Everyone in Iten, Kenya said there was one must see event - the Thursday fartlek. With by some estimates more than 1,000 runners training in Iten, 80% of whom apparently don't have coaches, most runners follow a step plan on Monday steady, Tuesday track work, Thursday fartlek and Saturday long run.

9-time NCAA champ Sally Kipyego had told me that she too was blown away by the amount of people that would fartlek every Thursday and told me I had to go see it. As I recapped in post #2, she told me, "When I got here, I went for a run at 10 o'clock and I think there were more than a thousand runners on the road. It just blew my mind. It's exciting (and it's) an eye opener - even for me being a Kenyan. I looked at the street and said, 'Look at these people.'"

Not being in any sort of running shape and not having a car in Kenya, I was wondering how I was possibly going to watch a fartlek run. Luckily for me, I bumped into Gilbert Koech coming out of the weight room at Lornah Kiplagat's High Altitude Training Center. Koech, himself is a runner with pbs of 62:05 for the half and 2:14:39 for the marathon, but he's best known of late for being the husband and coach of 2010 ING New York City Marathon champ Edna Kiplagat.

Over the last 18 months, Kiplagat has been one of the revelations of the women's distance world over the last year plus. Heading into 2010, she was your average B-rate Kenyan with a 32-minute 10km best who made a very modest living on the roads as she'd only run one marathon and it was a 2:50 back in 2005. Then in March of 2010, she ran 2:25:38 to win the LA Marathon and its battle of the sexes and more than $150,000 in cash and prizes. She followed that up with a win in New York and then followed that up with a 2:20:46 third place finish at the Virgin London Marathon. That's a pretty darn good 13 months. From 2:50 to 2:20 in the marathon. Probably more than $500,000 in earnings. Very impressive.

As a coach myself, I was fascinated to ask Koech how Kiplagat had improved so much. What Koech said about her improvement made a lot of sense and matches very well with my philosophy of coaching. Early in her career, when she was represented by Lisa Buster, Koech seemd to think Kiplagat didn't get put in big enough races as she probably was an afterthought to her prized pupil Catherine Ndereba. Kiplagat then was part of the Kimbia team coached by Dieter Hogan. Koech said that Hogan always had specific things he wanted Kiplagat to do but Koech thought they were simply too hard for his wife to do. She tried to do the workouts and my take on it is she must have been simply too tired in hindsight for the races.

It seems like a classic case of a coach trying to force a time out of a runner. On the collegiate level, you see it over and over again. A coach has success with a certain set of workouts and thinks, "If I can get my new runners to do these workouts, they will have similar success." But it doesn't always workout that way as a runner should workout and see where they are in a race instead of forcing workouts out in practice. Forcing workouts out in college that All-Americans did was exactly what my brother, Weldon Johnson, was able to do in college and yet he was unable to break 30:00 for 10,000. After college, he likes to say his easy days got easier, his workouts got easier and he ran 28:06 (although it should be pointed out he did run more - see more here: Wejo Speaks: Why I Sucked in College).

Now Kiplagat is under the guidance of her husband, who obviously knows her very well, and the ultra successful Boulder Wave management team led by Brendan Reilly. Don't know the group? You should as from 1996 to 2010, they have represented 10 of the 33 athletes who've won Olympic or world championship marathon medals - that's a crazy, crazy stat.

Anyway, I bumped into Koech and Kiplagat and was very fortuante I did as they became my unofficial hosts for the rest of the week. I got to meet their great family, go out to eat with them and best of all, Koech offered to take me to the famed Thursday fartlek and let me see the madness myself as he'd drive me in front of the runners with me hanging out the back of his SUV.

When I showed up Thursday morning, some of the runners were preparing to jog to the starting line. Koech explained to them who I was and I had one of the highlights of the trip. Throughout my stay in Kenya, I'd told random people I bumped to in the non-running parts of Kenya like Nairobi and in the safari parks that I was into running and that I was in Kenya because they were home to many of the best runners. When I asked them if they knew much about running, they responded in many ways like an American would if you said to them, "Hey I know you guys have a ton of great swimmers. Tell me what you know about them." Everyone knew of the Sammy Wanjiru death but few seemed to know much about running.

