The outstanding success of Kenyan middle- and long-distance runners has not surprised anyone for a long time. But what happened in October 2000 in Santiago de Chile, where the World Junior Championships took place, amazed even experts - the Kenyan team won confident victory in the unofficial team competition, winning 7 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze medals. When we discussed the results of this championship with the President of the All-Russian Athletics Federation Valentin Balakhnichev and, in particular, touched upon the “Kenyan phenomenon”, he asked me to find specific materials about the training of Kenyans - perhaps at the Development Center of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) in Nairobi ..

I conveyed this conversation to the director of the IAAF Development Department, Elio Locatelli, who directly oversees the work of the centers, but he just laughed in response: “No one will write anything to you, you need to go and see all this with your own eyes. The next time I go to Kenya, pack up with me. But keep in mind - when they talk about all of Kenya, this is wrong: without exception, all Kenyan runners who became winners and medalists of the Olympic Games and World Championships and generally achieved something were born, raised and became high-class athletes in the city of Eldoret, in where 110 thousand people live, which is less than one percent of the country's population, or in the areas closest to it. There have been no exceptions yet.

The opening of the IAAF training center in Eldoret, headed by two-time Olympic champion and President of the National Olympic Committee Kipchogo (Kip) Keino, was planned for mid-January. We traveled to Eldoret with Elio Locatelli, where we were joined by the Director of the IAAF Development Center in Nairobi, John Velzian.

Of course, in the three days that I spent in Eldoret, it is impossible to get a complete picture of how Kenyan runners prepare and why they run so well, especially since the way of life there, to put it mildly, is somewhat different from what we are used to . Therefore, I will try to make a few short sketches that will help to compose from individual details the overall picture called “Kenya Running School”.

How they live

First, a few words about Eldoret. The city is located three hundred kilometers northwest of Nairobi, almost on the equator, at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level (and the routes where runners train reach 2500-2800 m). I must say that the middle mountains are practically not felt - I have something to compare with, I was in Johannesburg, Mexico City, Tsaghkadzor, Cochababma (Bolivia), which are located at an altitude of 1700-2200 m, not to mention La Paz, located at an altitude of 3600 -3800 m. Feels as if you are in Kislovodsk, but the air is even fresher.

The weather is very even throughout the year - during the day in the shade it is 23-25 ​​degrees Celsius, at night it is cool (after all, mountains!), but comfortable. All year round the sun rises at 7 am and sets at 7 pm. There is almost no precipitation; the relative rainy season lasts from April to June. The vegetation is savanna, and higher up in the mountains, closer to 3000 m, the area is wooded. There is no industry, the air is clean, the environmental situation is the most favorable.

Everything the residents eat either walks and runs before your eyes (cows, goats, chickens), or grows right away - both vegetables and fruits. Of course, the harvest can be harvested throughout the year. The food is simple, but tasty and always fresh - there are practically no refrigerators. Since there are almost no bodies of water, you won’t see fish dishes on the table of the average Kenyan.

Frankly speaking, most of Eldoret and especially its suburbs make a depressing impression - this is not even poverty, but actually poverty. But there is an elite area near Eldoret where famous runners live. Athletes who have achieved significant success, but are not among the elite, live in quite decent cottages, the elite have two or three-story houses, and Moses Tanui and Tegla Lorupe - top-class marathon runners - built simply palaces for themselves on large fenced areas. In addition, all of Kenya's top runners are also businessmen, they own large areas of land and livestock.

Naturally, when aspiring athletes are constantly near their idols and see that they live a completely different life compared to the vast majority, the natural desire to run quickly develops into a life goal.

How do they train?

There is a fairly widespread opinion that Kenyans begin to run almost earlier than they walk, and almost every day, starting from the age of 6-7, they run across

12-15 km - to and from school. I’ll say right away that I haven’t seen anything like this, although we drove along many highways that lead from village to village. Yes, some ran (there were a minority of these), some walked, some rode a bicycle or a car.

The age at which they start training varies significantly - there are many examples when athletes achieve outstanding victories already at the age of 17-18, beating the entire world elite, and no less examples when at this age they are just starting to seriously engage in running. Very often, training groups are formed according to the family principle - the younger brother joins the older brother, the cousin joins him, etc. As I have already noted, most families have very difficult living conditions, therefore, as soon as athletes begin to show more or less decent results, they go to live in college dormitories or in sports camps, which large sports companies have recently begun to open.

The best of these camps (according to the Kenyans themselves), created by the Fiila company, is located a few kilometers from Eldoret, and I was in it.

What is this camp like?

Two rows of barracks, each of which is divided into several blocks. The block contains two small rooms, a shower room and a toilet. Each room is occupied by one person, but the rooms are so small that they only include a bed and a nightstand. Clothes and sneakers are dried under the windows in the sun - all bacteria are likely to die. On the territory of the camp there is a large vegetable garden, the harvest from which immediately ends up on the table. House rules are posted at the entrance. I didn’t have time to read them all, but I remembered one thing for sure - visitors and guests are required to leave the camp no later than 17:00.

