Wed 29 Oct 2025 • Nick Kershaw
Rwanda, Jordan, Guatemala, Nepal: What It’s Really Like to Run an Impact Marathon
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Step inside the Impact Marathon experience in Rwanda Jordan Guatemala and Nepal. Run for charity, meet local partners, and travel with purpose.
It is hard to describe an Impact Marathon until you have lived one.
I say that as a man who has lived the experience twenty three times. I have missed only two in ten years. One fell to travel restrictions in 2021. One I gave gladly to the birth of my daughter. Nothing has dulled the pull to be there each time. In truth, my love for the authenticity of these weeks has only grown stronger.
We do not simply stage events. We craft them. The word immersive is on every brochure, and it is misused practically every time, it has lost meaning through over use. Instead, I want to share with you three pillars that shape the travel side of the Impact Marathon experience for me: Menus. Medals. Memory moments.
The projects sit at the heart of our purpose and our fundraising. I am not writing about them here. Today is about the travel with purpose that surrounds the work and holds it in place.
an immersive week. a magnificent menu: the Impact Marathon experience.
Food tells a story. Every meal offers an insight into the history, culture, and values of a community. Even the
ingredients give insight into the topography and the local climate. More than that though, eating together connects people, the sharing of food is powerful. That is why you will never sit down and order from a menu at one of our races. I want you fully in the moment, no decisions, no preferences, just connecting with others around the table: talking, sharing, experiencing it all together. In Jordan in 2022 we ate lunch at a youth centre run by and for a refugee community. The women cooked for an extraordinary lunch, that spread across an entire room to fit in all the food. Flatbread warm from the oven. Bowls of lentils and chickpeas. Aubergine roasted and dressed with tahini. Chicken spiced with sumac. A salad bright with parsley and lemon. Za atar and olive oil within easy reach. Mint tea poured with a smile that said you are welcome here.
That lunch taught more about Palestinian culture and the world from the perspective of a refugee community than any lecture, museum visit, or news article ever can. It offered a simple lesson in diyafa, the duty to host. It gave context to the headlines and a face to the word refugee. It is one of my favourite ever meals with Impact Marathon because the food told the story, not a single word was needed.
medals that move: what it’s like to run a marathon abroad that goes beyond the finish line.
From the start we chose to keep our medals local and handmade. This is hard work, it is not the easy option. We could design stunning medals, have them made in the Far East, or by a machine here in the UK and ship them over. They would look cool, they would be cheaper, but they would not tell a story. Each year we look for a craft that belongs to the community. In Rwanda one of our partner charities had begun a women’s co operative and had created a small shop ready for customers. We asked them to make our medals. As the shop was en-route to the race, we visited so the runners could see where the work was done and meet the women. We did not know it would be the first time they had real customers through the door.
The moment built by itself. Runners bought from the women, little gifts to take home for themselves, for family. Laughter rose. Songs began. This was an entirely unexpected outpouring of joy, unplanned, un-choreographed, just real. I was at home with my very pregnant wife, watching WhatsApp videos come through and wiping my eyes. We had planned to tell the story of the medals, connect the runners to the fact they will have an entirely unique, handmade medallion placed around their neck at that finish line. That was special in itself, but we had accidentally opened a door to something larger. The celebrations and dancing of a group of women now in business, now seen, now getting to feel their hard work paying off. Wow. I just loved seeing this place out and hearing how intensely special that moment turned out to be.
travel with purpose: stories of running for charity in Rwanda, Jordan, Guatemala & Nepal
We try to sculpt moments that stay with you. Not shows. Not stunts. Moments that hold still inside you because they are real. This means finding a viewpoint and re-routing our race to get there - we did this once in Guatemala when the lava was flowing heavily, it added a few hundred metres, but runners got to actually stand next to red hot flowing lava! Even the most dedicated Garmin-enthusiast couldn't argue with that decision.
Wadi Rum is a famous desert. So famous that I was unsure whether to host our race there, it felt too 'obvious. But it is also vast enough to offer solitude if you go far enough and if you have the right family to guide you. We did not choose the popular camps. We drove as far south as we could, to a quiet corner and found Suleiman and his son Rashid, whose welcome feels like kin. They host our runners as if each arrival is personal. Our race starts and finishes at their camp, and their team set the course, and man the stations. The route itself goes further south again. In three editions we have seen many camels, one camel herder, and no other people. Not a single other human.
The route is tough and honest. Sand that gives a little. Rock that demands respect. A plain that slides away into the mountains of Saudi Arabia. A dune that invites you to let go and run. If you fall you lose only pride and gain a good story. We speak often about treasure every step, it is the core of my race briefing. We try to build courses that make it easy to actually do that. Where the pain builds, but each time you look up - wow, there you are. In a place you could not get to any other way.
So what is it like to run an Impact Marathon?
These three elements give you the feel.
It is highly personal. I pay attention to every person and to every detail of the week. I also leave space for the unexpected. Plans can change to suit the group. We take thoughtful risks. We go to places a standard trips will not know about.
We choose our people with care. Charity partners who build sustainable work that outlasts us. Camp owners who drive beside you shouting at you like they're training a camel, but then will want to run the last kilometre beside you. Communities that want to break bread and share the beauty of eating together, who tell their story in actions not just words.
It is easy to book a nice restaurant, a well reviewed bed, and a shiny medal shipped in from far away. We go another way. We go all in. That is the craft. That is why the Impact Marathon experience is worth your time. It is running for charity that feels like relationship. It is travel with purpose that feels like privilege.
You come for the run. You leave with names, places, and stories that keep working on you long after the finish line. And you probably sign up for the next Impact location soon after you've gotten home.
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Explore Impact Marathons in Jordan, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Nepal. Discover what it is really like to run a marathon abroad, and why it matters.
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