Found a track in Iten

I went out meandering yesterday evening and managed to find another track in Iten about a kilometer from the cottage where I’m staying. It was in use when I got there, with several people doing interval work in the rain showers, with the coach providing directions and encouragement from the side. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right lens on to get great pictures.

The taller young lady, I think British from her accent, kicked up small clouds of dust as she toed off on her hard repeats of 700 meters. A lot of power in her stride and a lot of grace, though the latter was limited by the bandaging she had on her right thigh, upper and lower. I’m assuming a nagging type of hamstring problem. It only showed in her arm carriage as she fought the leg a bit. She had a pacer for parts of the workout.

Meanwhile, on the outside edge of the track (though the picture I took was after she dropped to the infield) was a lady that I’d guess is a marathoner. Steady as a metronome, she turned her laps looking comfortable and strong.

While I sat under a tree looking for some protection from the showers, another runner joined me. Martin and I swapped notes on the runners, and talked a bit of America. Martin has been there and raced in the Boilermaker 10K and Peachtree. He’s looking for an opportunity to go back.

Others dropped in on the track to cool down from a longer run out on the roads, just as the rain began in earnest. Also around were a couple of young men, one American, the other from parts unknown, goofing and taking their pictures on the track. Based on body build and running form, I’m guessing they were strength coaches.

About the time the ladies left the track, I decided I should brave the rain and get back to the cottage. Tucking my camera under me shirt, I slogged up the dirt/mud roads to the cottage, watching the two ladies run past at a pace I couldn’t have kept if I wanted to, plus another (American?) lady on a bicycle. Another runner past me on the way down to the track, giving me a friendly ‘Hi’ though she looked a bit unsure as to why I was around.

Seems to be a common issue. The young Kenyan at the store that I shopped at earlier in the day asked if I was here to train. The presumption is that all the white people are training, with the occasional paragliding pilot tossed into the mix. I don’t fit the parameters.

To Town I Went

On that early walk into town to shop, I past Wilson Kipsang’s Keellu Resort Centre and the Eldoret Stage point. Few people in Kenya own personal vehicles and the majority get to and from places on private transport called matatus or on motorcycles. The matatus run on regular routes and for a very reasonable fee, they’ll drop you at a stop close to your destination. Because they run smaller vehicles, the service is faster than an American bus route, with more frequent pickups. It’s highly effective.

The motorcycles run point-to-point, ferrying one to three people (plus driver, of course) to their destinations. Rather than the mammoth 650cc or 750cc Honda Goldwings or Harleys populating the US streets, they favor 175-275cc enduro bikes that are highly maneuverable. In Eldoret, they weave between the cars and trucks and matatus in a fashion that would seem to be reckless. Not surprisingly, they are on the losing end of many an accident. In Iten, they seem a bit more sedate, though that may simply be the result of less congestion.

On the way back, I dropped a card off at Keellu with a request to chat with Mr. Kipsang. I would guess that the odds are long that a World Record marathoner who also has businesses to run while have time for me, but I thought there was no harm in asking.

Evening Time at the Cottage

So, after getting drenched in the deluge during my walk back from the track, I changed into dry gear and set dinner to cooking – beans and potatoes, a small piece of beef cut in small cubes, seasoned with tomatoes, onions, garlic, salt and pepper. It took a while to simmer down and thicken to a nice soup broth, so I went out onto the patio of the cottage and read,

Movement from the corner of my eye distracted me, though. High atop one of the nearby trees, a pair of cranes stood. The newcomer, a male I suppose, was diligently trying to impress the female, first ducking and weaving its head in an intricate series of twists. That provoked no response, so he moved onto a full ‘look-at-me’ dance complete with thrumming the air to show off his wings.

Alas, she still wasn’t interested.

For a finale, the storm, after delivering buckets of rain and some impressive thunder, blew past, just in time for the sunset. I watched it light the edge of the clouds and spread glowingly out, until it peaked and faded. At the last light, it was time to go inside for my stew while the night time sounds rustled in through the windows. .

A Training Day in Kaptagat

It’s not every morning you get out of bed and go for a run, half-expecting to see a world champion or two. Plus, an Olympic silver medalist.

Justin Lagat took me out of Eldoret to Kaptagat township. Just past the town, there’s a dirt road that appears to missing a sign that reads “Watch Out – Olympians at Training.” The lack of a sing might just signal a sense that the people here expect to dominate in the distance events but, for a foreigner, it’s an eye-popping eye-opener when literally some of the best runners in the world rush by.

Rush is my word, not theirs. They were doing easy mileage at a relatively high rate of speed.

After Justin and I got our runs in, Justin doing the out lap, and me pulling the return, we went and visited friends of his. These were all young men still training to break into the running world as paid professionals. As with most individuals dedicated to a specific vision, they work, live, sleep to make that vision a reality.

They live a very Spartan existence, sleeping in small rooms, cooking for themselves on a kerosene stove. Still, they’re remarkably kind, offering the odd American a cup of tea despite the fact they likely don’t have a pair of shillings to rub together.

Twice a day, they go on training runs, except for the days where they add a third run into the mix. These young men certainly understand how to work hard.

Helping them along the way is Wilson Kiprop who sponsors this particular group of young men. It’s not the sort of thing that you see highlighted in his Wikipedia article, but he, along with quite a few other champion runners, work hard to bring opportunities to the next generation. It would be nice if these activities were as celebrated as their athletic achievements.

