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Traveling Runner
Traveling Runner: Discovering Kenya
By Steve Nearman
September/October 2011
My run begins in a valley, climbing into the Cherangani Hills and up a long series of undulating dirt roads. As the uneven red-clay road rises into the sky, the vehicular traffic nearly ceases, substituted with chance meetings with cows, donkeys, and other speed bumps dotting the road.
This is the training grounds for some of the world’s greatest marathoners, in the hills that sprout out of the famed Rift Valley. It is not difficult to get pulled in by the lush greenery, eerie silence, and of course, those crazy street animals.
I cop a fairly slow pace, taking in the sights and scents and getting caught up in the moment, maneuvering the switchbacks and continuing to climb. I imagine I am a Kenyan and there is no distance or pace I cannot maintain.
As I look down from a cliff, thousands of feet into the valley, my breath is taken away. Not from the scenery or the strong sun beating down on me but from struggling for oxygen at more than 9,000 feet. And I am not done climbing yet.
The run was part of a recent trip to Kenya, an invitation by Nike and legendary coach Dr. Gabriele Rosa to report on the 20th anniversary of the Discovery Run program. Back in 1991, Dr. Rosa and two-time Boston Marathon champion Moses Tanui teamed up with Italian apparel-maker Fila to develop Kenyan distance runners.
The Discovery Run was nothing more than an all-Kenya tryout, with those runners performing well being invited to one of Rosa’s half-dozen training camps, now sponsored by Nike.
The concept proved ingenious, with Kenyans not only winning every major marathon in the world, but dominating the podium as well, and not just in the marathon distance either.
My week-plus trip began with the Discovery Run Cross Country races, which varied from distances of 500 meters for the kids to 12 kilometers for the men. In the youth events, it was tough to determine who was having more fun--the kids running or Dr. Rosa cheering them on.
In America, our cross country courses are spread out over miles of wooded trails or grassy parks. At Discovery, the course consisted of a crisscross maze back and forth and back and forth in a fairly small open dusty field.
And the races were attended by some of Kenya’s most respected distance running stars like Olympians Kip Keino and Daniel Komen.
After seeing the Kenyans run, now it was time to observe them as they trained. Of course, I had in mind what many runners have in mind, to try to find out what makes these super-humans run so fast over such long distances.
This is what I am pondering in the Cherangani Hills. An hour before, a couple of dozen Kenyans, some of whom have run as fast as 2:04 marathons, have been driven down in pickup trucks from their training camp at Kapsait Peak for a 15-mile tempo run.
The route climbs more than 3,000 feet, from an elevation of approximately 6,500 feet at the river to nearly 10,000 at the top. A few Kenyan women are dropped off higher into the hills, their distance merely 10 kilometers back to the top.
Fortunately, I am dropped five kilometers from the finish. For a sea-level baby who has always lived at sea level, 8,000 to 10,000 feet of altitude with little acclimation is quite difficult. I realize that and thus my fairly slow jog up the hill.
About a mile into my run, I suddenly hear a sound coming fast from behind me, a swooshing noise like a truck approaching. Before I can turn, more than two dozen Kenyan runners overtake me and in a heartbeat they are gone up the road. I concede that it is better to let them disappear into the clouds than risk altitude sickness. Especially since it took us nearly three hours to get to the start of the run from downtown Eldoret, which is where I suspect was the closest hospital.
I spent more than a week on the inside of the world’s most successful marathon training program. I spoke with athletes like 2010 ING New York City Marathon victor Edna Kiplagat, 2:04 marathoners Duncan Kibet and James Kwambai, four-time Boston winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, and 2008 Olympic 800-meter champion Janeth Jepkosgei. I shadowed their coaches including, of course, Dr. Rosa but also his head coach, Claudio Berardelli. We spent two solid hours in his SUV following dozens of his athletes on a hard 20-miler on an out-and-back dirt road talking about a variety of topics.
I discovered that the Kenyans’ secret to success is quite simply hard focused training with little distraction.
My last task before flying back to America was to report on the Discovery Run half marathon. Seven loops around downtown Eldoret at 7,000 feet elevation. Kwambai took the leaders through 10 kilometers in 29:07 and the top 15 broke 1:04:30. More runners were “discovered” to keep Dr. Rosa and company in business for a long time to come.
Steve Nearman is a long-time running writer and event director of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon on October 2, 2011. A regular contributor to WRR, Nearman last wrote a feature on the barefoot running debate in our May/June 2010 issue.