FLOAT ON

Crazy XC course with a couple of barriers each lap. photo from http://www.peterwagemans.be/

Results from Sunday’s Hannut Cross Cup.

Hannut Lotto Cross Cup was a blast!  The course was pretty crazy but I was armed with 15mm spikes so I was able to navigate pretty well.  I’m happy with the 5th place showing considering I had a terrible start and I was brutal on the soft sections of the course.  Larry and I were doing a stride when they opened the start area and we were regulated to the second row. From the gun the pace was ridiculously fast and 50m into the race I yelled out “this is a 10km race boys!” as I ran in 40th place or so.  At 1km into the race I was still outside of the top 20 and then by 3km I moved into 4th and then got passed by one more dude around 6km, a 1:00:28 half marathon Kenyan dude.  The good thing is that I beat Wilson Busieni who beat me at 2005 FISU 5000m for the gold.   The unfortunate part is that after the race the race director congratulated me on the race and admitted he thought my PB’s were bogus because otherwise he would have given me appearance money.  He said he hadn’t heard of me but halfway into the race he realised I was legit. 

Three weeks of two workouts/week seemed to prepare me just enough for a decent showing, I feel as though I will see big gains in the next three weeks.  In other words I will begin to train to race (as opposed to train to train), and I do plan on racing the NYC 1/2 on March 20th.  This week I will be able to quantify my workouts now that I’m back at sea-level and I may even replicate my 800m repeat workout from last week to see what kind of difference I see down here on a rubber track.

It feels good to have a new pair of trainers again.  Seriously, who goes to Kenya for one month with only one pair of trainers?  I still can’t believe I forgot to pack my other shoes.  I went on a run this morning with a new pair of shoes, the New Balance 870.  It’s not a lightweight trainer but it’s lighter than a typical trainer, a great shoe!

New Balance 870

Thursday: Flew from Eldoret to Nairobi.  My seatbelt on the plane didn’t work.

Then flew from Nairobi to London overnight.

Friday: Flew from London to Brussels and then took the train to Liege, Belgium.

On Tuesday I did my last workout on my Kenyan training camp in the form of 6 X 800m.  Jogging to the track that morning I wanted to do 800m repeats but I was willing to switch it up a bit to get in with a group of runners.  Luckily I found a couple of guys (one guy paced the recent Dubai marathon) doing 10 X 800m and jumped in with them for the first six.  They said they would start at 2:25 and work down, which sounded like a good pace on that dirt track with the altitude.  The track is always busy on Tuesday morning, however we started early so it wasn’t too busy except for one rather large group of guys doing 600m repeats.  It seemed like every other interval we somehow met up with this mammoth group, either getting passed by their front-runners or catching some of their laggards.  We went from 2:25 down to 2:20 taking between 1:15 and 1:45 rest depending on when we shuffled between other groups doing intervals.   If I compare my times to when I’m actually in track shape and at sea level it is a far cry from anything to be happy with and to be honest it’s still quite off the splits I’d like up in Iten.  However, it was a good step in the right direction and I think there is slight chance I have enough work under my belt to have a decent race tomorrow, but probably not, haha.

Hannut Lotto CrossCup is going to be muddy!  There has been a lot of rain and the run we did yesterday in the trails here in Liege was sloppy. That may be good for me because I feel like my fitness is far ahead of my leg speed.  Larry and I are staying with Pieter Desmet (8:15 steeplechaser) who normally runs these races but is currently out with an injury. 

Francis Coral-Mellon (fellow Canuck) is in Iten filming different projects and he spent a few hours here and there filming myself.  He has some great running footage and some other interesting stuff around the HATC (High Altitude Training Centre) and in Iten.  His buddy, Matt, and him are going to put together a short documentary of sorts that I’ll share later.  They have a lot going on right now so it will be a few weeks, at least, before the final product.

