I’m in Iten from 1998. When I arrived the first time, Iten was a very small village, with few buildings. I went for coaching Christopher Koskei, and he had a camp out of the village, about 10 small rooms with one bed only. The athletes used to cook on fire, no kitchen, no hygienic facilities and problems with water.
In Iten there were few athletes only.
Step by step, every year the number of running people raised.
The first marathon runner in the area was Christopher Cheboiboch. When I arrived, I started to produce programs for the local runners. Ten years ago, the areas with more technical knowledge were around Kapsabet and Kaptagat.
Iten started to collect the athletes coming from Marakwet, while Kapsabet collected athletes from Nandi.
My programs went around (they were the only existing), and for the athletes in Iten became the training phylosophy they used, like young runners continue to use, for track, the basic program from Brother Colm. Kenyans are very traditional, when something works well at the moment.
One of the first (and more interested and intelligent) runners I moved to Marathon was Daniel Rono. He was a half marathon runner (60:14) and wanted to stay long time on shorter distances before moving to Marathon. I spent one year for changing his mind. At the end, I gave him a program for moving from 10000m to marathon, and he became able running 2:06:58 in Rotterdam. Since he has mental characteristics for being a leader, he started to produce programs for other runners of the area.
In Iten, runners coming from Marakwet create spontaneous groups, not depending on their management, but on their origin.
So, these groups started to train with the programs from Daniel Rono (runner up in Boston 3 years ago), copy of the program I gave him some year before.
From this program, in short time Iten produced athletes as Geoffrey, Wilson Kipsang (winner in Frankfurt with 14:02 last 5 km !), Gilbert Kirwa (2:06:12), Teimet (2:06:49) and many others between 2:07 and 2:09.
They are able to have high feeling with their body. Sometimes, we meet and I advise them how to approach their marathon, or how to recover from some problem : but usually they are able to train with big motivation, and to understand the basic needs of training.
So, one thing is the general training phylosophy, that in this area is still the same I created 10 years ago, with few updates only ; other thing is the daily program, that they are able to arrange looking at the conditions of the moment (rain season, wind, sickness etc…).
Different the situation with women. In Iten, never a women group existed. If there was one lady in one group, it was for her very difficult to train, because she was alone, without any assistance, and this situation didn’t allow anybody in reaching top results.
From 2007, the situation changed, as the Italian manager Gianni Demadonna put in Iten, because I was there, his training camp, giving the responsibility to manage everything to my young Italian follower Gabriele Nicola, helped by Joseph Cheromei.
Gabriele started to collect all the women runners of Iten, organising their training in professional way (for example, the group has 4 men specifically pacing, according to the value of the athletes).
In 3 years, this system produced Mary Keitany (now WR holder of 20 km / HM / 25 km), the come back of Lydia Cheromei (2:23.01), the improvement of Agnes Kiprop and Helena Kirop (both about 2:24), of Hilda Kibet (2:26) and a lot of results under 2:30 in Marathon, and the qualification of Peninah Arusei (bronze medal in WHMCh 2010) in HM.
So, we can say that all the women are followed very well from Gabriele Nicola (I give my help, but now he’s able to do everything very well personally, and my intervention is only to discuss the programs of the athletes sharing my ideas, while Gabriele makes the training programs for the group), while for the most part the best men are self-coached.
The athletes I follow daily, with some different approach (also because I need to continue to search new solutions, and for that reason I need athletes available to follow my strategy mentally free from their traditional training), are Florence Kiplagat (World Champion in Cross Country 2009 and in HM 2010) and her husband Moses Mosop (3 times winner of Kenyan Trials in Cross and 3 times winner in 10000m, bronze medal in WCh 2005 in Helsinki in 10000m and silver medal in Cross Country 2007 in Mombasa), both at their debut in Boston Marathon, and Wilson Kiprop (World HM Champion last year). On track, Sylvia Kibet (silver medal in WCh 2009 in 5000m), Ruth Bosibori (former Worl Junior record holder of 3000 steeple, now coming back after giving birth to a baby last September) and, together with Moses Kiptanui, the number one of 1500m last year, the young Silas Kiplagat (3’29”27).
With these athletes, we cant use a “program of the camp”, but something strictly individual. That’s the reason because for the other athletes I’m an advisor, but not their coach.