A few leisurely jogged laps is the sum total of a warm-up and then the mile-repetition session begins.Īn initial oversized swarm soon separates into an orderly single-file procession.
There are no changing rooms near this 400-metre loop, just parched grass and a smattering of trees around the edges of the field. When the sun rises slightly higher in the sky, the mass peel off their tracksuits in the middle of the track. No one is quite sure how he fits in, but the track is open to anyone the university grants access. Most are talented locals, although some are betrayed as rank amateurs by their body shape, and one lone, lanky, white American stands out from the crowd. A sense of openness prevails and in addition to the 25 elites who possess multiple global titles between them, there are clusters of other unknown runners secreted into the group. So they stand and chat instead.Ĭonventionally, athletics training sessions are a closely guarded secret worldwide, but Kenya plays to a different tune. The air is thin in this part of Kenya’s Rift Valley and the world’s finest collection of distance runners are primed for action after their 30-minute, pre-dawn drive from their Kaptagat camp to this university track in nearby Eldoret.
There has been some overnight rain and, with the heat of the day yet to emerge, the back straight of the basic dirt training track has become one large mass of water. The sun has barely started its ascent on a chilly morning in the Kenyan highlands and Eliud Kipchoge, a man who stops for nothing and no one, is forced to wait.
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