ITEN: As dawn breaks high in Kenya’s Rift Valley, car headlights pick out groups of elite athletes, mere silhouettes on roadsides as their grinding daily training routine gets under way.
Coach Lawrence Saina, himself a sub-2hr 10min marathon runner in his day, oversees nine of his Kenyan proteges, sending them out on a 40-kilometre run.
Hitting the tarmac under a wan rising sun, the athletes take
advantage of the cardiovascular benefits from training at an altitude of 2,500 metres (8,200ft), which boosts oxygen-carrying red
blood cells.
“Today, it won’t be quick,” said Saina, his charges still clocking mind-boggling speeds of 3min 42sec per kilometre, far removed from the average runner.
These are, after all, elite athletes: among the nine breaking sweat in the cool morning are Saina’s younger brother Emmanuel, fourth in the Dubai marathon in January in 2hr 05min 02sec.
He is due to race over the 42km distance in Rotterdam on Sunday.
After an hour the group head off the road into fragrant tea plantations, the breaking dawn sun finally lighting up the rock-strewn, and at times treacherous, red soil underfoot.
“When we go out for more than 35km in the morning, we don’t do anything in the afternoon,” said Saina of his training squad who live all year round, apart from when they go abroad for competitions, in Iten.
Bedrooms are shared, with two or four beds in each. There is a living area, kitchen and a rubdown room with two full-time physios working flat out to keep the demands of 20 elite runners in check.
There are dozens of similar camps up and down the Rift Valley, and they have churned out some of the best distance runners the world has ever seen.
One of those is Paul Lonyangata, who is aiming to become the first three-time winner of the Paris Marathon when he takes to the streets of the French capital on April 14.
The 26-year-old’s path to the peak of long-distance running has not been without its bumps.
“My story is a very long story,” said Lonyangata, who is based in Kaptagat, along with marathon world record holder and Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge.
The second of five children, Lonyangata was born in December 1992 in Pokot, in northwest Kenya. When he was nine, his elder sister was killed, aged 12, in a tribal dispute.
The conflict was serious enough to force Lonyangata’s family to flee to neighbouring Uganda for three years before returning.
Lonyangata himself only took to the track when he started secondary school in 2005 in Kapcherop.
Up until that point, he had walked – often great distances – in the absence of not only access to a car but also a road.
“From my home to my school, it was very far. About 15km from one place to another. Every day 30km for sure, for six days of the week.”
His first victory, in an 8km cross-country came in 2006 in Eldoret, quickly followed by an international high school cross-country race in Seattle after which he was given two million Kenyan shillings ($22,450, 20,000 euros) by a
sponsor.- AFP
