Running in Ethiopia

2600m altitude....it will knock your socks off...

If you are staying at the Sheraton or Hilton, just head out the door @ 5am or so and you will see dozens of runners. Many groups heading up the hill to the church in the Intoto Hills, then back down.

The hill right in front of the Sheraton is also where a lot of people do hill repeats. Its very steep, ~100m, and you can run 400-600m recovery around the back.

Unlike other cities in Africa, you are unlikely to get rolled in Addis. Its very nice. Amazingly low crime rate (for now).

I'd suggest you contact Garret Ash from the above site. Some of their local runners speak good English and happy to jog with a new 'ferenji'.

From my experience of living and training there for some time, neither Hilton nor Sheriton are well placed for training. Instead head for the area around the Ararat Hotel (There's a hotel called Abessynia about half a mile up the road towards town that is clean, quiet and has a decent cafe downstairs which should be $5-10 per night tops.)

The usual meeting ground for runners is in this forrest to the North of the city:

If you go there at approx 7am and 5pm each day, you'll see just about every world call Ethiopian athlete you can think of training here - really bizarre experience when you pass a lone runner, then realise it's Geb / Defar... or Dibaba in the middle of her training group.

Be warned though - terrain in the forrest is pretty tough. The slopes can be very steep and it's possible to hit lactic at a very slow pace. The locals I trained with tended not to start at a Kenyan style slow pace.

Other training locations include the path up Entoto. We'd take a 'taxi bus' for a couple of miles, then pick up a road which headed up the mountain. It's rarely that steep, but does hit about 10,000ft (though levels out at this point). The route we'd take was around 12-13 miles and certainly one of my favourite runs. Beautiful, green area, but couldn't help but wonder what beasts were lurking amongst the trees (realistically hyena are the only thing to fear). Once the path ended we came to a small village and walked / climbed down a rocky path - was amazing how the temperature would rise as you get back to 'normal' altitude.

Another favourite location is Sululta (spelling can vary) where I think Geb is building / has built a training camp. Best feature was a well surfaced road with space for runners beside traffic. It descends for some way before flattening out, which makes it possible to maintain sea level pace. It's also rare to have smooth road to run on. Various clubs train here and on the fields either side of the road.

that would be cool. i hope you have fun.