the Icing on the Cake: 2011

domingo, 5 de junio de 2011

About the Kenyan marathoning Boom

"Kenyans are not really interested in the marathon. I was not either, so when people would praise me for running fast I did not think much of it. But I knew another runner from Kenya, a little older than me, who made a name for himself in Japan—so I thought, if I can get to Japan, maybe I can do well as a runner there, too." (1) Eric Wainaina, marathon Olympic double medallist.

Geoffrey Mutai wins 2011 Boston marathon in an outstanding time of 2:03:02
Photo: Elise Amendola/ Associated Press
http://media.lehighvalleylive.com/sports_impact/photo/geoffrey-mutai-d43318492b47e0dc.jpg

Well, things have really changed since Eric Wainaina sailed to Japan in 1993, in the wake of 1987 World Champion and 1988 Olympic silver medallist Douglas Wakiihuri, looking for a strong support for his marathon career, which was not available then at his homeland. Currently, more than half of the top-100 runners in the marathon ranking lists are born in Kenya: 62 in 2009, 59 in 2010 and 55 this year. The last two World champions are from this country and so is the Olympic titleholder.

Nevertheless, back in the eighties, when the marathon discipline was becoming increasingly popular among both elite runners and masses and Ethiopian, Tanzanian and Djiboutian athletes were making the highlights at the newly fashionable contests of New York, Chicago, Rotterdam or London, Kenyan marathoners were almost absent in this boom. The 42,195 km race was strange to the country's athletic tradition. Scarcely, we can remember from that time Josef Nzau, Ibrahim Hussein, who was based in Alburquerque, and Douglas Wakiihuri, that guy who had gone to live in Japan, (2) because of the reputation of Toshihiko Seko’s coach Kiyoshi Nakamura, that man who trained both athlete's bodies and minds. http://moti-athletics-marathon-m.blogspot.com/2011/05/toshihiko-seko.html

After two straight boycotts had almost extinguished athletics track activity in the country, Kenya had started to rise again strongly in the mid eighties, thanks mainly to the astonishing achievements in Cross Country, which made recover lost confidence and national pride. Coach Mike Kosgei and athlete John Ngugi led the Kenyan resurgence, with the hardest workouts ever seen, and their example started to be imitated everywhere in the country. The IAAF also helped, subsidizing poor countries and launching the World Junior championships, which reinvigorated the work at grassroots level. http://moti-athletics-xc.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-ngugi-first-kenyan-world-cross.html Subsequently, Kenya won three gold medals at 1987 Rome World Championships and four at 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The nation had been back to the level of Mexico Games and started setting the basis for an increasing stranglehold at the distance events, which continues to the date. Talking about the roads, Douglas Wakiihuri had got gold in Rome and silver in Seoul, and soon afterwards won at London and New York marathons. Ibrahim Hussein, also triumphed in New York and three times in Boston. These early succeses and the newly incorporated money incentives convinced Kenyan runners the marathon distance was worth a try.

Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, a four times Boston marathon winner and the
inaugural world major marathons champion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Cheruiyot.jpg

However, without any tradition in the country, help had to come from abroad to start developing the base for further success. Boston marathon organisers and Kenyan athletics authorities entangled an arrangement, in search of mutual benefits, since 1992: the East Africans agreed to use exclusively Boston marathon for World Championship and Olympic trials and, in exchange, the Americans would pay expenses for a number of Kenyan entrants in their race and would subsidize a spring marathon training camp in Africa for a few years. Kenyan runners, who had never participated in Boston marathon before 1986, won the race ten years in a row, the whole 1990s decade.

Some athletes went abroad in search of opportunities. Eric Wainaina travelled to Japan and some others, like Moses Tanui and Paul Tergat, joined an Italian sports club, managed by renowned coach and physician Gabriele Rosa, who in 1995 started investing in low-budget training camps in Kenya, sponsored by Fila , mainly for marathon preparation. (3) (4)

Small money made big miracles. Kenyans, along with Ethiopians and North Africans, amazingly, started producing a massive number of world class athletes in both track and road, dominating distance running in the nineties, in a way never seen before in the history of athletics, and still increasing their stranglehold in the first decade of the 20^th century. On the other hand, the rest of the world, especially European countries, more amazingly, were following the opposite trend, starting losing ground progressively and almost disappearing from long distance athletics spotlights by 2011. A fine example is no European athlete was entered for the 10.000 metres at Osaka world Championships. Furthermore, only two Europeans have made the all-time continental top-30 in the marathon during the last four years, with a maximum of three athletes under 2:10 in each seasonal list. Meanwhile, at global level, the men's marathon is experiencing a meteoric progression in its standards, by far the biggest among the 47 athletics events. Since 2008, no less than 24 different men have dipped under 2:06, a feat only 4 others had achieved before. All of them are African, mainly Kenyans, with the sole exception of US runner Ryan Hall. (5)
Not much is talked about this European decay and why the old continent current athletes, besides their inability to face Africans, are so inferior to the champions you could find in Great Britain, Portugal, Italy or Finland some decades before. However, this Kenyan and Ethiopian phenomenon have been widely studied in newspapers, books or films. Journalists, athletes, biologists, nutritionists… all have been in Eldoret looking for the secret of Kenyan success. Besides the factors already cited, there are other reasons which explain this overwhelming African dominance. Some argue about the real influence of one or two of them, but there are so many factors that all together make a big gap.