Long Singles

Nope, not baseball. I know it started last week but I gave up on baseball a long time ago. We're talking running. First, a recap of the week.

I ran six times last week, which will probably surprise my running coach since two of the days were supposed to be cross-training days. Yesterday, I finished with an 8.3 mile run around Troy, Idaho. The route I did I call the Orchard Loop. It's one of my favorite runs, one that I did first a dozen years ago when I moved up from SoCal. The GPS called it "Hilly Medium Long." That's about right as there's not a flat stretch on the whole run. It is a remarkably pretty run, with views of Moscow Mountain, the greening wheat fields, and open road.

Back when I live in Troy, I ran a minimum of six days a week and averaged upwards of 300 miles per month. Needless to say, I went through a lot of shoes. I was also as fast as I had ever been. I only did one run a day with speed work on Tuesdays and a long run on Sunday. Most of the advice seems to suggest that once you cross the fifty mile a week barrier, you should consider switching to two-a-day runs. The thought has been that fitness is driven by the frequency of exercise bouts so a runner completing two workouts a day will develop more fitness than one doing the same mileage in a single bout.

I never switched. I hate morning runs and thought my regimen was working quite well. Now comes an article from RunnersWorld about Yuki Kawauchi, the Japanese runner who shocked the world in 2011, about his training philosophy. One run a day, one speed session, one long run, one trail run. The other three were longer runs between 70 and 100 minutes.

Sounds awfully familiar.

There are considerable advantages for the long distance runner to the single workout schedule at the physiological level. From the article, Hudson notes that studies have shown that the differences of enzymatic production from 60 to 80 minutes are enormous. The muscles and connective tissues also adapt, getting stronger to handle the increased load. On a personal note, when I was running like this, my legs and feet felt indestructible. (Question - do you consider your feet when training? Would love to hear comments.)

An important consideration is the pace of that single run. Most people are going to run them too fast, especially if they're used to doing doubles. The inclination is to run at the high end of the aerobic range, burning more glycogen than fat. The long singles are fat-burners for people looking to cover ground, a lot of it. Trying to tackle a 10-miler in the same way that you would try to handle a 10K is going to leave your fuel tank empty and increase the risk of injury. Psychologically, it can be hard to watch everyone fly past you as you grind out miles. The trick is to stay focused on what you plan to accomplish on the run.

Since I brought up fueling, if you decide that long singles are your ticket to the start line of a marathon or ultra, don't forget to refuel after every run. Your body will need it. The runs will deplete you and if you screw up the refueling it will bite you the next day.  

Hopefully I'll see you out there.

Run gently, friends.
 

Oxygen is NOT overrated!

I did a workout years ago with a friend as we prepped for the Portland Marathon. He was supposed to be pacing me on a marathon paced run. Unfortunately, he's loads faster than I am (he ran a a sub-3:00 marathon to my 3:28) and the pace gradually drifted up to the point where I couldn't breathe. 

Not that I entered oxygen debt. I mean it more in the literal sense - I have exercise-induced asthma, the temperatures were in the low 30's, and the pace all combined to trigger an attack. 

Since I have my own little issues with breathing, I think it's important to pass on the knowledge to the junior high school kids I coach. Not the asthma part, the breathing part. 

Every year, I lead them through some exercises on breathing. Depending on how long the kids have been with me, we'll experiment with different things. This year, I had two runners that had been with us since the sixth grade and the rest were new to the sport. So I co-opted Thing 1 and Thing 2 to help the younger kids. 

First, at very low speeds we sent them around the Chief Looking Glass park with instructions to count how many steps they took per breath. A breath was a full cycle of inhalation and exhalation.

Then we sent them out to do it again, because combining activities for junior high kids leads to mass confusion - most of them lost count. And their form fell apart because they're not to the point where they can do two things at once - run and count - without one of them getting a little sideways.

At idling speed, Thing 1 (Carmen) was taking six strides per breath and Thing 2 (Maia) was taking eight. This was consistent with their training levels - Maia has been training hard for two years while Carmen is just starting to transition from running with sisters to training for races. 

The younger runners reported an average of four strides per cycle with a couple at six. 

We repeated the drill at several different speeds so they could get a feel for how their breathing changes at given paces. For a lot of them, it was an eye-opener. Natalie, one of the sixth-graders who also does martial arts, adapted the fastest. 

This comes to mind because I came across a book, Running on Air, that proposes to teach a runner how to breathe to maximize speed and endurance. Obviously, I've ordered it and it's on the way. I'll do a review once I read it.

The part that caught my attention was a proposition that the way we breathe and run is incorrect. Specifically, the use of even numbers which means that we always begin a breathing cycle on the same foot. Since belly-breathing loosens the core during an inhalation, this creates an imbalance that taxes the leg/side that begins the breathing cycle. 

Interesting idea, hence the ordering of the book. 

The other claim that was interesting was that the average runner uses about 60 percent of their lung capacity. Since breathing is always my limiting factor, it's an area where I have the greatest potential for improvement. I suspect that this is true of the kids I coach. 

The downside is that I don't think I can fully teach the ideas to the kids in the short junior high season. I can, however, introduce it to them and start the process.