First among them is how close is the nearest hospital? Answer: not close. The village of Kapngetuny, which is home to a training camp for around 60 professional distance runners, sits in the lush highlands to the west of the escarpment of the Rift Valley in Kenya, 20 minutes' drive to the nearest tarmac road.
If your heart stops beating there, it is likely to stay stopped. But what was I going to do? Say no? The plan was hatched - somewhat casually, I thought - on the afternoon of Tuesday 4 March It was the penultimate day of my last reporting trip to Kenya for my book, Two Hours - a story about the greatest runners on earth, and the possibility of one day running the first sub-two-hour marathon.
I'd been working on Two Hours since and had known Geoffrey Kiprono Mutai, the central character in the book, and at that moment the swiftest marathoner on earth, for about two years.
We'd become close. I'd not only watched him compete at races in London, Berlin and New York, but I'd eaten with him, drunk his tea, laughed and commiserated with him, and met his cousins and grandparents and colleagues and daughters. I'd listened to stories from his troubled past and his earnest hopes for the future.
In that time, Geoffrey who pronounces his name Joffrey never called me Ed. He preferred to use the nickname the local kids teased me with: Muzungu Mkubwa. It means "big white man". Often, Geoffrey shortened the name to Mkubwa: Big One.
I was in his phone contacts under "M". On previous trips to Kenya, I'd run with other professional marathoners: international- level athletes with personal bests of two hours and eight minutes, two hours and ten minutes. They'd humoured me by jogging as slowly as they could while still maintaining forward momentum and we'd only run for about half an hour each time, but still the experience had left me gasping and humiliated.
On one scarring occasion, a friend called Elias suggested that he should have brought a cup of tea and the newspaper to pass the time. But the point was, I'd got through it. Running with Mutai shouldn't have been any different. Yes, his personal best was a whisper over two hours and three minutes. Yes, he'd redefined his sport. But to someone who runs marathons at four-hour pace, there's really no difference running with a guy or a guy.
They're both roughly twice as fast as you. Somehow, however, Mutai was a wholly different proposition, and when he said, "Maybe I come with you tonight?
There is a distinct psychological freight to performing a sport with the person who is, or has been, the best in the world. It's like climbing into the ring with Tyson; playing tennis with Federer; shooting hoops with Jordan. On the streets of the world's greatest cities, I'd watched Mutai's tiny, birdlike frame fly over the tarmac, three steps a second.
I'd seen him destroy world-class opponents - his high forehead bowed and his nostrils flared, and the headwind rippling his shorts. I was intimidated by his prowess. And, while I knew he'd take it easy on me, I also knew that there was no such thing as an easy run for Geoffrey Mutai. Running was not just something he did for a living; it was the way he breathed. Kenya is home to the greatest distance runners on earth. In particular, Kenyans utterly dominate the marathon. I had spent a long time trying to understand why the Kenyans were so good.
In particular, I'd wanted to understand why one tribe of Kenyans, the Kalenjin, were so much better than their compatriots. How could it be that the Kalenjins, a group of five million who account for only 0. The answers to that question were complicated - and to tell the whole story would take another book in itself.
In short, Kalenjin dominance in distance running boiled down to a winning combination of nature and nurture. To start with, many Kalenjins look like they should be good at marathons. They're thin, and they are particularly slender below the knee, which means they carry less "distal weight" - or weight that is further down the leg - than runners from other parts of the world.
Those light calves mean that for every step a Kalenjin takes, he expends less energy than a Swedish or Japanese or Bolivian runner. They also eat sparingly, but nutritiously. They grow up walking and running to school, so their feet are strong and springy. Their homelands sit above 2,m of altitude, so their lungs process oxygen much more efficiently. The reasons behind Kenyan dominance of distance running grip sports scientists.
For them, the Kalenjin lands on the western edge of the Rift Valley are the ultimate laboratory. Because if you can understand why the Kalenjin are so good, then you might be able to understand many other things about how the human body works - about genes, and lifestyles, and what "talent" really means.
But whatever physiological explanations the sports scientists arrive at, none are as compelling as these two simple facts: Kalenjins believe they are good at running, and running is seen as their most efficient route out of poverty.
Because of this desire and belief, thousands of Kalenjins try to become athletes. That very few ever make it as professionals is not a deterrent. The prizes and appearance money at the Majors, meanwhile, are enough to turn the best runners into local potentates.
During the course of reporting Two Hours , however, another question became equally pressing. Why were some Kalenjins so much better than the others? In a place that produces more world-class marathoners than any other, a few runners stood out: serial marathon winners, world-record breakers, pioneers. What was their secret?
What made Mutai special? Understanding more about genetics would not provide the answers I needed. Most Kenyan marathoners are huge fun to be around. In addition to being an elite athlete, Geoffrey is also a mentor and coach, leading a large training group.
Geoffrey Mutai winning the Boston marathon in This is a story about endurance, dedication and intense focus. A skinny year-old kid from a dirt-poor family in thin-aired, equatorial Kenya, with no prospect of wealth or even comfort in his adult life, who did not wear shoes until his mid-teens, decides to become a professional runner.
He has some talent, but so do many other scrappy Kenyans from the lush highlands to the west of the Rift Valley. As he watches famous African athletes compete at the Sydney Olympics on a bar-room television, he physically breaks out in sweats. The years pass. Injuries dent his confidence. Photo: PhotoRun. I had woken up earlier than usual, packed my training gear and set off hoping to reach there in time for a chance to do a 30K long run with him and his group after I had gotten a tip from a reliable source about their training program for the day.
Unfortunately, the journey did not start as I had planned. For the next two hours, I stood in the chilly, cloudy morning beside the road waiting patiently for a public service vehicle traveling that route.
My journey began in weather that was a little somber, but sitting next to the window in the vehicle and watching scores of athletes running beside the road — some with familiar faces — kept me preoccupied.
As we passed a number of athletes out training, I could only wonder what it really took for one to become an outstanding runner. Further ahead, as the vehicle reached a different altitude at Chepkorio, the vegetation changed, and it became chillier and misty despite the fact that it was AM. The mist intensified with each kilometer of the journey until it was so dark that I began to wonder if the vehicle was actually passing through a dark cloud!
The headlights of other vehicles were only visible at a very close range and were moving at a very slow pace, probably not exceeding 20 kilometers, or With about 10 kilometers remaining in my journey, not all the vehicles and motorbikes on the road were able to go on.
I trekked for the rest of the journey, at some points having to literally wade through mud, occasionally soaking my shoes in the long, wet grass as I walked on some foot paths in a territory that was strange to me. My gut advised me not to take it, and I was right! After walking a few meters ahead, I met Geoffrey himself in his 4-wheel drive vehicle.
A lot of questions quickly rushed through my mind: Will a celebrity stop when a stranger waves at him to do so? Will he agree to talk to me after I introduce myself?
While other elite runners might do one interval speed workout on the roads or dirt trails and one track workout per week, there is no track where Mutai trains. Monday, Wednesday and Friday feature morning and afternoon workouts that basically serve as medium-length recovery runs. The idea is to make sure his legs are primed and ready to go hard on the days when the schedule calls for it.
He also complements his training with stretching and core strengthening. But that is because he travels 40 miles to his family in Eldoret.
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