Firstly there is genetics. East African runners have in general slender, lighter, body shape, which means further resistance to heat exhaustion. It is illustrative some explain in these terms why Paula Radcliffe succombed to the heat at Athens Olympic marathon, while her tinier rivals Mizuki Noguchi and Catherine Ndereba could handle the weather without much trouble. Their limbs also have probably been adapted to activities where long walking or running is involved, which they have been carrying out since the dawn of humanity, as nomadic grazing or gazelles hunting. http://moti-athletics-1500-m.blogspot.com/2011/05/filbert-bayi-boldest-runner-ever.html Amazingly, about ¾ of the top Kenyan athletes belong to the Kalenjin group, most precisely the Nandi, which are also related to the Oromo tribe, which makes most of the Ethiopian racing population. Besides their privileged frame for distance running, both Nandi and Oromo as traditional warriors are famous for their physical and mental strength, outstanding qualities for an athlete. Several physiologists like Scandinavian Bengt Saltin have been in Kenya. (6) Although they have found little evidence of genetics differences, it seems silly to deny its influence in sport when more than 90% of the best long distance runners come from East Africa and about the same proportion of sprinters have West African origin.

Notwithstanding, everybody agrees the gap between East African and Westerner runners start being built at the grassroots level. In contrast with European and American children, who increasingly are developing sedentary hobbies like watching TV or playing computer and videogames, many African kids have to run 10 or more kilometres every day in order to reach their school. Without noticing, they are acquiring with the years the solid aerobic base the master Lydiard talked about, required to start any specific athletic workout, and besides they do it barefoot, adopting a natural and efficient way of running. At home, they do not have many distractions. Instead they must help with the domestic economy, enduring a childhood full of hardship, which makes them tougher. Their nourishment is also based in natural food, little industrialised, a diet rich in carbohydrates, with the famous ugali as staple, while our kids are eating too much fat and junk food. We see, at high school age, when teens start training to become an athlete, Kenyans are already miles ahead.

Kenyan children take part in a shool race
Photo: Adharanand Finn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/22/running-fitness-iten-kenya-school

We must consider as well, while European children might focus in a wide variety of sports, Kenyan role models are all athletes, who are getting fame and money running all around the world and are also helping family and community with their earnings. Athletics is the best opportunity for a more comfortable life. (7) Do not think wrong, Kenya’s future athletes, except a few cases, as four times Boston Marathon winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, are not facing starvation, but the reward obtained from winning a second rank marathon in Europe is about equal to one year work earnings in Kenya. Athletes also invest in schools and education thus becoming children benefactors. These ones dream of becoming the next Keino, Ngugi or Tergat, who are just their neighbours next door. The whole atmosphere encourage running and you will not see anywhere in the world in school such racing passion and enthusiasm and athletics be taken so seriously (8)

Other factors to consider are altitude and training. Kenyans are born at 2000 metres of height. Their organisms through time adapt themselves to the lack of oxygen, producing more quantity of red blood cells. Unlike at The Andes or the Tibet, climate is warm and it makes running activity possible. Some say it is the optimal height for training. Mexican walkers, even go higher, after a period of adaptation at 2000 meters. Others argue be born in altitude is an advantage but it is better to train at sea level, because at the mountains you waste too much energy. I can say what really matters in Kenyan case it is the fact it is hilly training. Westerners make some workouts on hills but it is not comparable to what East Africans do. Throughout their whole intense running sessions they are up and down mountain trails, overcoming continuously moments of oxygen debt and as a result they increase plainly their resistance threshold. This is why they can have no problem in breaking their rivals legs with changes of speed and are unbeatable at the 3000 metres steeplechase, where every obstacle jump produce a lack of oxygen similar to the one is experienced when running up on a hill. Yet this kind of approach is not as tough as you can imagine. Legs benefit from this alternation of ascending and descending efforts, instead of keeping a routinous running over flat roads. Besides, in such natural environment, trees provide supplementary oxygen, which helps carry the uphill workouts.

It is commonplace to say Kenyan athletes are the best because they work harder than anybody else. Yet not everybody believes the murderous workouts Mike Kosgei and John Ngugi’s trademark, covering very long distances and asking the highest intensity, are the most advisable at such altitude. It depends on the coach or on the athlete, because many are self-coached. Brother Colm O’Connell is less demanding in mileage amount, he prefers quality than quantity, and has produced a quite respectable number of World and Olympic champions. (9) Many athletes work with foreign coaches, specially Italians, like Gabriele Rosa, Renato Canova, Gabriele Nicola or Claudio Berardelli, that have their own ideas about how to train. What is sure Kenyan runners are fully dedicated to athletics. They live in training camps and their lives consist of running, eating and sleeping, nothing else. It is hard to imagine a European or American athlete with similar devotion.

