They run up these hills every single day," says Peter McHugh, director of Run-Fast, a British sports management company with a training camp in Iten.Īdmittedly old-school, McHugh admires the elegant simplicity of how Kenyan runners train. The runners want to live a comfortable life, buy some land, build a house, support their extended family, maybe even invest. Kipsang echoes Charity: He wants to make money. The slight, soft-spoken Kipsang is captain of Kenya's Olympic marathon team, which is scheduled to compete on the last day of the games. Kipsang is a local favorite here in Iten because he lets aspiring young runners train with him. Wearing a gold-trimmed hoodie, Kipsang lounges on a sofa in the dining room of a hotel that overlooks the Great Rift Valley, which appears as a misty chasm in the green earth. On these dirt roads pass some of the world's fastest long-distance runners, like David Rudisha, the world record holder in the 800-meter Mary Keitany, the world record holder in the women's half-marathon and Wilson Kipsang, the second-fastest marathoner of all time. Kenyans are immensely proud of their athletes - and for good reason.
"Yes, you see a small country like that one beating the huge America, even not America but other countries, rich countries," he says.
here."įar behind the rest of the pack, a lone white runner passes, huffing and puffing. "Sometimes we see them live on TV, and then, after all, we see them running live. "We are proud of them running like this," Toraitizh says.
If you turn on it and continue past fields of corn and passion fruit, you'll see them: young men and women with zero body fat in black Lycra shorts and bright running shoes warming up for the morning run. There, the famed town of Iten produces some of the fastest humans on Earth.ĭown the main road, past vendors of mangoes and charcoal, past the Zam Zam Hotel and Mama Mercy Salon and under the arch that reads, "Iten, Home of Champions," there's an unmarked road the color of rust. Many of the world's best marathoners have come from a highland region above the Great Rift Valley. The country won 14 medals four years ago in the Beijing Olympics. The long- and middle-distance runners to watch during the London Olympics are from Kenya, a country with a rich tradition of producing elite track athletes. sharp in Iten, Kenya, 200 or so runners - most of them unknowns hoping to become champions - train on the dirt roads surrounding the town.
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