So back in 2017, a group of friends and I took a trip to Iten, Kenya for 3 months to see what we could make of the culture, altitude and all the crazy athletes out there. All of us were at an average to good level (PBs 33:00 10K to 3:53 1500 - all love T+F) so could get stuck in and make the most of where we were.
It was around this time that Sweat Elite were kicking off - naturally, we were interested to find out more about how they knew what some of the most elite (an what would appear to be secretive) training groups in the world were doing.
Very quickly, we found that these guys weren't legit. From what we gathered, a lot of the what gets written is from a true outsiders perspective, with no approval of the coaches. A recent trust pilot review features a story we were told first hand by a local Mzungu when we were there; I've copied it here for reference:
"Having lived and trained (and now coached) in Kenya for 12 years, I think I know a thing or two about how Kenyan runners generally train. I also know Patrick Sang, the coach of Eliud Kipchoge, pretty well. So when I read the training program of Eliud on the website of Sweatelite, I was kind of surprised. It did not look like anything that Sang would give to Eliud (or to any of his marathoners).
The week after reading Eliud's training program, I met with his coach Patrick Sang in Eldoret and spoke with him about it. I showed him the training program and he started laughing: "Do you really think I would let Eliud do that!?" He was also very upset that someone would try to make money out of a fake training program, supposedly produced by him, Patrick Sang.
That the program was for 80% fake was also confirmed to me by my friend Michel Butter, one of the Netherlands' best marathon runners, who was training with the group of Sang in those weeks/months. He remembered there was a guy looking at 1 or 2 workouts on the track and writing things down (and in between trying to follow the group, but he was kind of chubby and out of shape so could not stay with the group for more than 200m on a 2K rep). We assume that was the sweatelite writer" (
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.sweatelite.co
)
We thought nothing of this - "let cretins be cretins" as it is said here in the UK - as long as we don't pay for this s***, no worries.
That was until today .
One of our group now works for "The Kenya Experience", an excellent group who run training camps accessible to everyone. He's a class runner (now holds a 3:50 1500 PB) and lives and breathes it. He's written some great articles too - you might have come across them:
Original:
http://www.traininkenya.com/20…/…/08/diet-of-kenyan-runners/
You might have also seen this article somewhere else - on the Sweat Elite website for example... ALMOST, but not quite, word for word... under someone else's name... hang on a minute.
Sweat Elite:
https://www.sweatelite.co/why-are-the-kenyans-so-good/
This is more than a quick "take inspiration" - its flat out plagiarism, taking from a genuine interest in the sport, plus the research and hard work and using it to encourage people to buy their (most probably incorrect) training plans. Not only this one article either, as found in multiple other copied works of Sweat Elite. Made some enquiries about whether or not the author would be credited for the article: no reply from SweatElite and flat out blocked. A recent FB post sums it up very nicely:
https://www.facebook.com/callum.jones.1213/posts/2349077948447156
Everyone on here, in some way or another, loves running. For the most part, we all seem to hate cheating as well. Guys. This is cheating - not just in copied work, but selling training plans of elite athletes that are probably a load of rubbish as well. If anything, just steer clear of SweatElite.
Anyone got any other experience (positive or negative) with these guys?