Right at the gates of the camp, a 16 km long training track begins, located at an altitude of 2000 to 2500 m. Twice a week, all athletes living in the camp must run along this track there and back, i.e. cover 32 km. Before starting running training, athletes do quite a lot of general developmental exercises; “stretching” (special strength training complexes) is widely used.

The track has very good soil, reminiscent of a cinder surface (it is no coincidence that it is specially brought to the only stadium in Eldoret). It is said that this track is especially good soon after rain - it becomes elastic, like tartan, but retains all the benefits of a natural surface, which protects against injuries that often result from high volumes of running on a synthetic track.

Kip Keino

Legendary runner who won 2 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal in Mexico City and Munich, now heads the National Olympic Committee, is a member of the IOC and, in addition, conducts very large charitable activities. Twenty years ago, he took two girls from Uganda into his family, who had lost their parents during Amin’s repressions, and gradually created an orphanage, which now houses more than 70 people. In 1999, he opened a school where over 200 children study. The boarding school and the school are financed by various charities, as well as the IOC.

The Kip Keino Orphanage is located on a huge plot of land, where there are several residential buildings (for the children from the orphanage, and now for the IAAF center). Of course, this is not a five-star hotel, but the conditions are far from spartan: rooms for 2-3 people, showers and toilets for every two or three rooms, one of the houses is equipped with a library and video library. There is a gym and a basketball court, and a sauna is being built. In any case, Olympic champion Dieter Baumann stayed here several times (even before his doping scandal), American runners regularly come, not to mention athletes from nearby African countries.

There are also nine (!) cross-country tracks ranging from 4 to 8 km in length with different terrain and artificial obstacles, on which not only athletes train, but also competitions are constantly held. Of course, by regularly training in such conditions, Kenyan runners feel very confident in any cross-country competition held in Europe.

Naturally, there is also a huge vegetable garden (or even plantation) in which potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, maize and other vegetables grow - side by side with pineapples, bananas, mangoes and papayas.

Everyone eats at one table - both the Keino family and the athletes in the camp; the food is prepared by two chefs.

John Belzian

This man is one of the patriarchs of not only Kenyan, but, by and large, all of African athletics. He came to Kenya from England in 1959 when he was 30 years old. Of course, about nothing athletics there was no talk in the country at that time. But after just five years of his work at the Tokyo Olympics, the first Kenyan runner won a bronze medal, and four years later in Mexico City, real success came to the Kenyans, which never left them.

John Belzian did a lot both as a coach and as an organizer and direct implementer of various programs. Therefore, when the IAAF opened a regional development center for English-speaking African countries in Nairobi in 1987, Beelzian was appointed director and has been its head ever since. The development and advanced training program he created has borne fruit not only in Kenya, but also in Ethiopia (runners in this country, as is known, are often ahead of Kenyans), and in recent years- and in Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Eritrea.

When I asked John what factors were decisive in the success of Kenyan runners, he named six, in his opinion, the main ones: genetics (although, from my point of view, there is one strange thing here - after all, all the athletes were born into one very small population, where practically there is no “new blood” - V.Z.), efficiency, discipline (no one is ever late for training), motivation, group training and natural nutrition (he especially highlighted dairy products).

I am sure that if anyone can analyze in detail the training system for Kenyan runners, it is only John Belzian, and he promised to do this when he came to Moscow for one of the upcoming seminars of the Moscow Development Center.

Flaws

Despite the amazing successes of Kenyan runners, in my opinion there are still quite large reserves in their preparation.

1. There are practically no truly qualified trainers. At least the state does not pay a salary to any athletics coach (by the way, nor to athletes). As a rule, there are “playing” coaches, whose role is played by experienced athletes who are ending their own careers - now, for example, among them are Moses Tanui and Moses Kiptanui. Naturally, training in such groups is built in the image and likeness of mentors, which is not always beneficial for young athletes.

However, recently the situation has begun to change. Leading managers working with large groups of Kenyan runners - such as Kim McDonald, Jos Hermens, Giovani Di Madonna - began to pay coaches for their groups. In the center of Kipchogo Keino will work under a contract with the IAAF Paul Ereng - 1988 Olympic champion.

2. Almost constant training in large groups, regardless of specialization, leads to the fact that the load is high, but average. Apparently, it is no coincidence that the Kenyans achieved the greatest success at the Olympic Games and World Championships in running 3000 m s/p and 5000 m - distances at which such training is optimal, but at 10,000 m and in the marathon - insufficient.

The second disadvantage of such a training system is that often some athletes cannot choose “their” distance for several years, showing relatively low results (of course, low by Kenyan standards!), until they finally determine the optimal discipline for themselves.