Well Koech claimed nearly all of the elites he worked with knew about LetsRun.com and so prior to the guys warming up, I asked for a show of hands. The response was nearly universal. They all claimed to know of LetsRun.com. So we are world famous in Kenya - at least in the elite world. Either that or the guys did a great jog of placating me by raising their hands. Luckily, I video taped this part of the day *** but I pushed the wrong button a few minutes later when Koech introduced me to the everyone running the workout and prasied LRC - certainly a missed marketing moment. I did also interview two runners and asked them their PRs just prior to the start of the workout just to give you an idea of the type of talent that assembled before me (***

Then we want from Koech's meeting point to the actual starting place of the fartlek. There there were probably a couple hundred runners assembled. A very impressive number although it was nowhere near the 800 or 1,000 figure I'd heard about but people said it that it was sort of a down time of year as most of the road runners were either off racing or not gearing up yet for the fall. As for the male-female ratio, it was totally male dominated. I'd say both at the fartlek and at the track on Tuesday, the ratio might have been as high as 20 to 1. Women runners in the US have it easier than their male counterparts as there aren't nearly as many women competing in Kenya (or in much of the rest of the world as well).

Koech got  in front of them and then announced the workout 16 x 2 minutes on/1 minute off - 50 minutes of fartlek basically. And then they were off. The workout was certainly fun to watch. The pack of several hundred gradually whittled down over time. A ton of the runners actually called it a day before the workouts was even half-way done***. In the end, there were about 14 guys in the lead pack. Included in that pack was Wilson Kiprotich - the 6th fastest half marathoner in history at 58:59 that he ran in 2009 at the Ras Al Khaimah and the 11th fastest marathoner in history. Kiprotich, who had run 60:49 to win in the Netherlands some 12 days before, certainly didn't stand out in the workout as he was content to run in the back of the pack in like 12th for most of it. A guy who Koech didn't recognize shined for much of the latter stages of the race. I respectfully refer to him as "Mizuno tights" guy. If anyone knows who he is by name, please email us.

and 8th

So the new plan was to run a 10km tempo run with some of the people coached by Italian Gabriele Nicola as they all share the same agent - Gianni Demadonna.  As a result at 9 am, I was picked up on the side of the road by Kibet and her husband in their car while we waited for Nicola to round up his athletes. When I asked Nicola, who would be joining him for the workout, the list was pretty staggering (his full video reply appears at the bottom of this page). He rattled off a list of names of women whose recent accomplishments were simply staggering. He said the group would include Sharon Jarop (3rd in Boston this year, 2:22:42), Agnes Kiprop (#2 in Paris this year in 2:24:40), Peninah Arusei (bronze medal world half last year, Lydia Cheromei (winner of Prague earlier this year in 2:22:34), and Hilda Kibet ( #2 in Rotterdam this year in 2:24:27). Unfortunately, the star of the Nicola camp Mary Keitany (half-marathon world record of 65:50 this year, 2:19:19 win in London) was not coming as she was a little under the weather.

15-20 of Nicola's athletes all hopped into the back of a single truck and were off while Kibet's husband drove me and Kibet's male workout partner to the site of the tempo run which was about 20 minutes outside of town as Nicola had a very flat road he wanted the tempo run on. There was one small problem. When we got there - and we got there some 5 minutes before Nicola - the dirt road was all chewed up and very rough as it must have rained there the day before. Kibet and her husband examined the road for a few minutes and pretty much determined they wouldn't run on it - particularly since she was worried a little bit about her foot. When Nicola showed up some 5 minutes later as the pickup truck was going way slower, it took him all of 1 second to make a decision as he hopped out, took one glance and the road, pointed at it and emphatically said, "Not here, not today." Clearly the ultra successful Italian coach doesn't have trouble making up his mind.

At this point, Keitany decided she'd go back to town and do a track workout while Nicola's group went looking for another dirt road that wasn't wet (I'm not sure what they ended up doing but do know the second road they went to was equally chewed up. The roads in Iten weren't really chewed up at all so maybe they settled on that). But Kibet needed get a different pair of shoes for the track and this gave me the opportunity to see what type of house a world championship medallist in Kenya lives in. Since much was made on LetsRun.com about the $739,000 asking price for Adam and Kara Goucher's house, I made sure I took a few photos of Kibet and Limo's house which was certainly nice by Kenyan standards (Kibet photo album from my day with Kibet is here).

Once we got the track and Kibet started to warm-up, I asked Limo what the workout would be and if she was still being coached by Canova. Limo explained that she was being coached by Canova but that he wasn't in Kenya and that the day by day workout plan that he'd left for them had ended two days previously. At this point, he pulled out two pieces of paper where for every day there was an option A and option B for a run/workout. But the plan only took them through the end of June and it was now July 1.