Nevertheless, devotion needs economical rewards. During the 1970s and 1980s a corrupted Athletics federation (KAAA) tried to control every move and every earning of Kenyan athletes. Only half a dozen runners based in US had some opportunities of competing in the international circuit but even then, the KAAA get once Henry Rono and Mike Boit pull off the track in Oslo and tried to get banned Mike Musyoki by the IAAF because he had placed his road winnings in trust with the US federation, instead of sending them back to Kenya. (3) In 1990, the same Mike Boit was elected Commissioner of Sports and he finished up with that non sense. He ordered athletes were given their passports back and were allowed to compete where and when they wanted. At the same time he invited foreign agents to come to the country and enlist athletes, what they did pretty quickly. It brought to the spiral of opportunities, incentives and massive incorporation of youngsters to training camps, which started to spread everywhere, financed by those agents, shoe companies and other Kenyan runners who were making some money competing at European meetings and US roads. It was the real beginning of the massive Kenyan dominance of distance running we know today. (3) (10)
Former marathon Olympic champion Frank Shorter explains cleverly the phenomenon: “The record holders used to be athletes from industrialized nations who had access to technology and financial incentives. As more Kenyans and Ethiopians could achieve the same access to agents, money and a lucrative running career, the balance of power changed. The Africans finally got a level playing field. Then, the game was over”. (9)

Daniel Komen, the day he became 5000 metres World Champion
http://www2.iaaf.org/Athens97/

Yet the road to stardom is treacherous and it hides uncountable trap holes. It is not necessarily easy to manage a long term athletics career. It is not easy either to handle a meteoric rise from ashes to riches. (11) Kenya is overcrowded with talented runners looking for racing opportunities. They follow ferocious training regimens in order to overcome the fierce competition in their own home country and, even if they survive the cut and get some international notoriety and money, many burn themselves in a few years of overtraining. Only a few fortunate ones learn how to handle things wisely and keep themselves on the top for many years. In the nineties, Haile Gebrselassie and Daniel Komen were taking turns in demolishing the distance track records. Almost 20 years later, the Ethiopian ace, four times world and twice Olympic champion, is still competing for glory, now on the roads. Interestingly he has established the current marathon world record in 2008 and is pushing the young generation of Kenyans to beat him and his record as he did two decades before on the track. He hopes to fight for a medal in London Olympics.

On the other hand, Komen, raised in poverty, in his breakthrough year of 1996, devoted himself to competing everywhere to collect as much money as possible, in the Athletics Grand Prix meetings. He did not prepare properly for the Olympic Games. Just went to Kenya for the trials in a hurry, not taking time in adapting to the altitude, and not surprisingly did not qualify. The following year he won his only major title, the 5000 metres World championships in Athens, but soon afterwards started neglecting training and partying too much and began losing races. He never recovered his former fitness. (12) Amazingly, Kenenisa Bekele has beaten every Gebreselassie’s record on the track, but has not been able to do the same with Komen’s. It just means how much talent treasured that brief shooting star; how much talent was wasted. Yet, not everybody has the chance of having Gebrselassie's great personality and a manager like Jos Hermens.
  All three Kenyans who have medalled at the Olympic Games, Douglas Wakiihuri, Eric Wainaina and Samuel Wanjiru were based in Japan. Obviously it is more than a coincidence. Wakiihuri was the absolute pioneer. His excellent performances in S&B inspired coach Tsutomu Akiyama the idea of recruiting Kenyans in order to help rise the potential of his team Yamanashi Gakuin University. They got two men, Joseph Otwori and Kennedy Manyisa. One had to be excellent to score the maximum points, the other just a little bit better than national members, to be an acccesible target for them. In just a couple of years YGU won the New Year's ekiden race, and their succes encouraged other teams to follow their example. Japanese corporate teams were beneficiated because of the arrival of their Kenyan runners, but these ones obtained plenty of advantages too. (13) To be integrated into the Japanese corporate system offers you an education and regular incomes; an economical and emotional stability which the Kenyans depending on European agents and promoters not always can enjoy. Besides, Japan is the country of marathon par excellence and there are around many experts, who can guide young runners to a long and fruitful career.
Waianaina, thanks to be trained in the same way Japanese long distance runners do, was the most (and maybe the only) consistent Kenyan marathoner during a whole decade. Always a guarantee, he was selected for three consecutive Olympic Games, winning two medals in 1996 and 2000. He is still competing on the roads. Samuel Wanjiru was shaped into a potential Olympic winner under the wise guidance of first Takao Watanabe, then Barcelona-92 marathon silver medallist Koichi Morishita, who instilled in him the necessary self-discipline, focus and patience in the race (gaman) to play his cards at the right moment of the event. (14) Those qualities, already Wakiihuri had said in the eighties Kenyan athletes lacked. Perhaps, Kenyan (nandi) personality fitted more with the 800, 1500 or 5000 metres and this explains why their marathoning achievements in major championships had been so inferior to the track distance ones.

Wanjiru, described by Morishita as the most responsible and hard-worker trainee he had ever had and at the same time a fearsome opponent because of both his power and his sense of tactics, actually made a personal blend of Kenyan and Japanese style of training. He stated the latter were too much methodical; they needed everything going under schedule. Instead, he would take a day off in case it rained, would prefer a lighter workout volume, making more emphasis in intensity, would train slower at altitude… (15)

Luke Kibet, under extreme heat and humidity became in Osaka only the second Kenyan in winning a World championships marathon, 20 years after Douglas Wakiihuri. However, it was just a sign. The man who was going to change Kenyan marathoning forever was Samuel Wanjiru the following year in the Olympic Games, in which is widely regarded as the best performance in the whole history of the event. Most previous major championships had been run cautiously, fearing the hot summer effects. It never beneficiated Kenyan runners, who used to give the impression of not knowing how to handle an important race. Wanjiru, who was just in his third marathon, did not like to run slowly so he started the final at world record pace and kept it until the 25 km. mark, when the temperature had risen to 30 degrees, helped by team members Martin Lel and Luke Kibet and also Ethiopian Deriba Merga and Eritrean Yonas Kifle. In five kilometres all not-African runners were already eliminated.

