Wesley Korir in the C-J

More on Wesley Korir from Katya Cengel in the C-J...

A wall in the maintenance room [where he works] is covered with newspaper clippings exalting Korir's distance-running ability. In the center of the clippings is a map of Kenya, where Korir was born in a village in the west of the country. He ran barefoot on dirt roads until he was 18. He had no coach, just a mother who threatened punishment if he didn't run to the store fast enough. There was no running water and he had never ridden an escalator, let alone been on an airplane.

How he went from there to winning the 2009 Los Angeles Marathon, a Nike endorsement and a home in Louisville is as improbable as it is inspiring. It is as if Cinderella married her prince, but kept on cleaning houses....

Although he won $160,000 and a 2009 Honda Accord EX-L in L.A., he told Whitehouse the only reason he would quit is if Whitehouse left. His winnings also did not affect his choice of home, a small beige-paneled shotgun-style near campus that he had chosen before winning in L.A. and which he bought after he returned, said his “American mom,” Linda Stiles. It is this humility that really makes him distinctive, she said....

In Korir's mind, the credit belongs to God. It wasn't a conviction Korir always held....

...his feet alone wouldn't have carried him to Kentucky. For that, he needed intelligence, which is where God comes in. School wasn't Korir's thing. He avoided it as long as he could by hiding behind a bush and later, copying his cousin's work, even going so far as to buy a red pen to imitate the teacher's marks. When he finally went to class, he focused on entertaining his classmates, not studying. That is, until one day when he decided to pay attention during religious instruction and a pastor read a Bible passage that sounded too good to be true: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Curious if the instruction was really true, Korir decided to investigate. He began to ask God to help him to be a good child, to pass his exams and to respect his parents, and a strange thing happened — it worked....

The proof came during Korir's first marathon in Chicago in 2008, when he finished fourth despite starting five minutes behind other elite runners. In May 2009, he won the L.A. marathon with a time of 2:08:24, setting a course record. At this year's Chicago marathon, he placed fourth after battling cold weather. A promising start for a career that could last another 10 to 15 years, Mann said....