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More than just talent Kenyan runners dominate because of superb work ethic
I have been watching Kenyans run fast for most of my life. When I was 12 years old, I was a fan of Jim Ryun, the great American miler, and was crestfallen when he was beaten by Kipchoge Keino in the final of the 1,500 meters at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Four years later I was thrilled when Dave Wottle of the U.S. first passed Robert Ouku and then Mike Boit ( Jim McKay: "He's got one Kenyan ... !") before nailing Soviet runner Yevhen Arzhanov at the line to the win the 800 meters in Munich. In 23 years as a professional journalist, I have written about more sports than I can easily remember. (It's one of my favorite tricks when speaking to young school children: Dare them to name a sport that I haven't covered; the Olympics are a big help in this regard, allowing me to pick off archery and table tennis and biathlon.) I have also run many miles, sometimes lots of them at once and fast, sometimes only a few and slow. Always with a passion for the effort. Kenyans have been a constant. I've been to major marathons, world track and field championships and Olympic Games. I have watched on television and read publications both mainstream and obscure. I have been fully awed by the grace and speed with which Kenyans run distances (envious of it, too), and never come close to understanding why or how. I have interviewed many Kenyan runners, but cultural walls were usually too sturdy and language problems too severe to make for meaningful discourse. It was frustrating for me. Maybe frustrating for the runners, too. I could never tell for certain. I spent the last week of March in Kenya, researching a story on Kenyan marathoners that appears this week in the new SI Adventure section of Sports Illustrated. For me, the trip was long in coming, rather like a baseball fan finally arriving in Cooperstown. Or better yet, a golfer playing in Scotland after a life spent on battle-scarred munis. How much can you learn in a week? Not much, or maybe a lot. In the end, meeting and speaking with people like Moses Tanui, the third-fastest marathoner in history, and two-time Olympic 10,000-meter silver medalist Paul Tergat demystified them for me and allowed me to better respect their work and dedication, not just their talent. After returning to the U.S. I talked with American marathoner Josh Cox, who ran a disappointing 2:16:17 in Boston last Monday. Cox had trained with Kenyans in the winter. "I saw them get tired, just like me," he said. Point is: Everybody gets tired. This weekend in London, Tergat will be paid $300,000 just to run the London Marathon, one of the most eagerly anticipated marathon debuts in history. The marathon is a fickle race, especially for novices, so I will not guess at what might happen. I won't be surprised if Tergat runs very fast. And I will admire his work more than ever before. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden covers track and field for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.
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