Despite the alternatives at the front- pacing, Wanjiru always looked in control, surging aggressively continuously to inject a brisker pace, in words of Arata Fujiwara, “acting like a boxer who takes the initiative and punch to knockout his rival”. (14) Eventually he went alone and was the only one who could sustain a high rhythm until the finish line, ending in an unbelievable 2:06:32, three minutes better than the previous Olympic record. Wanjiru’s demonstration proved it was possible a different approach to a race in heat conditions and, most importantly, proved to his Kenyan mates the national runners had the ability to beat everybody in the marathon, the same way they always had done at let us say the steeplechase. The freshly crowned Olympic champion did not go to Berlin World Championships but his compatriots had learned the lesson and developed a similar tactic, now knowing their chances increased in a fast race. It remembered a Cross Country championship with every Kenyan in front, running for the team. Thus, four times Boston winner Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot sacrificed himself for Abel Kirui and Emmanuel Mutai, who were the fittest Kenyans in the race. Kirui won a third in a row global championship for his country, again in a 2:06 timing. It seems it is going to be like this for a long time.

Martin Lel, Patrick Makau, Tsegaye Kebede, Abel Kirui and Emmanuel Mutai at last London Marathon
Photo: Reuters/ Eddie Keogh
http://www.liderendeportes.com/PillateLaFoto/Las-mejores-fotografias-de-la-semana-del-11-al-17.aspx

Wanjiru left Japan and the Toyota team soon after his Olympic victory, stating he was tired of running Ekidens. Yet he went nowhere... After his departure, and with Daniel Njenga getting old, there is no first rank Kenyan marathoner left in Japan. Mathathi, Ngatuny, Muchiri, Thuo, Paul Tanui, Bidan Karoki… are all of them 10.000 metres specialists. Amazingly, the ekiden races, which were created to foster marathoning spirit among Japanese citizens and help the country win the Olympic Games, have now become a target in itselfs not a mean. Ekiden races are nowadays so popular that Japanese athletes devote all their efforts in peaking at Hakonen or New Year Ekiden, instead of preparing international championships. Men marathon results have suffered the effects and there have only been one performance under 2:08 in six years, while at 2010 New Year Ekiden eight men ran their leg under the existing half-marathon national record. (16) Interestingly, top long distance runner Arata Fujiwara has abandonned the Corporate system, and last marathon sensation Yuki Kawauchi, who has never been into, has gotten to qualify for Daegu World Championships, despite working full time and self-financing all his athletics activity.
In Western lands, another strange phenomenon is happening lately. Long distance specialists are progressively deserting the track to meet the roads. Among the Kenyans the most renowned names are Moses Mosop, Leonard Patrick Komon, Micah Kogo, Sammy Kitwara, Bernard Kipyego, Philemon Limo and Wilson Kiprop. Among the Ethiopians Gebregziagher Gebremariam, Tadesse Tola, Abreham Cherkos, Bekana Daba, Ali Abdosh, Markos Geneti, Azmeraw Bekele, Lelisa Desisa and Dino Sefar. As a result, in the latter country, which field is not as deep as Kenyan's, to find the fourth man who will join Kenenisa Bekele, Sihine and Imane Merga at the 10.000 metres in Daegu, the selectors will have to go to 27:22 (Abera Kuma) or 27:41 (Ibrahim Jeylan). The obvious reason is the road and marathoning circuit can offer now a largest choice of possible venues to compete in and far superior economical rewards than the Diamond League meetings. Furthermore, Japan is the only country in the world, where 10.000 metre races are held regularly. Even the Ivo Van Damme meeting did not organise a 10 km event in the last two years. Besides, Kenenisa Bekele has never been beaten at that distance and the roads are much more open to everybody. Coach Renato Canova has a fine example about that: Last year Leonard Komon ran at the Bislett Games 12:59 for 10th at the 5000 metres, winning a prize of 200$. The fly from Nairobi to Oslo had a cost of $1200 but as it is norm in these cases he was just paid $700 for expenses. TOTAL AMOUNT= He paid $300 for running 12:59, the 16th best mark of the yearly lists. On the contrary, this year he finished first a road race in New York and besides improved the meeting record, earning $45.000. (17)
Of course, road races and marathons are improving massively in quality field with the addition of so many talented runners. London and Boston marathons were more loaded than ever and their results speak clearly about the outstanding level the event has reached in the last seasons.
Emmanuel Mutai obtained, with his first victory in a major marathon, the deserved prize to his regularity, for being the most consistent performer in the event since he won the Amsterdam marathon in 2007. Only once he finished worst than fourth in his last eight marathons, all of them majors, including also a silver medal at last World Championships. Mutai surprised everybody running away thanks to covering miles 21 and 22 in 4:30 and the stretch between 30 and 40 km in 28:44, no less than 25 seconds faster than Gebrselassie when he set the current world record. Emmanuel Mutai crossed the line in 2:04:40, more than one minute ahead everybody else; an astonishing difference acknowledging the quality of the field. It was the first time the 2:05 barrier was broken in London. (18)

