Alicia is apparently hooked on running, she found a love for the sport while training for her film roll in Smokin’ Aces. She loves it so much that she even traveled to Greece to run the original marathon route.
Alicia said, “It kind of started with Smokin’ Aces because I was training in a way that I’d never trained before. I started doing a lot of running and I really got into that. I just ran a marathon - I did that in my spare time. I like to challenge myself. I did the original marathon, which was very exciting. The cardio side of it just put my mind at ease and after everything with Smokin’ Aces I just kind of woke up and thought, ‘I want to run a marathon!’ So we started preparing for it and I did. It was weird. It was the weirdest sensation.”

R&B star Alicia Keys is offering four scholarships to students who need financial help to attend university. The Grammy Award winner is offering $5,000 scholarships to students from four cities in the United States. She explains, “We’re just looking for standout students who are definitely college-bound and need a little bit of help financially to really achieve their dreams.”

The four scholarship winners will be selected in Jacksonville, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Atlanta, Georgia; and New York City’s Harlem neighborhood.

The Open Doors Scholars Program is part of From The Ground Up, a Jacksonville-based nonprofit organization started by Keys’ road manager, DJ Walton, who went to college in Jacksonville. In return for their scholarships, the students will represent the organization at school appearances and must perform community service each semester.