3. There is practically no planning of the training process and, therefore, no control over it. When I asked Belzian whether athletes training programs and is it possible to look at them at least out of the corner of my eye, he gave the following example: “After the successful 1999 season, Japhet Kimutai began preparing for the Olympic Games, I asked him to show me the training plan. He hesitated for a long time, but in the end he gave it away. When I carefully studied this plan, it turned out that it was a plan I wrote before the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, when Kenyan runner Wilson Kiprugut won the bronze medal in the 800 m race for the first time: "

4. Very tough, “American” selection system. Regardless of the titles and results at the Kenyan Championships, all runners are required to go to the start line, and only the first three in each event go to the World Championships and the Olympic Games. At the same time, every year young athletes appear who have not yet been invited to commercial competitions in Europe, and therefore they purposefully prepare for the selection, get into the team, “knocking out” top-class athletes from it, but at the main competition they often look unconvincing. As a rule, this can be observed on every major competition: two Kenyans are fighting for medals, and the third either does not make it to the finals, or lags at the end of the race (at best, in the middle).

Just curious

With the names of the Kenyans, everything is clear, but here are the surnames: What we consider surnames, among them, can mean that someone is named that way because he was born before sunrise, or at noon, or at sunset. For example, two famous runners - Ismail Kirui and Richard Chelimo - are two siblings who have the same mother and same father. Therefore, our old joke about how a brother renounces his repressed brother, claiming that they are not even namesakes, will definitely not be understood in Kenya. Velzian said that it can be difficult for Kenyans abroad to fill out a form at a hotel - they do not understand what needs to be written in the “last name” column.

Of course, these notes in no way claim to be a detailed analysis of the “Kenyan phenomenon.” I think it makes sense to one day get up the nerve and send a group of our runners and coaches to Eldoret for 3-4 weeks - train with the Kenyans (or at least try to do it), compete in several cross-country competitions, create your own idea why almost all of them run so fast...

Prepared by: Sergey Koval

Studying elite runners' diets can not only help you choose your own diet, but also be a great way to test and evaluate many of the scientifically proven concepts that experts say help you achieve effective workouts without compromising your health.

And if we are going to study the nutrition of elite athletes, then it makes sense to start with the best - Kenyan runners.

If you don't already know, Kenyan tribal runners Kalenjin won about 40 percent of all major intermediate and long distances between 1987 and 1997 Studying the nutritional habits of Kenyan runners, which is, without a doubt, a truly entertaining activity.

However, traditionally, there are two problems associated with the study of features nutrition of Kenyan athletes. Firstly, Kenya is a third world country, making it difficult to obtain information from individual runners about their diet. Many elite (and not so elite) runners in the United States share information about their diet on blogs and social media. networks. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find Kenyans discussing their workouts.

Secondly, even if you found a diet plan of some kind, this would not answer the question about the principles of nutrition of the nation as a whole. To really understand how the Kenyan diet works, we need to know how most Kenyan runners eat.

Fortunately, some relatively recent studies have focused on this subject and provided some interesting data regarding the diet of Kenyans in general. In addition, I had the opportunity to train and live among Kenyan runners for a period of time, and to observe how they eat.

In this article, we'll review the science behind nutrition, understand what it is, and then compare it to what experts recommend.

Study of Kenyan Runners' Diet

The main body of data was obtained as a result of two studies (on English – translator's note): The first study was conducted in 2002, and the second study was conducted in 2004. During these studies, preferences in nutrition of a group of Kenyan athletes, and their diet was compared with traditional nutritional recommendations for track and field athletes.

In a 2002 study, a large group of Kenyan runners were simply asked to remember what they had eaten in the past 24 hours. Second study in 2004 was more thorough than the first: the group consisted of 10 runners who recorded everything they ate for 7 days. For this reason, the data we will rely on in this article comes primarily from the second study, and for accuracy we will also use data from the 2002 study.

What time of day do Kenyans eat and exercise?

Kenyan runners do not limit themselves in food; they eat whenever they feel hungry. In general, elite runners sit down to a desk 5 times a day. Among all meals, the following can be clearly distinguished:

8 am – breakfast
10 am – second breakfast
1 p.m. – lunch
4 pm – afternoon snack
7 pm – dinner

FYI: Kenyan athletes train twice a day. Morning training starts at 6 am. This is the longest and intense workout. On "easy" days, they run 9-15 miles (14.5 - 24 km), starting easy, then speeding up as their muscles warm up. On “hard” days they run with maximum consumption oxygen VO2max or temp.

In the afternoon, they run an easy 4-5 mile run. All athletes were training to compete at the Kenya Cross Country Championships, which covers a distance of 12 km. So it wasn't marathon training.

Daily macronutrient intake of Kenyan runners

Not surprisingly, most of the calories in the Kenyan diet come from carbohydrates. Of the 10 runners studied, 76.5 percent of all daily calories came from carbohydrates.

