Distance runner Hellen Obiri is moving thousands of miles from her home in Kenya to pursue her marathon ambitions

By George Ramsay, CNN

Updated 0951 GMT (1751 HKT) August 10, 2022

Obiri won a silver medal in the 10,000 meters at last month's World Athletics Championships in Oregon.

(CNN)When Hellen Obiri moves 14,000 kilometers from Kenya to Colorado later this year, she already knows she'll miss some of the comforts of home.

That includes Kenyan food and the country's staple of ugali — a dense porridge made from maize flour.«Kenyans, we like eating ugali,» Obiri tells CNN Sport. «I will have to find where I'm going to make my Kenyan food over there (in the United States).»A good ugali may hold the keys to successfully fueling the next steps of her distance-running career. Obiri, a two-time world champion over 5,000 meters, is racing her first ever marathon in New York later this year, ahead of which she will team up with a new coach and new training group in Boulder, Colorado. It's common for distance runners to make the move from track to road racing towards the end of their careers, but less common to do so by moving halfway across the world in the way Obiri has planned. Read MoreAt the start of this year, the 32-year-old joined On Athletics Club (OAC), an elite team based in Boulder and led by former distance runner Dathan Ritzenhein. She hopes to move to the US next month in advance of racing the New York City Marathon on November 6.«We've been wanting to move to the USA for training and to live there, so for me it's not a difficult move,» Obiri, who will be based outside Kenya for the first time in her career, tells CNN. «I think as an athlete and for my family, I want to move there to acclimatize well as soon as possible… It will take me two weeks at least to get used to it and catch up with my training over there.»Obiri,