This is me leading my two training partners in an 800m while a rather large group doing a 600m was catching up

Me, Kip Kangogo, Kibet Rutto, Larry

Talking to Joseph after a run

http://www.newbalance.com/video-embed.php?width=640&height=360&videoID=v4d4c92e7ad818&iframe=true

That link above is for a NB video that I can’t load here in Iten. 

Kenya Blog #5

Larry and I only have three more days in Kenya before we head to Belgium, the land of chocolate, beer and muddy cross-country races.  I’m already planning my next trip back to Iten.

One thing that is different here than in Hamilton/Guelph is the amount of animals you see on any given run.  And I’m not talking about giraffes, rhinos, elephants etc , I’m talking about ordinary animals such as chickens, cows, donkeys, sheep, dogs and goats.  Iten and the surrounding area is rural and I realize I’m comparing apples to oranges when I contrast it to Hamilton.  However,  it is different here because the farm animals are not inclosed by fences, they’re out and about.  At least a few times every run I have to make my way around cows and yesterday I even dodged a couple of chickens during my fartlek workout. Chickens just roam around all the paths through the villages, they’re not cooped up.  There are wandering dogs with no owners in sight (no collars either) but so far I have yet to have one even bark at me, they always just mind their own business.  The sheep and goats are usually tied up by rope around their ankles while they feed on grass in random areas.  Donkeys are used to pull carts loaded with farm goods and can be seen on the roads.

Not fenced in, not tethered, just feeding on mango scraps by the road

Larry had a chicken beside him in a matatu.

By far the biggest moth I've ever seen.

I’ve put in about 160km each of the last two weeks with some workouts sprinkled in there.  At this point I’m training to train so I’m just doing a little bit of everything, tempo, fartlek and strides.  Tomorrow I’m going to jump into a track workout with a bunch of Kenyans.  It may be a little early for me to be on the track but when in Rome…  Once I get back to Canada I should be ready to start training for a specific race.  I have the Belgian XC (Hannut)  race lined up for the end of this week which I’m doing purely for fun with no expectations.   Hannut will tell me what kind of shape I’m in.  At that point I’ll make a decision for the NYC ½ marathon on March 20^th.  The NYC ½ always has a good field so I don’t want to go there unless I feel I can run under 63 minutes.  If need be I’ll skip that race wait until mid-April to open up on the roads.

Sometimes I think I get a tan when I run but it always comes off in the shower...

A bunch of us took a tour of the famous St. Patrick’s High School here in Iten.  One of the guys staying at the HATC is teaching there for 5 months and showed us around the all boys school which has produced such runners as Wilson Boit, Wilson Kipketer, Cornelius Chirchir and Wilberforce Talel, I had to write down Wilberforce, I love that name.  In the cafeteria this dude was making the biggest batch of Ugali in a massive vat and stirring it with, what looked like, a row-boat oar.  The kids in the class were very well-behaved and one kid, Moses, had the gusto to ask one of the English girls where she was from and how old she was.  All the rest of the kids started to laugh at Moses.  I didn’t bring my camera on the tour so I stole this pic from John Beattie’s facebook (a bunch of Brits and myself scattered in there).

Class at St Patrick's

Kenya Blog #4

I can’t believe it’s already been another week…  This was a good week for running as I got in two workouts and a long run.  The first workout I purposely took easy on my foot so I ran my tempo all uphill (110 meter rise) into the wind.  Needless to say the pace was slow but the effort was there and I was working hard to keep the pace under 3:40/km.  On my second workout I teamed up with Lee Merrien for 40 minutes of tempo around a 4km loop.  I managed to average 3:23/km trying to keep up with Lee and I was very satisfied considering this was my second running workout in the past 8 weeks.  Larry and I met up with a Kenyan, Rogers, who showed us a great run through the forest on the other side of Iten which was super hilly.  I ended up running 25km which finally feels like a ‘long run’ again.