Based on the statistical indicators of the body of athletes, this means that per 1 kg of body weight there are 10.4 grams of carbohydrates consumed.

Moreover, based on the diet and training regimen, we can conclude that each athlete consumes about 600 grams of carbohydrates per day, which is almost 120 grams of carbohydrates for each meal.

10.1 percent of all digestible calories come from protein. This equates to approximately 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

About 13.4 percent of calories are absorbed from fat.

Although Kenyan runners do not know much about the science of sports nutrition, their diet is surprisingly close to the recommendations of nutritionists.

Carbohydrates

Most sports nutrition experts recommend that runners who train for long distances consume 9-10 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight per day. While the average amount of digestible carbohydrates is 10.4 grams, which is slightly more than the recommended amount, it is clear that Kenyans are following the basic principles scientific approach to the nutrition of athletes without realizing it.

Of course, this number may seem significant (for people leading a sedentary lifestyle), especially in view of recent trends towards paleo and low carb diets. However, as athletes compete at the peak of their abilities, replenishing glycogen stores and restoring the body after heavy exercise becomes essential.

Squirrels

As for proteins, here again the Kenyan diet is close to the recommendations of leading sports nutrition experts, who suggest absorbing 1.2 - 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Because Kenyan runners When preparing themselves for a 12K race rather than a marathon, the 1.2 grams of protein they consume is enough to restore and build muscle strength.

What food do Kenyans eat?

In this section, we will not describe the food of Kenyans in detail, but we will look at the data obtained by researchers on the calorie counts of most of the dishes that Kenyans usually eat. Plus, since I personally trained with Kenyans, I have a very good understanding of what kind of food they are. The result may surprise you.

• Sugar – regular sugar – makes up up to 20 percent of all calories per day. Kenyans love tea (in fact, Kenyans drink more tea than water - 1,243 liters per day on average), and they also like to add a lot of milk and sugar to their tea. By training with Kenyans, I was able to determine how much tea they drink and how much milk and sugar they add to their tea. Incredible! However, most of the sugar comes from the fruits they eat. Immediately after a run, Kenyans eat fruit: usually watermelon, cantaloupe and cantaloupe. Sugar and water speed up the delivery of glycogen to muscles after exercise.
• Ugali , it contains most of the daily calorie intake of athletes: up to 23 percent. Ugali is a simple dish made from corn flour (corn porridge) that is cooked with water. Kenyan runners eat this dish for dinner almost every night. It is usually served with chicken or beef and vegetables. If you prepare this dish correctly, it will taste much more pleasant than it sounds. One day, my friend and I decided to start eating just off all summer. Unfortunately, our culinary skills left much to be desired, and the porridge did not work out for us. But we had nowhere to go, and we ate what we prepared ourselves.
• Although the diet of Kenyan runners may seem “unhealthy” due to our relationship with sugar, in general they have a very healthy diet. About 86 percent of daily caloric intake comes from vegetables, 14 percent comes from animal foods. Moreover, they are not familiar with the heavy foods (at least in training camp), which are abused in modern Western society.

If you want to start eating like Kenyan runners

Even though nutrition for Kenyan runners Contrary to basic nutritional guidelines for non-runners, and with modern society changing its attitude towards sugar and carbohydrates, the Kenyan diet actually provides a good nutritional basis for those who run many miles a week and train intensely.

The diet of Kenyan runners is close to what is recommended by leading sports nutrition experts, and it consists mostly of natural products. By consuming plenty of carbohydrates, adequate protein absorption, and timing meals perfectly, the fastest Kenyan runners are nutritionally optimal—a daily diet that best supports their performance goals. high results in the world.

If you just want to get rid of excess weight, then most likely the carbohydrate and simple sugar content of this diet will be too high for your goals. However, you can organize your diet the same way Kenyan runners do, eating natural foods to provide natural energy to your body's muscles.

Over the past few years we have seen a surge in distance running performance, with most of these results shown Kenyan runners. One has only to open the statistics of results throughout history, and we will see that in the men’s marathon, only Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele wedged itself into the top 10 among Kenyans with a result of 2:03:03, shown in Berlin in 2016. How world record holders in running train in Kenya, says Evgenia Zhgir, MSMC in marathon, curator of the RunCzech Racing project, author of a series of articles.

Who trains

You will be surprised, but few Kenyans train under the guidance of a coach; most of them train in a group of athletes, where the training plan is drawn up by the athletes themselves or by the leading athlete-leader. Where, you ask, do athletes have such competence? The fact is that Kenyans are very open people, and more experienced athletes are happy to share their experience with younger ones. In general, every runner in Kenya, even a beginner, will tell you that if it’s Tuesday, then it’s fartlek, if it’s Saturday, then it’s a long one. A very special running culture has developed here over the years.

