Hi

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog. Hopefully you will find it interesting. I just wanted to write a little about what I learned from my ten weeks living in Iten, Kenya. Spicifically what I learned from Kenyans.

Age is only a number

Throughout the world different cultures behave differently. In western Africa there is little importance put on recording dates of birth. Until recent years there was little of no effort put into recording birth dates of the kids born. Not many kids would have been born in Hospitals anyway so there would be no official record of a birth anywhere.

Kalenjin's use the following. {All courtesy of my mate Ciaran who speaks Swahili and Kalenjin}

Kip - boy; che/je - girl.

Korir - early morning around dawn

Koech - morning 8-9 ish

Bet - during the day

Rop - during rainy season

Mutai - late, ie born a day later than expected. (Mutai means tomorrow)

Chumba - means white person so if you are born in a hospital you could be called Kipchumba because you're born like a white man

Kogey - caused his mother a lot of bother during the birth

Lagat - night time

So when you apply for identification in Kenya, they ask you your D.O.B., you can literally be any age you want. Whatever D.O.B. you tell them will be your D.O.B.. Asbel Kiprop passport says he was born in 1989. I met his brother Victor on a few occasions in Iten and his passport says he is older than Asbel. In reality Asbel is the older of the two, they don't try to hide this.

Relax

The Kenyans know how to relax. They have the luxury of having nothing else to do all day. If it's raining in the morning they take the morning off. They don't worry about missing a run or a session because of the weather. This is something I would never consider in Edinburgh. If I didn't run in the rain, I'd hardly run throughout the winter. They love a mid-day sleep, they just love to lay around and sleep all day.

I guess it's easier to relax when you have no distraction. I found myself sleeping a lot more and it helps a lot. Most of the athletes don't have distractions like TV or Internet. When Linet Masai was shown her fan page on Facebook she just laughed as she doesn't even have a Facebook page herself.

A lot of the athletes I met, took Sunday as rest day, if they did train it's simply just a light jog. In Ireland or the UK this isn't possible. Sunday is the one day where most people will try do a long run as they are off work.

Many Kenyans don't know why they do specific sessions. They are unfamiliar with the science behind the training. There are very few Kenyan athletes who don't have a European Coach or Agent competing at the top level. It's beginning to change now, but in the past the Kenyan athletes had the raw materials but lacked the knowhow.

When Ciaran was in Kenya in 2008, he told an athlete, he had a fartlec session to do in the afternoon, and the athlete said "but fartlec was in the morning". He couldn't comprehend you could do it at a different time. If his European coach told him to do it in the afternoon he would think it's normal, but he was told to always do fartlec in the morning so that when he thought everyone should do it.

I was running up to 140 miles some weeks. I learned to take a easy day when I felt like I needed it, and I training hard when I needed to. I became good friends with a lot of Kenyans and a lot of other athletes from all over the world. Jake Robertson is a 21 years old New Zealander who ran 13.22 for 5km earlier this year, and he covers most of his weekly "mileage" at about 8minutes per km, hard to believe, but when he goes to the track, he smashed himself. He has obviously found what works for him and does it. He is relaxed and getting good results, simple because he has the talent and lives the Kenyan lifestyle.

Self Belief

We all know people who have high expectations of themselves. Some of them deliver, some of them don't. Athletics is a sport made up of dreamers. Everyone wanted to improve, everyone wants to believe they can be faster. I imagine It's the same all over the world. In Iten, Kenya, there are world and Olympic champions as well as Kenyan, African and World record holders.

There are also African athletes who are not talented and who are not training smart. I met a guy in the first few days after arriving who runs 3.52 for 1500, and another guy who runs 2.26 for the marathon. Good times, but not if you consider there are both Kenyan and both train full time, and yet they both believe they can make it as professional runners. Even in Europe those times would not get your anywhere. These athletes like some all over the world are disillusioned. They honestly believe they can make a living from being a professional athletes. They think they can succeed even when they might only be running 2.26 for the marathon.

What they all possess is a huge amount of self belief, obviously lots of them are kidding themselves, but it's that self belief that created a few champions from the hundreds trying. Wilson Kipsang was in my house a few weeks before Frankfurt and as it happened a few days after Patrick Makau ran a new world record for the marathon in Berlin. When I asked him what time he was going to try run, he said he had planned to run inside the old world record of 2:3:59, and that because Patrick had just ran a new world record, he would have to run even faster now as he wanted the world record.

Facilities mean F***All Nothing

I'm not going to even make a list of the athletes who train in Iten, because there are hundreds of world class athletes who train in Iten. Outside the High Performance Centre the facilities are very basic. The track isn't tartan or mondo, it's a dirt track, that gets flooded when there is heavy rain. The infield is usually home to a herd of cows and sheep, and the track it's self is far from level in places. However it's perfect for Kenyans. They don't care about facilities, they just get the job done with whatever facilities they have.

The living conditions of some athletes here are un-comprehendible to most Europeans, and yet they don't complain. None of them take energy drinks before or protein drinks after their sessions. There is a region in Kenyan and the tribe is Turkans. They live in Northern Kenya, and are famous for cattle rustling. Every few months hundreds of them will travel hundreds of miles to steal cattle and fight with other tribes. Dozens of them will die. All they eat and drink comes from the cows. They drink the cows blood, and eat it's meat, and can survive wars that last for months on this diet.

In Europe we think we know what the best form of diet for an athlete is made up of, but that's only suitable for us, if your ancestors were used to a diet of meat and blood for hundreds of years and suddenly there is this influx of European style cuisine, you won't adapt to it over night.

Numbers Game

There are thousands of athletes all over Kenya training full time on zero funding, just whatever money their family can give them. They are all adding to the numbers game. If you play the lotto a thousand times you have a better chance of winning once that if you only play it a dozen times. That's pretty simple to comprehend isn't it. Well it's the same with producing world class athletes.

How many athletes through Ireland the UK are actually full time. How many are making a sacrifice  and are willing to put in the hard work. Being a full time middle or long distance athlete is a tough profession if you're trying to make a living from it. How many people go to work every day knowing it's physically going to make them soar and they could throw up from it. Not that many, but middle/long distance athletes do, every day. So it's not surprising that not that many are willing to put in the hard work required. There just happened to be very little other option for Kenyan athletes other than become athletes.

I know it's a little long for a blog, but I did learn a lot. Feel free to leave any comments/questions good or bad.

Thanks for reading