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16th June 2011 Kenya Calling, an update from our man in Iten!

A report from the home of running. Greg Roberts updates us on how his training is going in Kenya!

10 June 2011

things are are going well in iten, ive acclimatised very well so far and first workout done yesterday (10x400m) at 2400m was hitting 71s at this height which is quite good, i was sucking diesel at the end, today i ended up doing my longest run yet (15mile) which was not intended - we got lost on the backroads hahaha! the people here have no sense of time nor distance, each time we asked how far to main road the answer was always '2km' - there was at least a 5mile gap between asking one person and finding another to ask again just to get the same answer 'your not far white man, 2km away' once we did actually reach the main road this connects iten to eldoret we ended up at least another 8-9 mile from our digs so we had to hitch a taxi back hahaha.
the kids can be great company on a run, on wed we were out for our eveing run and on running past st patricks school (where brother colm o'connell, coach to david rudisha is based) a kid not older than 5-6 years old ran with us for over a mile - in wellington boots!
each time you come across a group of kids you are aways greated with a 'how - are - you?' a greeting they have obviously learnt at a very young age at school.

at the min the weather is great for us - around 20 degrees average yet the kenyans are walking about in duffel coats, scarves and hats - mad! the runners are very friendly, there are loads of groups which generally operate with their first run at 6.30am then a fartlek session at 10am and a recovery run around 5pm, and the scandal around sammy wanjiru's death is a hot topic in running circles. you can easily find a group of runners 2dozen strong in numbers stoling around somewhere at these times and the fartlek i hear is severe, with depth of 2.04 - 2.10 marathoners banging out intervals as hard as they can - needless to say i havent inducted myself to this as of yet - but ill be game for it in about a week! hahaha.

im find great difficulty getting pics etc sent across at the internet is not the best here - it took 3 days to find a pc that actually works! and in between power cuts its a bit of a handling!

chat soon
greg