My foot is getting better even as I add on the kilometers.  Each evening I’ve been going over to Jan Fitshen’s (2006 Euro 10 000m champ) room to use his therapeutic laser.  He was out for over a year with plantar fasciitis and tried everything and finally saw some results with the laser so I might as well try it out.  I’ve actually noticed a bigger jump in improvement since using it. 

When you run around Iten it’s easy to get lost but it’s also easy to find your way home.  That’s because there is only one paved road for miles and miles around and the one side of Iten is bordered by the Rift Valley (huge drop off).  If you ever get lost just ask someone to point to the paved road.  Once you get there is rises towards Iten, so just run uphill on the path adjacent to the road and you’ll get back. 

I didn’t do much this week other than train.  Some ping pong, Hearts, hand laundry, reading, Iten market, watching the Kenyans workout on Tuesday and a quick trip to see some giraffes.

This group of marathoners did 12 X 1000m.  I timed their last 5 and they averaged 2:55 off about 2 minutes rest (remember: dirt track at 8000 feet)

The steeple pit at Kamariny track.

On the outskirts of Eldoret on the way to Iten.

Kenya Blog #3. 

Discovery XC in Eldoret is arguably one of the most competitive XC races anywhere in the World and it went down on Sunday.  Larry, Declan (Irish Physio), Fran (Spanish 3:38 guy), Rogers (local Kenyan) and I made the trip from Iten to watch the race.  We left HATC at 9:00am to make sure we would catch the Junior races before the men’s senior race which was slated for 11:00.  We piled into a Matatu for the 30km ride which would cost us 100 Kenyan Shillings ($1.25 Canadian).  A matatu is an 11 passenger van (12 including the driver) which acts somewhere between a taxi and a public bus.  When we got into the matatu we increased the number of passengers to 15.  We then picked up more passengers on the way to peak at a nice 21, but to be fair there was one little kid on her mom’s lap.

To make more seats there were wooden slats that were brought out to be placed between the seats in the aisle.

We came upon a police check and a few people exited the matatu, including the guy seated with the passengers who collects the money (and often just hangs out the door).  We all had our own seats when the police looked into the van.  Once we were around the police check the money collector jumped back in and we drove to the XC  course.

My buddy, James (aka J Dirty), made Larry and I t-shirts before our trip.  Mine was the subject of a popular youtube clip about a leprechaun sighting in a tree in Mobile, Alabama.  I thought it would be the cat’s pyjamas (a term used by Leisure Suit) to get Asbel Kiprop to wear the shirt.  Asbel is the 2008 Olympic 1500m Champ who has yet to receive his gold medal after it was retracted from Rashid Ramzi who tested positive for EPO.  

The race itself was absolutely insane.  The Junior boys race had close to 600 competitors.  The senior men’s race looked very competitive through 100 places, and even Martin Lel was over 2 minutes behind the leader.  I have some footage that I will post upon my return.

Start of the senior men’s race, which went off at 12:20.

JP and ‘Webster’ at Discovery XC. 

Earlier that morning I went for a run with Larry and Francisco.  We headed out at 6:15 and passed the famous St. Patrick’s High School.  About 20 minutes into our run we were joined, haphazardly, by a Kenyan runner named William.  We were pretty lost so we asked William our way back and he was able to get us back for a 19km run in which Fran and I added on another couple of km.  William has run 2:11:03 for the marathon.  That’s just the nature of the runner’s here in Iten.  I can stumble upon guys with faster marathon PB’s than myself whereas in Canada I have the fastest time in 24 years.  On top of that I met Duncan Kibet (2:04:27) yesterday at lunch and Geoffrey Mutai (2:04:55) lives right by us.

Five people on a motorcycle, no big deal.  These kids are getting dropped off to watch the Discovery XC.

Saturday is market day in Iten and it’s mostly second-hand clothes and shoes.

I’m getting some WIFI right now so I’m going to try to load some photos so I don’t drain my sim card again… let’s see if this works…

I’ll write later.