As for groups that work under the guidance of a coach, the program depends on the coach. There are successful coaches of local origin in Kenya, and there are also Europeans. The most successful and famous among European trainers is the Italian Renato Canova, who has been working in Kenya for many years. Renato worked for some time in Ethiopia and even in China, but still returned to Kenya, explaining that it was easier and more pleasant to work there.

Among the local trainers, Patrick Sang, perhaps, stands out, his most famous student - Olympic champion in the marathon, owner and winner of many prestigious marathons, including in Berlin and London. If Renato Canova adheres to the “intensity” approach in his work, then Patrick Sang follows the “volume” approach. Both approaches have their place, and both bring results. However, the “intensity” approach is more traumatic, and if you look at Canova’s group, many of his athletes are plagued by injuries, some recover and return, others do not. The “volume” approach is softer, and most athletes use precisely this principle, gradually increasing intensity.

Groups that train independently are no less successful. For example, former world record holder in the marathon Wilson Kipsang organizes his training process himself; world record holder in the marathon Dennis Kimetto also trains in a group without a coach.The key point in the training process of Kenyan runners is working in a group, where everyone supports and “pull” each other.

Training schedule

The most common training schedule looks like this:

• Monday – developmental cross-country;
• Tuesday – fartlek;
• Wednesday – recovery cross-country;
• Thursday – speed work at the stadium;
• Friday – recovery cross-country;
• Saturday – long tempo;
• Sunday is rest.

As a rule, most runners do 2 workouts a day: the morning one – according to the scheme described above, and the evening one – jogging, general developmental exercises and stretching. Sometimes athletes change Tuesday with Thursday, because... the stadium is simply not able to accommodate several hundred athletes at the same time. Therefore, the groups agree among themselves who comes to the stadium when.

Runners most often leave for morning training no later than 6:00 am and do not even have breakfast before training - first work, then food.

Where do they train?

The important point is that the vast majority of Kenyan runners train exclusively on dirt roads and dirt stadiums. Not because there is no asphalt or professionally surfaced stadiums, but because dirt roads are softer and less dangerous. Only a few athletes combine dirt and asphalt, mostly during the rainy season, when dirt roads are washed away, but you still need to train somehow.

Types of training

Athletes begin preparing for the season with cross-country and long low-intensity runs, then include fartlek, and then speed work, gradually increasing intensity. Fartleks vary in different time periods, the rest between working periods most often does not exceed 1 minute. The number of repetitions depends on how many kilometers are planned for the fartlek, usually 8-10 km. Kenyans, as a rule, do speed work with a fairly short rest, for example, 10x1000 m after 1.5-2 minutes of rest.

Long-term paces are also quite intense: those who are preparing for 10 km and half marathons do paces from 15 to 30 km, marathon runners from 25 to 40 km. For example, while training for the Tokyo Marathon in 2017, Wilson Kipsang held the final 35km pace in 1 hour 59 minutes, an average of 3:24/km, at an altitude of 2,300 m above sea level. Kipsang won the Tokyo marathon that year with a result of 2:03:58.

How to recover

How do Kenyans recover from such stress? By the way, they don’t go to the sauna. Massage, yes, at least once a week, if finances allow. And, of course, sleep and quality nutrition. A dream, as they say, - better recovery. Large sports management companies organize year-round support for their athletes: massage therapist, physiotherapy. The Normatec device has proven itself very well in athletics; almost all elite athletes use it for recovery.

What about women?

Women's long-distance running received a huge breakthrough in 2017, with 7 world records set by Kenyan runners from April to October. The most sensational was the half marathon in Prague, where Joycilyn Jepkosgei, during the half marathon distance, updated four world achievements at once (10 km, 15 km, 20 km and half marathon), while she became the first woman to run this distance faster than 65 minutes, her result is 1: 04:52. At the end of April, Mary Keitany successfully broke the marathon world record (split start) - 2:17:01. In the fall of the same year, Joycilyn updated the 10 km record, again in Prague, becoming the first woman to run ten out of 30 minutes (29:43), and a month later she improved her half-marathon time by 1 second.

Mary Keitany (world record holder in the marathon, winner of the London and New York marathons) and Edna Kiplagat (two-time world champion in the marathon) with pacemakers during speed training.

In general, the training process for women is structured in the same way as for men, with only one difference: women do not train in groups. As a rule, female athletes have one or more pacemakers who accompany them during each training session and set the pace. Many Kenyan runners train under the guidance of their husband-coach. Including Joycelyn Jepkosgei and Mary Keitany: both are trained by their husbands, and Mary’s husband is not only her coach, but also a pacemaker.

And finally, I would like to say about one more driving moment training process Kenyans, namely motivation. Running for Kenyans is real way earn a living and get out of poverty. Unfortunately, many athletes lose motivation as soon as they earn their first decent money and leave the sport, but there are also those for whom running becomes not just income, but a way of self-realization, and then we see such outstanding athletes as Eliud Kipchoge, Wilson Kipsang , Mary Keitany, Joycelyn Jepkosgei and many others.

