Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

Author:Adharanand Finn [Finn, Adharanand]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-53352-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Mary Keitany and her husband, Charles

Iten wasn’t always the home of Kenya’s conveyor belt of running talent. When Kenyans first started to raise eyebrows with their running exploits, it was mainly the runners from the Nandi Hills, farther south, who dominated.

“When I came here in 1976,” says Brother Colm, “there were no runners in Iten.” I’m sitting in his dimly lit living room, sunk back into an old armchair. In one corner is a small TV with piles of videos stacked up in the sideboard underneath. Godfrey tells me that Brother Colm records every race that gets shown on television. The room is sparsely furnished, with a clock and a picture of a saint on the wall, alongside a free tractor calendar. He doesn’t offer me any tea. A packet of ginger nut cookies on the table remains unopened.

It was the influence of Brother Colm and his St. Patrick’s boys’ school, and to a lesser extent Signore girls’ school just outside of Iten, that were to turn the town into the running center it is today. With the repeated success of their teams in national and international competitions, Iten began to build a reputation as the place to train. “St. Patrick’s and Signore were the beacons that made Iten the running center,” says Brother Colm, as he walks me back out to the school gate. He has his cap pulled down low over his eyes and walks, where he can, in the shade. “We put Kericho [the Iten region] at the center of the map. Now everything emanates from Kericho.”

As we stand at the gate, a car pulls up and a man gets out and starts shaking Brother Colm’s hand. “Henry, how are you?” says Brother Colm. He looks at me. “Henry was one of my students. He’s now a university lecturer.”

Henry turns to shake my hand. “We are all his products,” he says, pointing at Brother Colm, clearly delighted to have bumped into him again.

Iten’s influence is celebrated each year at its annual sports and tourism day. “Iten is the factory of Kenyan running,” the day’s organizer tells me as we stand in the sports field at the center of town. “So we thought we should have a factory day.” The festivities begin, aptly, with a race. Starting down in the hot, cactus-pimpled belly of the valley, the route winds its way thirteen miles up to the cool freshness of Iten. A half marathon, uphill all the way. I’m hurrying the children to get dressed. The race is supposed to start at 8:30 A.M., and I’ve just received word that not only is it starting on time, but it is starting only half a mile down the road, so the runners will be passing through the town in about five minutes. Uma says she doesn’t want to come; I’m sensing her passion for running is wearing thin. Lila seems happy to tag along, though, so we leave Uma with Flora and hurry down into town, Marietta strapping Ossian on her back as we go.

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