The Rift Valley is famous in sport for its rich history of endurance running. With daily incomes of around 2$US per day the running that provides a means of getting to and from school in these areas can also provide a change of life for those with ability, desire, and the aggression to win competitive races.
An historic 1-2-3 clean podium sweep of the womens' marathon in Daegu at 2011 World Championships, and with Kenyans winning 28 of the last 30 marathons of significance, it seemed appropriate to listen to one of their High Performance coaches speak of desire & training last week at the International Festival of Athletics Coaching in Glasgow. Jimmy 'Simba' Beauttah was a keynote taking the audience on a journey of recent times, with medallist tales right up to the last Olympic Games in Beijing.
It rang bells as there was a lecture given some years ago in Dundee based on a research article on genetics in runners from the East African Rift Valley area, and the paper was published in Sports Medicine in 2007 (Genotypes and distance running : clues from Africa. Scott RA, Pitsiladis YP.) Their findings were fascinating: despite the speculation that African athletes have a genetic advantage for physical performance and the biomechanics of running, there is no genetic evidence to suggest that this is the case. Another text worth viewing would be found in 2009 Sports Medicine (East African runners: their genetics, lifestyle and athletic prowess. Onywera VO.) which explores the foundations of running excellence, talent identification, diet and injury management methods used by East African runners.
For a view of the training camp at Iten I commend the recent blogposts at recent SPACE physiotherapist Oliver Finlay. Read the this entry and the few before to get a flavour of conditions in Kenya at the altitude training camp as experienced by Olli as physio to UK Athletics and the endurance squad for a training camp.
Click here to read : Olli Finlay blog from Iten
Finally a newspaper article caught the eye discussing points about desire & the drivers for Kenyan runners, and it is where the title for this piece came from. I include it here from the paper that reproduced it in NZ.
This follows on the excellent series in the Gaurdian newspaper in UK where a journalist and keen runner experienced life in Iten to generate a feel for the conditions this amazing group of athletes come from, and how their fiercely competitive natures keep some runners ahead of the others in a bid to become the next leader in the future generation of endurance winners.
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| Jimmy Simba Beauttah speaking at IFAC, Glasgow OCT 2011 |
It rang bells as there was a lecture given some years ago in Dundee based on a research article on genetics in runners from the East African Rift Valley area, and the paper was published in Sports Medicine in 2007 (Genotypes and distance running : clues from Africa. Scott RA, Pitsiladis YP.) Their findings were fascinating: despite the speculation that African athletes have a genetic advantage for physical performance and the biomechanics of running, there is no genetic evidence to suggest that this is the case. Another text worth viewing would be found in 2009 Sports Medicine (East African runners: their genetics, lifestyle and athletic prowess. Onywera VO.) which explores the foundations of running excellence, talent identification, diet and injury management methods used by East African runners.
For a view of the training camp at Iten I commend the recent blogposts at recent SPACE physiotherapist Oliver Finlay. Read the this entry and the few before to get a flavour of conditions in Kenya at the altitude training camp as experienced by Olli as physio to UK Athletics and the endurance squad for a training camp.
Click here to read : Olli Finlay blog from Iten
Independent / NZ Herald article: Newspaper article, OCT 2011
This follows on the excellent series in the Gaurdian newspaper in UK where a journalist and keen runner experienced life in Iten to generate a feel for the conditions this amazing group of athletes come from, and how their fiercely competitive natures keep some runners ahead of the others in a bid to become the next leader in the future generation of endurance winners.
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