It took just two hours, 31 minutes and 51 seconds for the champions and champions of the Boston Marathon on Monday to reach the finish line. A few minutes later, those watching the competition noticed something. The men who took the first three places were all Kenyan. And also women who have won similar medals. It was yet another amazing performance by Kenyan runners and another reason to wonder: how do they do it?

There is less agreement on such a popular and straightforward issue than one might think. Western studies of the nature of Kenyan runners and successful African athletes in general are complicated by particularly sensitive racial politics. After all, white scientists' assessment of the physical characteristics of Africans has a rather unpleasant history. But this hesitation in studying the phenomenon of Kenyan runners allowed some theories, most likely false, and often belittling the culture of Africans, to persist. Scientific research touches on some of the most sensitive racial biases in the West's relationship with Africa, but also reveals the amazing history of biodiversity among humans.

The statistics are hard to ignore. The mid-sized country, with a population of 41 million, dominates the world's running competitions. Choose any long distance running event. You'll find that about 70 or 80% of its winners since the late 1980s, when East African food and technology began to catch up with Western ones, have been from Kenya. Since 1988, for example, 20 of the 25 men who have finished first in the Boston Marathon have been Kenyan. Kenyan women seem to have had a later start - they did not win any marathons until 2000 (possibly due to discriminatory laws and a tradition of forcing girls into marriage, which were partially eased by reforms in the 1990s), but since then won 9 out of 13. Of the top 25 male record holders in the 3000m steeplechase, 18 are Kenyans. Seven of the last 8 London Marathons have been won by Kenyans, and the only non-Kenyan was from neighboring Ethiopia. The Kenyans' results in the Olympic men's marathon were more uneven, finishing in the top three in just four of the last six events. Still, not bad for one country. What's even more surprising is that three-quarters of Kenya's champions belong to an ethnic minority that numbers just 4.4 million, or 0.06% of the world's population.

As it turns out, Kenyans can be so successful because of their innate qualities. Two separate studies by Europeans in a small region in western Kenya, where most of the race's winners were born, found that young people there could, with just a few months of training, consistently beat some of the best professional Western runners. In other words, they seemed to have some kind of physical advantage that was common to their community - making it likely genetic. Researchers found significant differences in body mass index and bone structure between Western professionals and the Kenyan amateurs who beat them in competition. The Kenyans studied had lower body mass for their height, longer legs, shorter torsos and thinner limbs. One of the researchers said the Kenyans' physical features are "bird-like", noting that these traits make them more efficient runners, especially over long distances.

Surprisingly, popular Western books on Kenyan running success focus less on these genetic differences and more on cultural ones. For years, the main "cultural argument" has been that Kenyans make great runners because many of them have to run several miles to and from school every day. But about ten years ago, someone started asking Kenyans themselves if this was true, and it turned out that it was simply a product of Western fantasy: 14 of the 20 Kenyan competition winners surveyed said they walked or took the bus to school, like everyone else normal children. Another “cultural argument” was that Kenyans run barefoot, which develops good habits; but if this were true, then the much more populous countries of South Asia, where shoes are also rarely used, would of course dominate the Kenyans. Others attribute their success to Kenyans' "simple eating", but again this argument is true in many parts of the world, and Kenya's less-than-stellar health record suggests the country hasn't yet cracked the secret to great nutrition after all. Then there is the disconcerting theory still around that because Kenyans have historically been pastoralists, they exercise all the time by running around the villages after their sheep.

Another theory notes that many of Kenya's top runners come from the sunny, mountainous region of the East African Rift Valley, which is also the birthplace of homo sapiens. The land there is flat and the weather is moderate throughout the year, which encourages regular running. outdoors. The high altitude - approximately 7,000 feet - may help local runners develop lungs that function well in thinner air. When these runners descend into the relatively low temperatures of Boston or Beijing, they are supposed to receive an increased dose of oxygen due to the more oxygenated atmosphere in these places. This may help explain why they developed a physical predisposition for running, although it is possible that these traits could also be the result of so-called "genetic drift" - after all, evolution is based on random genetic mutations, so any isolated community will "drift" to certain general characteristics without any reason, by chance. However, there are many hills in the world and neither Swiss nor Nepalese runners have yet made a big debut. In addition, there is an opinion among trainers that although high altitude can help develop lung capacity, best way to do this is to sleep at a high altitude and train at a low altitude.

These theories seem to tell us more about how the West sees Kenya than about Kenya itself. But they are deeply embedded in Western thinking. Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book Outliers shows just how deeply ingrained these views are. The chapter on Kenyan runners says, as one blogger summed it up: “ideal environment + lots of hard work and goal focus = much more greater success than most people achieve." World champion runners, writes Gladwell, become idols in Kenya and have the same status as rock stars in America.

