Like many couples, Micah and Joyce Chelimo met online.
Except in their case, there were no personality profiles or swipe-rights. No match.com or eharmony.com.
More like flotrack.org or ncaa.com. And Micah wasn't even a knowing participant.
"It's a kinda funny story," Joyce said last week, back in Anchorage after her victory for UAA in last Saturday's Great Northwest Athletic Conference cross country championships.
"When I came to the U.S. in 2011 I went to school in Massachusetts for two years. In the fall of 2012 I was sitting at the computer with a friend watching the national championships.
"There was this Kenyan lady running, and she was really fast. Then I watched the men's race, and it was Micah."
On that November day at the NCAA Division II national cross country championships in Joplin, Missouri, Micah won the second of his four national titles for the Seawolves.
Like teammate Susan Tanui, who placed second that day in the women's race, Micah is from Kenya. So is Joyce. Watching the races online that day sparked a fire in Joyce, whose love of running – and her new-found knowledge that UAA had become a gathering point for fleet-footed Kenyans – drew her to Alaska.
By the spring of 2013, Joyce was in Anchorage, a new member of UAA's running teams.
Today, she is the reigning GNAC cross country champion, and she and Micah are the parents of a baby boy named Ethan, who will turn 1 in December.
Finding a mentor
Last week in a conference room at UAA's Alaska Airlines Center, Joyce had just finished telling the story about her first impression of her husband when Micah walked into the room.
"Did she say how she came here looking for me?" he kidded, a broad grin covering his face.
Joyce laughed, and then shared another detail not uncommon to online dating: What you see on a website isn't always what you get in real life.
"I thought he was really tall when I saw him running," she said, and this time it was her turn to smile.
Virtual Micah looked long and lean. Real Micah is lean, but only 5-foot-5.
It was not a deal-breaker.
Joyce – whose last name was Kipchumba when she first came to UAA as a sophomore – became roommates with Tanui and Micah. And that summer Micah, who was entering his final year of eligibility at UAA, became something like a coach, pressing Joyce to work hard, to improve her fitness.
"That is my nature," Micah said. "I was among the best runners and I always try to help other students to get better. So it started with me pushing her all the time, just making sure she's getting everything right.
"…I knew she was not the best runner yet and I knew the season's coming, so I made it my role to kind of mentor her."
A life-changing year
Joyce and Micah became a couple fairly quickly, which fit right into Micah's plans.
Back in 2009, he said, "I wrote somewhere that I wanted to marry in 2014."
2014 indeed became a banner year for Micah.
It was his final year of track for the Seawolves, and he won the 3,000 meters at the Division II national indoor track championships. He started his final outdoor track season impressively, breaking the GNAC record at 10,000 meters in 28 minutes, 37.75 seconds.
Then, while competing at the GNAC championships, he ruptured his Achilles tendon. His athletic career at UAA was over.
"2014 for sure was a big year for me personally," Micah said. "She broke the news in March (that a baby was on the way), and I knew I was going to graduate in May. At that point you just wonder what is next."
What came next for Micah was life-changing. Graduation with a degree in mechanical engineering. A fulltime job at the university as a facilities engineer with UAA Facilities and Campus Services. A wedding. A baby.
After the 2014 outdoor track season, Joyce redshirted for the next three seasons -- cross country in 2014, which happened when she was several months pregnant, and indoor and outdoor track in 2015, which happened when Ethan was a newborn.
She returned better than ever.
'I feel stronger, faster'
Joyce came to UAA with raw talent and untapped potential. Between Micah's mentoring and a UAA coaching staff that has produced numerous champions and taken many runners from good to great, she progressed quickly.
Before UAA, Joyce attended American International College, where as a freshman she placed 61st at the East Region cross country championships. A year later, at UAA, she placed second at the 2013 West Region championships and 13th at the national championships.
Joyce was about three months pregnant with Ethan during the 2014 outdoor track season, when she won the GNAC title at 10,000 meters and placed seventh in that event at the national championships. Then came her long baby-on-board break from training and competion.
This spring, Joyce returned to serious training. It wasn't easy. Her post-pregnancy weight was 154, almost 50 percent more than her pre-pregnancy weight of 108.
"It was tough. I almost quit," she said. "I have this weight on me and I'm on the treadmill and seeing my teammate running next to me so fast."
Micah, by then her husband but still her mentor, told her to keep running. He took on many household duties to let that happen.
(During the pregnancy, Micah did a lot of the cooking, and when Joyce had a craving, she knew how to ask for it: "I would tell him, 'Baby Ethan needs something today.' '')
Joyce ran the Heart Run in April, finishing 11th among women with a 5-kilometer time of 20 minutes, 18.5 seconds. A year earlier, on the track, she had clocked a personal-best 16:44.97 at 5,000 meters.
She increased her mileage over the summer and Micah continued to provide mentoring and motivation.
"He told me, 'Life is not easy. Next time it will get better.' I believe him and I believe in myself," Joyce said.
As the weeks and months passed, she improved quickly and dramatically.
At the Western Washington Invitational on Oct. 10 in Bellingham, Joyce placed second in the women's 6,000-meter race in 21:38. Two weeks later, running on the same course, she won the GNAC championship in 21:19, a 19-second improvement.
"People say when you have a baby you get better," she said. "I feel stronger. Faster. I am more competitive now."
Kenya beckons
The Chelimos work hard at being a family.
Micah works fulltime and still tries to run, although a knee injury keeps him from returning to race form. On weekdays he takes Ethan to daycare in the morning and is usually the one who picks him up in the afternoon.
Joyce, an accounting major due to graduate in the spring of 2016, is taking 12 credit hours. She works at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex 20 hours a week and trains about three hours a day.
"Obviously she has a lot of responsibility with the baby and school," UAA coach Michael Friess said. "Their child is the most important thing in the world to them, but it's nice to see her also say, hey, I've got my abilities and my goals, and I've got some things left to accomplish.
"She's running faster than she's ever run."
After the current cross country season, Joyce will have three seasons of NCAA eligibility left – the 2016 indoor track, outdoor track and cross country seasons. Then the Chelimos will begin thinking about a return to Kenya.
Joyce is the oldest of six children and was raised in Kapsowar, Kenya. Micah is the youngest of six and was raised in Kapkoi, Kenya. They are from neighboring provinces, "but we came thousands of miles to meet," Micah said.
"I have strong family roots," Micah said. "My mom is 71 and I am the baby. I want to be around her as she's aging.
"…I believe at some point we need to go home. When we were courting, dating, I asked her, 'When do you want to go home?' She told me, 'I firmly believe that I need to go home.' That was the thing I was looking for."
Computer dating, Part II
But Joyce has miles to run before her young family returns to Kenya.
Two races remain in the cross country season. The West Region championships are Saturday in Monmouth, Oregon, and both of the nationally ranked UAA men's team and women's team are expected to qualify for the Division II national championships.
Nationals are Nov. 21 in Joplin, Missouri – the same place they were in 2012, when Joyce, sitting in front of a computer screen, got her first glimpse of the man who would become her husband.
Micah hopes he will be able to travel to Joplin. But for the upcoming region championships, he'll be in Anchorage with Ethan.
He'll watch the race online.