Words Rachel Ifans
Kemi Mafe lives in London, although with parents and immediate family in Nigeria, she’s often visiting them in Lagos. She fell into running just a few years ago, in 2016, while studying for a PhD in renewable energy. “It was actually by accident”, she explains. “Back then, I was really stressed out by my PhD work and I used to go for really, really long walks. This one day I think I was gone for two hours and I suddenly thought to myself, ‘Hold on a minute, all this time I’ve spent walking I could have run it, done it in half the time and got back to my work’”.
She laughs, remembering, “Literally, that was it. I started running around the block first, and then increasing the distance. I also started looking for run clubs in the area where I lived. I joined Sweatshop, Adidas Runners, Run Dem Crew. I was running all over the place!” Kemi recalls how her love soon turned to something else. “I became obsessed with running – it was all I was doing and I wasn’t doing my PhD work.