Talking about how good African athletes are can backfire in the Western world. The period of American slavery was partially justified by arguments that Africans were "specially created" for manual labor, and whites for mental labor; these ideas still persist in American paternalism and racism to this day. For a white writer like me (or a white researcher, or a white anthropologist), discussing the physical attributes of black men and women can bring back memories of some of the worst moments in modern history. Besides, there is something offensive about reducing Africans to only the prowess of their best athletes. After all, Kenya has produced great writers, environmentalists and politicians.

It is difficult to talk about this topic without exhibiting certain prejudices, or without appearing to be trying to explain away and thereby somewhat detract from their success, or to touch on some still fresh cultural wound from centuries of exploitation. This may be why definitive answers are so hard to come by, and why we subscribe to theories that downplay legitimate biological differences and emphasize the idea that Kenyans simply exercise more. But this kind of thinking, while clearly well-intentioned, is itself a kind of condescension. We are so afraid of reducing Africans to their physical attributes that we have ended up reducing them to outdated stereotypes such as the hero of the movie Cool Runnings - the barefoot village boy who conquered everyone.

Scientific studies of the success of Kenyan runners have not yet discovered the "Steep Bends" gene, which makes Kenyans biologically predisposed to achieving success, or any scientific basis for Gladwell's argument - that they are simply more driven to achieve their goal than Western runners. Most of Kenya's Olympic medalists come from one tribe, the Kalenjin, which numbers only 4.4 million. Sub-Saharan Africans have identified themselves by tribal affiliation, such as the one outlined above, for much longer than by nationality (a system largely imposed by Western colonialism), so Kalenjin differences are not just academic: it is likely that the tribe is genetically closed to a sufficient extent that general physical characteristics can influence their athletic success.

In 1990, the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center compared mature schoolboys from the region with the famous Swedish national track team (before Kenya and several other African countries began to dominate international speed racing in the late 1980s, the Scandinavians were the most consistent winners). Researchers found that boys on a school track team in Iten, Kenya, consistently outperformed professional Swedish runners. The researchers estimated that the average Kalenjin could beat 90% of the world's population in speed, and that at least 500 amateur high school students in Iten alone could beat Sweden's top professional runner in the 2000 metres.

A 2000 study by the Danish Institute of Sports Science replicated an earlier experiment: a large group of Kalenjin boys were trained for three months and then compared to Thomas Nolan, a Danish track superstar. When the Kalenjin boys inflicted a heavy defeat on him, the researchers, who also conducted many physical tests and compared them with established human averages, concluded that the Kalenjin tribe must have an innate, physical, genetic advantage. They found a higher number of red blood cells (which supports the theory that altitude makes them more efficient oxygen users), and in their findings, the researchers emphasized their “bird-like leg structure”, which makes running less energy-intensive and gives the step exceptional efficiency.

Unlike the 1990 study, which was conducted just a few years after the Kenyan phenomenon had developed, the 2000 study was conducted in the middle of an international debate about why these young East African men and women were dominating a sport that had long was the pride of the West. The results of the study were mixed. "You won't get anywhere in life unless you work hard to achieve something, so I think running is mental first and foremost," said Kenyan Kip Keino. Keino), winner gold medal on Olympic Games, denouncing the study as racist. Western authors have written about "black speed genes" and some have wondered whether Kenyans have an unfair advantage.

Running, like any other sport, is physical labor, and sporting success form physical features. Just because Larry Bird and Michael Jordan are tall doesn't mean they aren't first and foremost great athletes. Olympian Michael Phelps owes his swimming records in part to his unusual figure, which is genetic: you can't lengthen your arms through training. All athletes owe part of their success to their own physical features, but since Kalenjin runners have certain traits common to their ethnic group, and since that ethnic group is part of a history of colonialism and white exploitation of blacks, the topic is more difficult to discuss. However, that doesn't make their athleticism any less amazing.

semi-professional running, in the winter of 2017 Iskander went to the African continent, to Kenya, which many of us only read about in books. Here is the third part of Iskander’s story about his adventures in Kenya, and here are the parts.

Our training took place in a “village” near the city of Thika, where we lived. In general, Tika is not the best sports place: the altitude is only 1500 m, the roads are dusty, there are almost no hills, and there are few athletes themselves. But Maina believes that this is a plus and that it is easier not to lose speed qualities here. The choice of professions is also small - stones are mined and carved in Thika, so the work here is hard physical labor, quarrying or construction. Of course, there are simpler professions - for example, selling something, but these niches are usually occupied. You're either training or working; you can't combine it - with such work you don't have any energy left to run.

Previously, the general population of Kenya did not recognize runners - they were considered slackers and looked at as crazy.