In a scenario where an American star was two weeks out from nationals and doing one of their last hard workouts, I can imagine some of them would panic a bit if their coach was absent or if they didn't have access to the normal road they wanted to run on. But Limo and Kibet were totally unfazed. Limo said he was going to come up with the workout. And while Limo is described on Kibet's facebook page as a former middle-distance runner, he sports a 62:16 half-marathon best according to www.tilastopaja.org. So him coming up with a workout wasn't that big of a deal.

He said he wanted her to do something long as the tempo was going to be long and ultimately came up with a step down ladder of 4 repeats of 2000, 1600, 1200 and 1000 meters (He describes his plan for the workout in one of the videos at the bottom of this page). As for pace, he said, "She doesn't need to push- just do the best she can and see how the foot reacts." Once the workout started, Kibet felt pretty good and was having no foot pain so she ended up adding on and taking the ladder all the way down to 100. In the end, the workout ended up being 2000, 1600, 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 200 and 100. I don't want to reveal the times of the workout but since it drives me nuts when people talk about workouts but don't mention rest so the rest between sets was 2:38, 2:48, 2:53, 2:51, 2:36, 2:39, 2:34, and 2:40 (You can watch the 600 meter repeat as one of the videos that appear at the bottom of this page).

When the workout got started, I asked Limo if he was worried given Kibet's times in 2011, if he was worried about her prospects at the 2011 Kenyan trials.  His reply revealed that he has a ton of confidence in his wife's ability to rise to the occasion, "No, she's always strong in the championships"

As for Kibet, she was happy after the workout.

"I'm feeling very good now. I have to do well at Trials. The beginning of the season wasn't so good for me but I'm now hoping to do something very well at the trials but the Kenyan trials aren't easy.

"I'm very happy because I wasn't going very deep. I just feeling comfortable - not struggling. Today I was feeling good."

When I mentioned to her, her husband's faith in her ability to rise to the occasion, and asked her if that was one of the strengths, Kibet said:

"I hope as I've tried many times. In 2007, in Osaka, I was fourth. In Beijing, I was fourth. I hope it will be good for me (again this year). In all world championships, I've at least been top five."

I tried to get Kibet to look ahead to the Olympic year but she said she wants to see what he is capable of in 2011 first before thinking about London. After Daegu, Kibet revealed that she's planning on coming to the United States to the first time to see her sister, Elvin Kibet, who just completed her freshman year at the University of Arizona running for coach Bernad Li who of course has guided the Kenyan born Bernard Lagat to international acclaim. Sylvia Kibet said that Coach Li met his sister and offered her a scholarship simply based on her pedigree of being the sister of Syliva and Hilda even though she had never formally trained and had no times to her name. Seeing her jog down the road and know who she was related to was enough. Elvin's first year of running ended up going pretty well as she ran 16:28 for 5,000. As for what the future holds, NCAA competitors watch out as Sylvia said she thought Elvin was very talented.

As I got in Limo's car to leave the workout, Sylvia Kibet was getting ready to do her cool-down but I jumped out as I remembered there was one more question I had for her. I asked her about her somewhat famous quote from 2009, which served as the quote of the day for LetsRun.com back on LRC Founder's Day (July 24) in 2009 of: "You come from the bush, or you come from the forest. Then you train, and you become a champion."

I asked Sylvia if everything was that simple, do you just really just have to set your mind to it and work hard?

"For me, my family was not a rich family. So we ran to school; morning and evening -five kilometers from home. So you from run home to school - 5 kilometers, you come home for lunch - 5 kilometers, and you go back again - 5 kilometers - so it's about 15kms per day (we're assuming once the time constraint is over, she'd walk home). So when I started (training), (running) was already in me. It was in me because I already was training, but I was not from the family of running- just from the bush.

(My younger sisters) they have the motivation from us (he and Hilda), for them it is different. For me, I was the first one from the family. "I just come from the bush, I train and I became a champion."

More: LRC Post #1: Sammy Wanjiru Was Not Murdered - LetsRun.com Explains How One Can Get Locked Into A Bedroom In Kenya
LRC Post #2: Tuesday Track Workout In Iten + Sally Kipyego And Jake Robertson Unplugged
Photos/Video
LRC Photos From Kamariny Stadium in Iten, Kenya from June 28, 2011
LRC Sylvia Kibet Photos
LRC *Video From Track *Robertson Interview *Sally Kipyego Interview
Coverage From Kenya From 2007: Kenyan Distance Running Part I: Kenya, the Land of Opportunity