… The first bit of running news is that I’ve decided NOT to run London marathon this Spring.  At the beginning of last week it was 14 weeks out and that is when I like to start my Marathon specific workouts.  I was really behind the ball due to my injury and made the decision that I didn’t want to play catch up and sacrifice my preparation for such a big race.  I’d much rather save it up and run well in the fall, which leads me to another topic.

World Championships marathon.  Even though I qualified for the World Champs this year I’m not going to run them.  It’s going to be bloody hot in Daegu so you can throw a fast time out of the window.  That is not good for many reasons but the main two are that; 1) I want to ensure I have a spot on the Olympic team and I think there is a really good chance my 2:11:23 will not hold as one of the top 3 times so I want to run faster this Fall. 2) Even if I run well and finish, say, 17th in the World, AC will not recognize this towards carding if the time is slow (remember 2007 Worlds was won in 2:17).  I learned my lesson in 2009 competing at Worlds, which I don’t regret because the experience was invaluable, but at the same time I finished 25th and AC didn’t give a damn.  BTW in Great Britain if you finish in the top 20 at Worlds they count that as an ‘A’ standard towards the Olympics.  Also the Brits that are here are fully funded from GB athletics, including coaches and physio.

The trip so far has exceeded any of my expectations.  The running here is great and it’s awesome seeing so many runners out and about.  At the track on Tuesday I counted about 130 athletes and a guy who was sitting with Larry and I in the stands told us there are sometimes upwards of 200 on a Tuesday morning.  I ran around the track Wednesday and it is rough!  There is one spot where a big rock is eroding through the dirt, needless to say I won’t be risking my foot with spikes on this track anytime soon.

The culture that we are experiencing here is quite fascinating because of how different it is from Canada.  When we’re running out in the country kids get really excited to see a Mzungo (white person) and often throw out their hands for high fives.  Yesterday a kid stared at his hand after the high five in amazement.  It seems everyone is always out and about doing something as it’s probably more interesting than being at home.  There are little schools everywhere as the schools are small (one or two rooms mostly) and very few cars.  Today on my run this guy in dress shoes, slacks and a sweater started running beside me and I was clipping along at 3:45/km.  I’ve also seen a guy booting along in a full suit.  Every run I’ve been on I’ve seen goats, sheep and cattle wandering or being herded.  Most people ask “how are you?” and the response they are looking for is “fine” or “very fine”.

Of course there are all the amenities at Lornah’s HATC (High Altitude Training Camp) that one would want for comfortable living.  Three cooked meals a day, hot water, private bathrooms, WIFI (most of the time), lounge with TV, sauna, pool, weights and cardio equipment, ping pong table, laundry, towels.  This place is meant for training hard and living comfortably.

Yesterday on my run I was going up a slight hill and this boy on his bike carrying a water jug on the back was close behind. With the hill and the water jug it was tough work going up a hill although I got the feeling he wanted to pass (there was room to do so).  Once we crested the hill he went by me on the Dutch style bike and started to fly down the backside of the hill.  This trail had small turns and rolls.  He started going a little out of control and I got the impression the brakes weren’t functional.  A little more speed and one foot was off the pedal, then the other.  He’s flying now, handle bars flicking side to side and every once in a while there is daylight between his butt and the seat.  I’m seriously getting worried for this kid on this rodeo bull ride and then his water jugs falls off the back rack and  is bouncing off the side of his bike as it’s still tied up.  Somehow he managed to ride this thing out and I congratulated him at the bottom of the hill but I think he was still in shock.

Kids flying homemade kites by the rift valley.

Track session at the track one mile from HATC.  Asbel Kiprop was there doing a cool interval where he ran the first 300m on the track and then ran up a hill behind the stands, it was probably about 440m interval.

Iten.

Kids outside the HATC.

The kite flying kids loved to pose see their pictures on the back of our cameras.  Larry is there showing some of them their pics.