But with the development of the media, people learned that the opposite is true: it is the runners who glorify Kenya and earn good money. Attitudes towards running and runners have changed, and Kenyan athletes have become idols for many children. True, a runner’s income is inconsistent and unreliable, especially with such competition, so how some of them live remains a mystery to me.

• Breakfast after the first cross-country

1/2

Discipline?

Kenyans train in groups, which, on the one hand, is, of course, great - running fast in a group is always easier. But, on the other hand, there is a huge minus in this - they lack an individual approach. We all know the running “rule of the three Ps” (consistency, gradualness and constancy): in training, go from simple to complex, gradually increasing the load. Here it’s the other way around: as soon as he starts training, the Kenyan immediately joins the group that runs at the pace of the strongest, and, naturally, endures with them to the last. This is the reason why many Kenyan runners get injured.

Discipline is going out for a run and forcing yourself to stick to the plan. And the local approach is to go out and work to the fullest. Since Kenyans do not have the Internet and communications, of course, they also do not read any special literature, they learn all the rules of running from the older generation. They believe that if they kill themselves in training, they will run faster, but, of course, this often leads to the opposite result: many get injured or “overrun.” But I wouldn’t want to generalize, of course, because I also met competent runners there.

You shouldn’t think that this is an exclusively Kenyan problem: they are also “running across” in Russia. It seems to me that colossal loads are not necessary for high results; a cool head plays a more important role. The ability to do as you need to do, and not as your emotions dictate, is also discipline.

• In training
• Massage

1/2

Recovery?

Kenyans are not recovering. They eat natural food, sleep as much as they need, and massage themselves - that’s all. They are not specifically taught massage anywhere; this skill is passed on from generation to generation of runners.

Naturally, they don’t take any dietary supplements - they simply don’t exist, if only they existed, everyone would drink them with pleasure. And there can be no talk of doping here - it’s simply ridiculous in their situation, no one has enough money even for approved reducing agents, not to mention prohibited drugs. One girl brought a can of isotonic drink from Europe and brought it after training. Everyone sat down at the table, read the word recovery on the label, put it into cups with the words: “Well, now we’ll recover!”

I took a packet of amino acids with me to Kenya because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get enough protein from their food, but I never touched them. In the end, I left everything to the guys, and recently they wrote to me that these pills are simply magic and help them a lot in recovery.

None of my new friends care about their pulse. Some of them don't even know what it is.

Maina asked: “If my heart rate is high after a segment, is that good or bad? What does this mean, can you explain to me?” Once I recommended to a girl to put her hand to her heart to measure her pulse after training. “I don’t feel anything!” - she said, putting her hand to right side breasts They don’t need all this knowledge about the pulse - Kenyans know how to feel their body well. I was convinced of this when I ran evening recovery cross-country races with them - they often ran at a clear pace of 6:00-7:00 min/km. I've never run so slow before. I must say, it’s hard to wrap my head around the image of a Kenyan runner who turns himself inside out in training in the morning and trudges along like a turtle in the evening: two extremes. But that's true!

I am convinced that conditions play a big role in the preparation of an athlete. Of course, reasons fast run There are many Kenyans, but their training conditions are something that plays no small role. Even I somehow managed to run 210 kilometers there in a week and, what’s most surprising, it was relatively easy.

• We collect tea
• Eating bananas at Elam's house
• In training

1/3

Nutrition

No one here has refrigerators - they buy meat at the market and cook it right away, they don’t buy fish at all - there is nowhere to raise it, and if you bring it from other regions, it will quickly spoil. They eat everything that spoils quickly. Meat is rarely eaten because it costs good money. We ate meat - goat meat - for dinner every two days.

They also don’t eat cheese; they haven’t been used to it since childhood - it soon spoils and is hard to get. Maina said that even when he was in Europe, if he eats spaghetti, he never adds Parmesan. They only drink black tea; they cannot tolerate green tea. And Elam, for example, had never eaten pizza, and he was terribly interested in trying it.

One weekend, Maina, Elam and I went to Nairobi and visited Domino’s Pizza. We ordered a huge pizza and ate a lot of it. The next day, everyone had varying degrees of stomach cramping. We thought, well, nothing can be done, but it was delicious.

A week later we went to collect tea, and on the way back I offered to treat them. While looking for a cafe, we again came across a pizzeria. Elam began to fuss. It was clear that he wanted to try pizza again, but at the same time he was afraid of the consequences. They discussed something with Maina for a long time and finally decided: “We need to finally make sure: last time we were unlucky with pizza or this food, in principle, does not suit our stomach.” “Is there pizza without cheese?” – Elam continued to be nervous. I explained to him that pizza without cheese is not pizza.

In the end, we took even more pizza, ate too much, and took it home. For some reason the kids didn’t like the pizza, and Kellen didn’t really like it either. The next day, Maina and I were in good spirits, but Elam did not show up for training for the next three days. When we met again, he told me: “No matter how much I ask, I beg you, never buy me pizza again!”