Martin Lel had a happy comeback after being hampered by injuries for more than two years, getting the runner-up place. It is symptomatic that arguably the two most solid Kenyans, along with Wanjiru, between 2005 and 2008, Kipkoech Cheruiyot and Lel are now experiencing real troubles with injuries. The pre race favorites Patrick Makau, author of probably the best two performances last season, and Tsegaye Kebede, only beaten by Wanjiru in the circuit since 2008, finished just third and fifth, proving nobody is unbeatable right now and that every year and every race are different. Between them, Marilson dos Santos at last had a fine day out of his favoured New York, improving largely on his PB, while Jaouad Gharib (sixth) still expects to be in contention for another Olympic Games, despite his age. World Champion Abel Kirui withdrew from the race and his chances for defending in Daegu seem close to zero, after two seasons full of injuries and disappointments. James Kwambai did not finish either. Kwambai and Duncan Kibet, the two Kenyan co-recorders, only have had one good season so far. Finally, Safronov beat Rothlin for the European honour, really far from the Africans.

Haile Gebrselassie expects to end his long and brilliant career with a medal at London Olympics marathon
Photo: Neil Bennett
http://www.theage.com.au/

Boston 115^th edition was still more thrilling than London and full of controversy, after the sensational winner Geoffrey Mutai and runner up Moses Mosop covered the 42,195 km in 2:03:02 and 2:03:06 respectively, one minute below the official world best. The oldest of the classic marathons is notwithstanding ineligible for world records, because of being too much downhill and a point to point course, thus having the chance of benefiting from strong tailwinds as it was the case. Due to its pedigree, Boston timings have always being accepted by the IAAF and the race is included in the official list of eligible marathons for achieving the London Olympics standard, while other downhill races like Los Angeles and Florence are not. Yet this time, the results were written down on the IAAF statistics page, in a separate table, which might seem unfair.

Traditionally, Boston marathon had been considered a tough race, because the second half contains the terrific Newton hills. In addition there are not pacemakers scheduled and normally the times were always being quite slower than in London, Berlin or Chicago. However this time around American Ryan Hall, like he did in the precedent year, when Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot established a new race record of 2:05:52, decided to push the pace since the very beginning and went back to the front every time the rhythm was dying, bringing the leading pack to a blazing 1:01:58 first half. Then Geoffrey Mutai, second last year to Patrick Makau in Rotterdam and Berlin, took the initiative. Running comfortably over the hills, because in Iten he is used at training in similar conditions, he achieved the astonishing goal of running a negative split (1:01:04): one minute better in elevation than the downhill part, killing the race between the 30 and 35 km, the most difficult stretch of the marathon, because it includes the Heartbreak Hill. Geoffrey Mutai ran that 5 km in 14:11, which can be considered, despite the tailwind, the best split ever in a marathon. Then came Moses Mosop, in his extraordinary debut at the 42,195 distance, catching Mutai in the subsequent downhill and challenging him to the finish line. (19)

Gebremariam confirmed his nice adaptation to the event after his victorious first marathon in New York, and Hall followed with a praiseworthy fourth place. It is enjoyable the new generation of American distance runners like Hall, Rupp, Ritzenhein, Tegenkamp or Solinski run without any inhibition, not fearing anybody. This is the right way for them to shorten up the gap with the Africans.

Boston unexpected race development also illustrates how relative can be to set a standard world record for an event when every marathon course is different and so are the atmospheric circumstances. Haile Gebrselassie ran his record in Berlin through a flat loop, under perfect conditions and helped by especially inspired pacemakers, Abel Kirui over all, and his final timing also owns something to James Kwambai challenge until the last kilometres. Gebre’s performance was a groundbreaking one but maybe not the very best ever. This merit arguably belongs to Sammy Wanjiru’s race at Beijing Olympic Games. Last Boston race can also be ranked among the finest marathons to the date. Of course the wind helped enough as it was seen in the general improvement of the standards in both elite and masses of about three minutes. Nevertheless, you need to be a quite solid runner to culminate such amazing feat. Just to say the women were not even close to a world best and they had the same tailwind and their field was equally outstanding. Geoffrey Mutai emerged from Newton Hills as the strongest marathoner in the world and hot favourite for Olympic gold and Moses Mosop as the man to watch in a near future.

Renato Canova, who coaches Mosop and also Wilson Kiprop, Abel Kirui or Florence Kiplagat has pointed out another decisive factor in the spectacular progression of marathon standards we are experiencing these last seasons. (17) Runners like Tergat or Gebrselassie joined the marathon fields when they were not anymore in their prime on the track. However, some of the 42,195 km race emerging stars are young athletes, who have not lost any speed and have the ability of running the 10.000 metres under 26:40 or faster. Wanjiru was one of those privileged ones; So are Geoffrey Mutai, Moses Mosop, Wilson Kiprop or Abreham Cherkos. Kiprop and Mutai made something even better last year: running twice under 27:35 in altitude and grabbing gold and bronze respectively, beating all track oriented specialists, in contests as competitive in distance running as the African Championships and the Kenyan trials for them may be. This endurance speed will enable them, with the right preparation, to sustain throughout the marathon an even pace of 29 minutes for every 10 km split and complete the marathon well under the current world record. Canova thinks, after seeing his promising first marathon and specially his recent brilliant showing while improving the 25.000 and 30.000 metres world records on the track, Moses Mosop will be ready to run under 2:02:30 as soon as next year.

