race and could still feature in one in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy goal was to compete at the Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa this year but that did not happen,\u201d said Helfert.<\/p>\n<p>The 2022 Comrades Ultra Marathon was held on August 22, from Petermaritz to Durban, covering 89km.<\/p>\n<p>This Friday, however, Helfert has set the bar quite high and is bubbling with confidence that he will conquer the 100-mile run.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to challenge myself. I want to test my soul. I want to see what my limits are. I want to build a bulletproof mindset,\u201d said Helfert, who has since run 117km on the same Nairobi, Magadi route.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love this route. I have run there with some friends before and I love it very much. It is a quiet area, where I can connect with nature.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his upcoming challenge, Helfert intends to start his run in Nairobi on Friday at noon, and run up to Corner Baridi, alone. At nightfall, he will have a car behind him up to Magadi, about 80km.<\/p>\n<p>In the morning (Saturday), he will head for Nguruman\u2014 where he will seek to finish before darkness.<\/p>\n<p>Helfert, who has been in Kenya since January 2019, revealed he has been into sports since his formative years, featuring in basketball, weightlifting, Ironman triathlon and riding, in addition to running. However, he never got to professional levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI played club basketball at Kbley in my teenage years and even though I never went professional, it was very competitive,\u201d said Helfert, 46.<\/p>\n<p>He observed that when he came to Kenya, he realized the sport is like the national sport and even the friends he has made in his time in the country are into running.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInitially, it never dawned on me that I could run upon places like Elephant Hill, Kinangop and Suswa. Running was an excellent approach to understanding Kenya,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, I am so much into running and have even scaled down on my gym and biking time. I do at least 20km a day before I go to work and during the weekends, I do some longer runs or some hill climbs, covering about 500-550km a month.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Helfert has been in Africa for close to a decade and has seen him fall in love with the continent and his stay in Kenya has, therefore, been fulfilling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Kenya, there is almost everything; hills, valleys, mountains, deserts, savannah, beaches and the weather is usually conducive for whatever outdoor activity one intends to undertake,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn fact, I have traveled all around Kenya on a bike. I have been to Lake Victoria, Amboseli, Malindi, Marsabit, Isiolo and Iten,\u201d said Helfert, adding: \u201cIt could be more than 100,000km.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Helfert, a teetotaller, said he usually does the trips by himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot very many people would appreciate my kind of schedule. Some may opt to stay out late into the night but that\u2019s not my way,\u201d he said, adding that his day starts at 3 am and concludes between 8 pm and 9 pm.<\/p>\n<p>Name: David Helfert<\/p>\n<p>Age: 46<\/p>\n<p>Nationality: Czech<\/p>\n<p>Education: Masters in Economics<\/p>\n<p>Longest Run: 117km<\/p>\n<p>Time in Kenya: Since 2019<\/p>\n<p>Scope of work: Administrator at Czech Republic Embassy<\/p>\n<p>Mantra: To be present<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\">Kenya<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Kenya. After missing out on the 2022 Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa, Czech Republic expatriate David Helfert is planning to fulfill his ambitions with a 160-km run this Friday. Helfert, an administrator at the Czech Embassy in Nairobi, said he has always wanted to feature in such a long-competitive race and could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":69029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[6857,7003,544],"class_list":["post-69030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-kenya","tag-kenya"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I want to test my soul, says Helfert ahead of 160km run - kenya<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After missing out on the 2022 Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa, Czech Republic expatriate David Helfert is planni ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I want to test my soul, says Helfert ahead of 160km run\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After missing out on the 2022 Comrades Ultra Marathon in South Africa, Czech Republic expatriate David Helfert is planni ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"kenya\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-09-22T16:12:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-09-22T16:39:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2022\/09\/postQueueImg_1-632c8f6ae0547.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"666\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"I want to test my soul, says Helfert ahead of 160km run\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-09-22T16:12:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-22T16:39:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\"},\"wordCount\":602,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/kenya\/sites\/28\/2022\/09\/postQueueImg_1-632c8f6ae0547.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Kenya\",\"Kenya\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/kenya\/all-news\/i-want-to-test-my-soul-says-helfert-ahead-of-160km-run\",\"name\":\"I want to test my soul, says Helfert ahead of 160km run - 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