Edward Cheserek was born on 2 February 1994 in Chepteran, Iten, Kenya to a family of ethnic Marakwet subsistence farmers.

Cheserek grew up in Kapker hamlet,[4] Kapchebau village[5] in the hills of northeastern Elgeyo-Marakwet County, western Kenya, where the altitude is close to two miles above sea level.

The following year in 2010, the Nairobi-based missionary group Stadi za Maisha assisted him in obtaining a scholarship at Saint Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, United States.

[4] In the summer of 2010, Cheserek moved to the United States and began attending Saint Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey, later that fall.

At the 2014 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, on June 11, Cheserek unleashed a final 400 meter sprint in 53.17 seconds to win the Men's 10,000m race with a time of 28:30.18, a personal best.

After his phenomenal success on the collegiate scene, a 2015 The Wall Street Journal article described the 21-year-old Cheserek as the next great American distance runner.