Welcome to the new Era!!!

Sammy Wanjiru in his last marathon victory, at Chicago 2010
http://connect.in.com

“ I estimate the training of the Kenyans is qualitatively about half that of Americans or Europeans of the same level of performance. When the majority of East African children are decently fed, when malaria, tuberculosis and intestinal disease are controlled African runners will amaze the world. They will accomplish performances that are hardly even dreamed of today.” (20) Bruce Tullow, former British athlete, 1973

(1) http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia21/en/living/index.html

(2) http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067744/1/index.htm

(3) http://www.kenyarunners.com/pages/167372/index.htm
(4) http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/siadventure/2001/long_distance/
(5) http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/display_article.php?id=57077
(6) http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/genetics-and-sports-performance-557?#
(7) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/world_olympic_dreams/8886705.stm
(8) http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/22/running-fitness-iten-kenya-school

(9) http://books.google.es/books?id=WVIGQ7WGdp8C&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=kenya+why+are+atletes+so+dominant&source=bl&ots=74BvOeXpFk&sig=zCips_yFuiBz7jovgrOWqBguhac&hl=es&ei=PfjJTY2CLIOxhQfs6rytDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q&f=false

(10) http://www.vu.edu.au/media/media-releases/kenyas-domination-of-long-distance-running-due-to-strategic-use-of-resources-not-culture
(11) http://allafrica.com/stories/201105230117.html

(12) http://running.competitor.com/2011/05/features/what-ever-happened-to-daniel-komen_27486?amp

(13) http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=19571

(14) http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2011/05/wanjiru-in-words-of-those-who-knew-him.html

(15) http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/samuel-wanjiru-shares-secret-of.html

(16) http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=20000

(17) http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4075208&page=0
(18) http://www.letsrun.com/2011/london-men-0417.php
(19) http://www.letsrun.com/2011/men-reaction-4318.php

(20) http://www.benson.com.au/downloads/aust_middle_long_dist_running.pdf

jueves, 2 de junio de 2011

Toshihiko Seko and Kiyoshi Nakamura's old School

Toshihiko Seko running the Hakone Ekiden for Waseba University
Photo: Nobby Hashizume
http://www.juanjosemartinez.com.mx/running.html

Kenya is nowadays the overwhelming marathon powerhouse, but this nation is relatively new to the longest Olympic running race. During most of the 20^th century, Japan had owned the honour of being the country of marathon par excellence. The 42,195 km race demands have often been said to fit perfectly Japanese society values: discipline, self-sacrifice, patience, perseverance and inner-strength. Also, the long distance relay races (Ekiden), adopted as soon as 1917 and still more popular than ever today, had had a decisive contribution to Japanese marathoning passion, encouraging the pride of representing and belonging to a college or a company. (1) In 1934, the nine fastest marathoners were Japanese and, after the halt of the Second World War and economic recovery, in 1965 no less than 10 athletes had made the top-11 and 15 the top-16 the following year. Anyway, Japan had failed to produce an Olympic champion. Marathon performances were so important for the nation at the time that Kokichi Tsuburaya, the bronze medallist in Tokyo, when Abebe Bikila got his second Olympic victory, could not stand the pressure prior to Mexico Games and committed ritual suicide.

Lake Biwa, Beppu-Oita and Fukuoka are among the oldest marathons in the world, launched more than 60 years ago. The latter, had been, along with Boston, the most important road race in the world for several decades and used to hold the unofficial world marathon championships. Nevertheless, much older manifestations of long distance running in the country have survived. Japan had distinguished in the past for bestowing great relevance to racing, from the military to the religious points of view. The colourful Ansei Samurai marathon, held annually in Gumma prefecture, whose participants typically wear costumes, was created by the middle of 19^th century by a feudal lord in order to train the minds and bodies of his warriors, up and down a physically demanding elevation of over 1000 metres. Equally through mountainous trails take place the 1000-days sacred racing journey of the tendai marathon-monks of Mount Hiei, near Kyoto. With little sleep and food, the priests travel by night on mere straw sandals, surrounded by nature, from shrine to shrine, in search of enlightenment. Brought to the human limits, they come face to face with death and thus develop a remarkable awareness of life ("everything that is alive is equal. A human being is not special. There are not special beings") and acuteness of perception ("marathon monks are able to hear the sound of ashes falling from an incense stick, smell and identify food being prepared miles away and see the sun and moonlight seep into the interior of the temple"). (2) (3)

Douglas Wakiihuri, first Kenyan athlete based in Japan, and first
marathon Olympic medallist for his country
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This mystic side of Far East Asian culture has always had a legion of foreign admirers, especially from western countries, where materialism more and more dominates our societies. A young African man, whose tribe, the Kikuyu, has also a reputation for being fond of solitude and meditation, felt he has something in common with Japanese ways, after talking with Shunichi Kobayashi, a writer and photographer based in Kenya. “I sensed there was another way of training in Japan. It was not only physical but mentally and spiritually”. (4) Thus, Douglas Wakiihuri became at his own risk the first Kenyan athlete that sailed to Japan, to meet coach Kiyoshi Nakamura and his Zen-Soho philosophy. Unlike Nandis, the famous racing people, Wakiihuri said Kikuyus were able of patience and perseverance and these qualities brought him to the gold medal at 1987 marathon World Championships and silver at the subsequent Olympic Games. Yet, when he arrived to Japan a couple of years before, Nakamura´s team big star was Toshihiko Seko.

