Anthony Kiai, former MP for Mukurweini and Chairman of the Urban Swaras, is 57 years old — "turning 58," he clarifies, "half a century plus, and still clocking years."

He says it with the easy confidence of someone who has made peace with time. Not resigned to it. Running through it.

It is worth pausing on that image: a sitting Member of Parliament, a lawyer, a published author, lining up at a start line before recreational running had a community, before anyone knew what a gel was, before it was something people put on Instagram.

He has been doing this for over twenty years.

Nobody made him.

The story begins in college, where Kiai dabbled in taekwondo, swimming, and running — fitness by habit, not obsession. After graduating, he kept at it informally, running routes around Highrise with a neighbour named Kepha Ogeankwo: out past Forces Memorial, along to Carnival and back, about seven kilometres, give or take.

It was unstructured. Joyful. Unreliable.

"Today we run. When it rains, you don't run. Anything."

When Kepha migrated to the US in 2005, Kiai was left without a running partner. He describes it simply: "I became an orphan of a sort."

But by then, he had already done something most recreational runners still haven't — run a full marathon. In 2004, alone in a cotton t-shirt, with almost no proper training, no gels, no plan beyond getting to the finish line.

The marathon showed him things.

The 2004 Standard Chartered Marathon is a story he tells with relish.

The course started behind Vigilance House, looped through the city, pushed out along Uhuru Highway past Nyayo Stadium, turned at Firestone on Enterprise Road, and came back through the Intercontinental to the finish in front of KICC. A full 42 kilometres on roads without pavements, through traffic, in a cotton shirt.

He arrived at the start line looking, by his own description, like "a heavyweight boxer." The marathon legend Paul Tergat stopped and stared — visibly puzzled to find him there.

"Maybe he thought I was lost or something."

He wasn't lost. He was undertrained, under-fuelled, and thoroughly unprepared — but he was exactly where he meant to be.

At 25 kilometres, he was still on pace. By 30, the legs began to fade. By kilometre 35, they stopped cooperating altogether.

Somewhere along Enterprise Road, he spotted a familiar figure just ahead — Caroli Omondi, now the MP for Suba South, then a PA to Raila Odinga. He locked onto the silhouette and started chasing the shadow.

The runners he had pegged as slower were suddenly hovering behind him. Then, gradually, they began to edge past. “The next thing, they were ahead of me”.

He walked. He bargained. He pushed.

He finished. Eventually.

By the time he crossed the line, the race had already packed up. The timing mats were gone. The medals had been cleared away. A police officer looked at him with the quiet disbelief reserved for people who have clearly made questionable life choices.

Kwani watu hawana kazi ya kufanya?

“There was nobody there to welcome this great hero,” he says, laughing at the memory.

That day, he swore off marathons completely.

He was back the following year.

This time, he ran the half marathon.

And he hasn’t missed a Standard Chartered Marathon since.

Around 2013, a former campus classmate — Ajaa, then chairman of the Urban Swaras — crossed his path on a run.

Kiai had been looking for what the estate runs couldn't give him: structure, consistency, people who shared the same passion.

"I needed a place where I could run regularly. I needed a place where I could network. I needed people of my caliber who had the same passion."

He found it.

He has been a Swara for over thirteen years. He is now the club's chairman. The mantra of the Urban Swaras — Running is Living — is one he does not quote lightly. He has tested it.

In 2020, Anthony Kiai nearly died.

COVID hit him hard. He was admitted to ICU, taken in directly. One day, he was in a coma.

"Have you ever woken up and you're like — did I die and resurrect? Because you can't recall what happened, but you can see things happening."

The numbers, when the doctor read them out, were stark.

His haemoglobin was below the threshold required for survival.

His lungs had been destroyed — 51% capacity gone. He was breathing on 49%.

"The doctor said: we have never seen this. It is very unusual for somebody to be at below half lung capacity and still survive."

Then the doctor asked him a question.

Do you ever run?

Kiai told him: yes. Quite often. In fact, the Saturday before he was admitted, he had done 21 kilometres — and it was during that run that he first sensed something was wrong. His body simply wasn't responding.

The doctor nodded.

Running saved your life.

He says it plainly, without drama. Because it is simply true.

The ICU did not slow him down. It clarified things.

"You think you have made it in life. And then life humbles you in such a way that it reminds you — nothing beats good health."

He remembers lying in that bed, assisted with basic bodily functions by nurses young enough to be his children, the fear of leaving his children as orphans not abstract but present and very near.

"So after that I said — I will run to the grave if need be."

He means it. Not as a figure of speech. As a commitment.

Here is where Kiai's story separates itself from the personal and becomes something larger.

Leadership, for him, has never existed in a vacuum. And running, it turns out, is one of the most visible things a public figure can do.

In his constituency, Mukurweini — a region with among the highest rates of non-communicable diseases in Kenya, including diabetes and hypertension — he has made physical movement a deliberate part of his public work. Runs in the constituency. The Karindi marathon, created to identify and nurture youth running talent. Events designed to draw people over 40 into movement, gently but firmly.

"We don't push them so hard. But we make them run. And as they do, there is a medical benefit that they get."

He says this the way he says many things — matter-of-fact, a little wry, like it is simply obvious.

In Parliament, too, he became known simply as the runner. Fellow MPs noticed. The current president even joined him for a run once — “even though we are not on the same political side,” Kiai says with a slight smile.

On another occasion, he showed up to a meeting with a senior political figure after a long training run. A colleague looked at him and joked, “Why do you even need a car?”

He took it as a compliment.

The Berlin Marathon last year was his first World Major.

He finished in 4:44.

And in the wake of it — after his COVID story became known among fellow runners — the messages came in.

"Over ten people told me: if you can do a full marathon at 4:44 after COVID, then I can do a full marathon."

He laughs when he describes how he must look to people who don't know him: "I don't look like a runner. I'm a bit more of a heavyweight boxer."

Which is exactly the point.

People who think running is not for them — who do not have the build, the history, the lungs — watch a man like Anthony Kiai and rethink the calculation. He has inspired fellow Swaras to register for marathons this season. Not by giving speeches. Just by showing up. By finishing.

"If the chairman can do it," they say.

At 57, his body has not fully recovered from COVID. He has not hit a 5:30 min/km pace since. For a time, even a short run left him breathless and defeated.

He has pushed through it. He now runs comfortably at 6:30. He occasionally hits the fives. He has stopped chasing the runner he was before.

"My goal is to get to the start line and to the finish line. Whatever time I take in between — it doesn't matter."

He is eyeing Comrades at 60. Two Oceans sooner. Sydney is on the horizon. Wherever he travels — Washington, Berlin, Rwenzori — he checks if there's a race that weekend and registers.

"Running has really taken me places."

He pauses.

"And I've explored this country through running in ways that my official duties never could."

The Nairobi to Kenol Intertown run is coming — 56 kilometres. He will be there.

Because that is what he does.

He finds the start line. He moves. And somewhere behind him, quietly, without instruction, others start moving too.