Running in East Africa

At the last three Olympic Games, athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia have won two-thirds of all gold medals in the running disciplines from 800m upwards. The rest of the world, with all its facilities and sports science, cannot come close to matching the runners from East Africa. In marathons, the dominance has been even more pronounced over the last 20 years. So what is the secret? Well, the answer is that there is probably not the one big secret, but a whole bunch of factors that all combine to form the perfect recipe for the continuous growth of top long-distance runners. Firstly, all the major training centres such as Iten, Kaptagat and Eldoret in Kenya, Bekoji and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia or Kapchorwa in Uganda are located at high altitude where the thin air makes running difficult. This is an obvious training advantage, and elite runners from all nations spend part of their year at altitude to improve the capacity of their lungs to become faster and more enduring. But the benefits of being born and raised at altitude, like most East African athletes, are even greater. If you ask Kenyans and Ethiopians why they are so good, they are sure to tell you how far they ran to and from school every day.
If you watch top East African runners in a race, they seem to glide and barely touch the ground. The top East African runners almost invariably come from rural backgrounds where they had to herd cattle, fetch water or dig the soil after running to and from school every day. This tough upbringing gives them the basic fitness and strength. In other countries around the world, there are certainly equally talented runners who have had a tough, rural upbringing at altitude. But for them, running is not necessarily a real career or life option. In some places in Kenya, Ethiopia or Uganda, however, running is the only option.
We offer you the unique opportunity to explore the East African running secrets and to find out how you can profit the most of them yourself to enhance your own performance!