Had he won the Los Angeles Olympic marathon, Seko would probably be considered in his homeland the best national athlete ever born. Yet, after acknowledging his beloved sensei Kiyoshi Nakamura had been diagnosed a terminal stomach cancer, had delayed his trip to the Games venue to the last moment and added jet-lag to his dismal feeling, ending 14th. Actually, Seko's only defeats in his last ten years as a marathoner arrived at 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. He won most of the biggest marathons of his day both in Japan and abroad, including Fukuoka (four times), Tokyo, Lake Biwa, Boston (twice), London and Chicago. He also was an outstanding track specialist. His world records at 25.000 and 30.000 distances still stand to the date. Yet, nothing of that would have been arguably accomplished without Nakamura’s masterful guidance.

Toshihiko Seko, born in July 1956, came to prominence in Athletics as he became a high school national champion in 800 and 1500 metres two years in a row. Then he went to study to Waseda University in 1976, where he met Nakamura, who took the arrival of his talented new pupil as a gift. (4) He had had many national champions in his already long coaching career, but it was the first time he saw the opportunity of shaping a future Olympic champion. Therefore, he concentrated from then on all his efforts in the progressive building up of Seko for Moscow-80 marathon race, enrolling him as he graduated in his newly created S & B team, to continue his guidance, with the sponsorship of a spicy food company.

Kiyoshi Nakamura was born in 1913 in

Korea

, at a time it was a Japanese colony. He was also a middle distance runner specialist, representing his country at 1936 Olympic Games, without much success. Perhaps it was this experience which brought him to the conclusion that the only event where Japanese athletes had a competitive chance was the marathon. He participated at the World War and afterwards made a fortune with a variety of business, among them importing and selling sporting guns and trafficking with sake and tobacco in the black market. (4) Despite his solid coaching reputation, Nakamura was blaming himself because he used to waste his money gambling and besides did not care about his trainees out of the athletic ground. He concluded his bad example resulted in a bad influence over his pupils’ training results and lives. Absolutely, work and emotions could not be dissociated in a professional relationship. (5)

Seko’s blind obedience and devotion also played a role. 20 years afterwards he is still quoted saying “Marathon is my wife and I give her everything I have”. Like current Kenyans athletes his life was limited to run, eat and sleep and he would not need to ask for more. Toshihiko would jog for hours and he would have jogged all day had not his coach told him to stop. Nakamura changed his demeanour, becoming the physical and spiritual teacher Douglas Wakiihuri had heard about. He started lecturing his 90 B & S pupils about Buddhism, the Bible and Samurai philosophy, making them visit saint shrines, and overall acting as an overprotective father, always being present and worrying about their feelings. He aimed for the target of running in a wholly peaceful state of mind, where thought was inhibited, as in monks or martial arts masters. (6)

Toshihiko Seko, Takeshi and Shigeru Soh at 1979 Fukuoka marathon
Photo: Nobby Hashizume
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Nakamura’s guidance and Seko’s talent, hard work and determination made the marathoner the most confident and better prepared long distance runner of his generation. A mysterious and inextricable man by his rivals, with an aureole of invincibility. Nevertheless, a first setback came at Moscow Olympics. Seko and twin brothers Shigeru and Takeshi Soh, after their splendid demonstration in Fukuoka, were favoured for a clean sweep of the medals at the Olympic Games, yet the boycott finished up with every dream. Then Toshihiko was marred by a knee injurie, due to overtraining, and missed a whole season. Back in 1983 in his best fitness ever he won the Tokyo marathon in an all time PB of 2:08:38 just to be sidelined again, this time by hepatitis. Time was running out and Seko would be seen everywhere feverishly walking back and forth for hours, with face and neck swollen by either sickness or medication. (6) Miraculously, he recovered in time for the Olympic qualifying race, the Fukuoka marathon, which he won, beating Juma Ikangaa with a furious sprint. Shigeru and Takeshi Soh also booked their tickets for Los Angeles, finishing ahead of Kuninitso Itoh.

Toshihiko, unbeaten since 1979 in a marathon was again the hot favourite in Los Angeles, along with World Champion Robert the Castella and the man who had improved the world best for the distance in New York, Alberto Salazar. Amazingly, all three of them ran a disappointing race and the victory went to World Cross Country champion Carlos Lopes, in only his second marathon, at 37 years of age, in an astonishing performance under the heat. Still more surprisingly, John Treacy won the silver medal in his debut at the distance and Charles Spedding the bronze, also in his first year in the marathon. One of the Soh brothers, Takeshi, finished fourth, in the bittersweet sole victory over Seko of their whole career.

