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SULTANS OF SPEED
By Colleen Corcoran of Northern California
January 11, 2005
In the land of steep, green hills and mild, equatorial climates, a
lean, uber-Kenyan treks 1,000 miles along the Great Rift Valley
on a cattle raid. The repossessed bovines will be driven home
and used to buy wives. The greater his speed and endurance,
the more cattle he acquires, the more wives he buys, the more
children he has, the greater his reproductive advantage. This
continues for centuries. The genetic makeup shifts.
Most Kenyan runners are of the Kalenjin tribe, living at 6,000-
8,000 feet along the western edge of the Great Rift Valley. They
are small, weighing between 110 and 130 pounds. With roughly
3 million people, or .0005 percent of the world’s population, the
Kalenjin earn 75 percent of Kenya’s medals and three-eighths of
international men’s distance running prizes. They marry mostly
among themselves.
Kalenjin have 400 grams less flesh than average in each lower
leg. This conserves 8 percent in energy per kilometer. A high
concentration of one skeletal muscle enzyme encourages high
lactate turnover and low lactate production. And Kenyans are
born with 70-75 percent slow-twitch muscles containing denser
capillary networks and more mitochondria than that of their fast-
twitch, sprinting counterparts.
“East Africans win in large measure because elite runners have a
near perfect biomechanical package for endurance: lean,
ectomorphic physique, large lung capacity and a preponderance
of slow-twitch muscle fibers,” says Jon Entine, author of “Why
Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk
About It.”
Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin agrees. “I think it’s
genetic,” he says. “Very many in sports physiology would like to
believe that it’s training, the environment, what you eat, that
plays the most important role. But based on the data, it is in your
genes whether or not you are talented or whether you will
become talented.”
The data though is largely non-replicated and fails to establish a
direct correlation. No one is claiming a “running gene.” Many
protest so-called “scientific racism” that challenges the American
myth of equal opportunity.
Besides genetic speculation, there is anecdotal evidence. There
are questions of altitude- childhoods spent at 8,000 feet chasing
cattle. There is the fabled jogging to and from school; the starchy
diet; the monster mileage; the lure of college scholarships, prize
money and sponsorships; an austere warrior culture that
conditions young runners to perform under pressure.
Wilson Kipketer, world 800-meter record holder, lived right next
to school. “I walked, nice and slow,” he says.
Colm O’Connell, coach at the Rift Valley’s St. Patrick’s Academy-
home to the world’s greatest high school cross-country team-
notes that Kenyan training mileage varies and is often less than
triple digits.
Kipchoge “Kip” Keino, the father of Kenyan distance running, was
an uncoached Kalenjin tribesman and police officer without
sponsors or scholarships. What he did have when he won two
medals at the 1969 Mexico City Olympics were gallstones. To
avoid traffic, he jogged two miles to the stadium before beating
Jim Ryun by 20 meters in the 1500.
“I was determined,” he says of the performance.
Kenyan-born journalist John Manners credits Kalenjin
determination, courage, endurance and restraint to a circumcision
ritual anticipated for years with dread and suffered with stoicism.
“A boy who stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is
unlikely at 25 to be invigorated by the comparatively benign
tensions accompanying an Olympic final,” Manners says.
Since 1969, Kenyan men have won gold in the steeplechase at
every Olympic games, barring two that they boycotted. In
Athens, they swept 1-2-3 in the event for the first time since
1992. Between 800 and 10,000 meters, Kalenjin lead the world
with 10 gold medals and 31 total medals. Non-Kalenjin Kenyans
claim seven total medals; the US 10. Kenyan men have won
every Boston Marathon since 1991; Kenyan women four of the
past five.
All things considered, the only way to improve or to make innate
talent manifest is to train, and train hard- real hard. The run eat
run sleep run schedule at most Kenyan training camps breeds
single-minded fanaticism. For up to 15 kilometers, usually more
and most likely uphill, the elite Kenyan runner clocks five-minute
mile pace on average. Besides this, there are speed sessions
and easy runs. And rest.
“That is the secret that no one knows,” says Moses Kiptanui, a 5-
and 3-kilometer steeplechase world record holder. “No one
knows how much rest they get. It is why the Kenyans train so
hard.”
Aside from napping and watching TV, Kenyan success is probably
the result of combined social, environmental, psychological and
biological factors, interrelated and inseparable. Probably, it is a
delicate balance between superhuman capillaries, a diet heavy in
cornmeal porridge, greed, blind ambition, altitude and skill. The
body of the Kenyan runner is one that has been pushed- over
centuries, over years, hours and minutes. And it has responded.
A Published
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