Kiyoshi Nakamura died the year afterwards mysteriously, drowned while fishing. Maybe he found this ending for his life more honourable than slowly agonising in a hospital. Seko overcame his mentor’s death and was back, newly married, in training and winning ways, adding London, Chicago and Lake Biwa to his curriculum. Yet, he could only achieve a ninth position at Seoul Olympics, in a race won by Gelindo Bordin, ahead of Seko’s teammate Wakiihuri. His time had past and he retired soon afterwards.

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Kiyoshi Nakamura’s merit as a coach was not only this fascinating blend of physical and spiritual in his Zen-Soho philosophy of running. He was also the responsible for the introduction of Arthur Lydiard’s training method in Japan and this is probably his most perennial legacy to posterity, as Nobby Hashizume explains masterfully. (7) Nakamura invited Lydiard to Japan for a cycle of conferences as soon as 1962 and had always sent his athletes to train in New Zealand, just because it was Arthur’s homeland. Once most of the athletics world had left Lydiard behind, Nakamura remained still attached to his teachings. Westerners wondered about the sense of the long Seko’s joggings. Anyway, always exaggerating the total distance he had covered. Yet, Nakamura new from Lydiard it is necessary first an aerobic step of “leg building” to create a base for ulterior anaerobic training.
When Nakamura took Seko he had never done a running longer than 30 minutes. The future four times Fukuoka winner realized he had to decrease his pace speed in order to gradually be able of covering the whole marathon distance. He learned one or two things about it too from the Soh Brothers, who where his elders in the marathon and followed a similar training program, because their coach Hidekuni Hiroshima had been a Nakamura’s pupil. Takeshi and Shigeru had once famously completed the 128 km tour around Mt Egmond in

New Zealand

.
Once used to the distance, Seko could start the next strategies in order of little by little get the goal of running the marathon at race pace. It had to be done in training several times in the last phase of preparation for a specific marathon and it was also Soh Brothers signature.

Arthur Lydiard, a major influence in Japanese marathon
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Another westerner myth said S & B served as Nakamura’s robot factory and his athletes were to endure, through the toughest discipline, the toughest possible training schedule. Actually Nakamura, also learning from Lydiard, was much more flexible and intuitive in his workouts than most of European and American coaches of the time. Seko would not finish a scheduled interval or would take an easy day in case he felt tired. Also Takeshi and Shigeru were the first runners in the world who used to run 1000 km a month but it was not because that distance was their target. They just would run every day the number of miles their body would adequately assimilate and by the end of the month as they summed up they would realize they had completed around 1000 km. (7)

Nakamura used to schedule every season a similar build up for Toshihiko Seko, in order to peak twice in a year, for European track season (july) and for a winter marathon (Fukuoka in December) respectively. The first three months served just for easy conditioning and the next three for sharpening and specific training. European track season fitted perfectly in the planning, helping to improve speed, which could be used later for higher quality workouts. Only once that athletics modus vivendi was broken, on occasion of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Seko became obsessed with the fearsome heat expected at the venue, tried to prepare the Games in similarly warm conditions but did not feel alright and had to switch several times his workout location, finally overtraining and tiring himself. (8) In Seko’s own words, as he explains in his book “I was so concerned about ‘the heat training’, instead of going back to basics after Fukuoka (Trial) and re-build myself, I went straight into marathon training and tried to ‘hang in there’ until August. I should have been easily able to hold that pressure for 3 or 4 months but 8 months was way too long…” (7) It also explains very well his big failure in Los Angeles.

It is widely accepted, coach Nakamura and athletes Seko and the Soh brothers set the foundations for modern Japanese marathon. Lydiard techniques, these days recovered by many European and American coaches have been developed uninterruptedly in Japan since the early sixties. It is amazing to hear how the same Arthur Lydiard judges the way people in the world are using his own teachings: In a conference in 1990, held at the town of Osaka (9) he states Japan, unlike many other countries, has understood the need of building up an aerobic base through high mileage jogging. Yet, he thinks, they fall short in the sharpening phase, in search of speed (by the way, not precisely Seko’s case in the 80s).
Lydiard methods continuity in Japan is easily explained because of the direct lineage in the transmission of the basis. Nakamura formed Shigeru and Takeshi Soh’s coach Hiroshima. The twin brothers achieved further success thanks to their protégées Hiromi Taniguchi (1991 World Champion) and Koichi Morishita (1992 Olympic silver medallist). The latter discovered a certain Kenyan guy called Samuel Wanjiru… A Seko’s former teammate, Yasushi Sakaguchi is the main responsible for the likes of Shigeru Aburaya, Tsuyoshi Ogata and Atsushi Sato. Another branch brings to Yoshio Koide, not directly coached by Nakamura, but anyway one of his followers. Koide trained Yuko Arimori, Masako Chiba, 1997 World Champion Hiromi Suzuki, and Naoko Takahashi, the first Japanese Olympic champion in the marathon and the first woman under 2:20. He also coached Hideo Suzuki, who started Reiko Tosa and Yoko Shibui careers. Among national marathon stars, only Takeyuki Nakayama and Athens Olympic champion Mizuki Noguchi seem to escape the general trend.

Righteous trees grow deep roots. Kiyoshi Nakamura and Toshihiko Seko’s large heritage, all throughout Japanese marathon world, speaks plainly work was well done.