Race Report: Rift Valley Half Marathon

One of the guys staying with me at the HATC in Iten was a Canadian who happened to be the sponsor for the Rift Valley Marathon. Therefore I found myself heading out to the race to run a half marathon on my final running day in Iten. I had the course profile described to me as being relatively flat but with a dip and then climb at about the halfway point, and I decided that I would attempt a fast time. On arrival we found out that the route had been changed from the previous year, featuring a single lap rather than two loops of 10.5 km.

Rift Valley Half Marathon – Pre-Race

After a lot of speeches and talking, little clear communication and great patience the race eventually started. I am not sure exactly how late it commenced since it was never clear at what time it was scheduled to start.

I set out at a pace of around 4:10 min/km, which in most countries would result in a finishing position within the top 2% of the field. After 500 metres there were only two people behind me, both of them also foreigners. After a few days of heavy rain the dirt roads and paths we followed were muddy and slippery, and some times it felt closer to a trail race than a road marathon. On a fairly rocky downhill path I used my trail experience to overtake the race sponsor and continued to push the pace.

Approaching the halfway mark the course started a significant downhill. When it continued for more than two kilometres I realised that I would be facing a very severe climb in the second half, and it didn’t keep me waiting. It appeared that the course changes might have reduced the boredom of running two laps, but adding some significant climbing. Just after the halfway point we bottomed out of the descent and started a steep ascent. I quickly realised that any targets I had in mind prior to the race were clearly no longer valid.

Iten: Week 4

For my fourth and final week in Iten I would start to drop my mileage in preparation for my race at the Paris Marathon, but would include three quality sessions. I had included three consecutive days of double sessions the previous week but returned to running single sessions.

After an easy Monday run I headed to the track on Tuesday. I would run 15 x 1000 metres at marathon pace with a 200 metre recovery. I managed to get into a good rhythm, and after checking my split at the 400 metre mark of each interval managed to run confidently at the required pace. The intervals started to feel more strained towards the end but for the final 1000 metres I still managed to increase the pace to complete the interval 14 seconds faster than marathon pace. It was another great confidence-boosting run.

Iten – Workout at Kamarini Stadium (photo courtesy of Jordan van IJsseldijk)

I had planned to run on Wednesday morning but was feeling quite stiff. Therefore I decided to shift my run to the afternoon, but getting caught up on some travel planning I only headed out late in the evening with limited light remaining. However I knew that the decision to delay the run was the correct one from the first step. My legs felt great and I enjoyed a wonderful 18 km, running through the failing light and arriving back after the sun had dropped below the horizon.

My last track session took take place on Thursday morning with a 16 x 400 metre workout. I had planned four sets of four laps, increasing the pace with each set, but my pacing was a disaster from the first lap. In a case of total mental failure I ran the first lap too fast while thinking that it had been too slow. It was only halfway through the second lap that I realised I was running the wrong pace. Consciously slowing down for the third lap I slowed too much. From there I ran almost every lap either too fast or too slow, finding myself unable to hit my intended pacing. But it was still a tough workout, and therefore a valuable one.

Iten: The People

Iten is a place where you shouldn’t boast. Do all of your friends tell you how amazingly fast you are? Do you compete at regional or even national level? Well, unless you possess an Olympic or World Championship medal, or have seen WR (World Record) beside one of your race times, then you are possibly a below-standard runner in Iten.

Turn up at the old dirt track on a Tuesday and you are almost guaranteed to see a runner who has won a big-city marathon (think London, Boston, New York or Berlin), an Olympic or World Championship medallist, or a world-record holder. I remember watching Asbel Kiprop, holder of one Olympic and two World Championship gold medals in the 1500 metres, lead a group through a track session on my first week in Iten.

British Athlete Mark Draper on the Track – photo courtesy of Jordan van IJsseldijk

The Thursday fartlek session is often lead by Wilson Kipsang, current world record holder for the marathon. But these celebrities do not run alone. They fly along the roads or track in Iten surrounded by runners who may also be known, may not yet be known, or may never be known. There are many fast Kenyans training in Iten.

Iten: Week 3

My normal training week involves six days of running and a day of rest. After two weeks in Iten I had run for fourteen straight days. With a life focussed around training, but with an important focus on eating and recovery I didn’t feel the need for my usual weekly day off. But I decided to start my third week with my only rest day for the four weeks I would spend in Iten.

On Tuesday I headed down to the track to run a pyramid session, running intervals of 400, 600, 800, 1000 and 1200 metres, before working back down the pyramid to 400 metres. The recovery periods between each interval was just over half the length of the preceding interval. I had set target times that would be challenging, and they turned out to be slightly too challenging, but I enjoyed a good session where I managed to get close on all of the splits.

Most Kenyan runners head out 2-3 times a day to run. After using double sessions in the first half of 2012 when starting to seriously build my mileage I had returned to longer single run sessions after a few months due to the time taken to fit in two runs around a working day. But with no work to get in the way I included three double sessions in a row. The plan was to run an easy shake-out run each afternoon after a hard morning session.

Iten: Week 2

I started my second week in Iten with a planned 18 km run at marathon pace. I did not think that I would be able to maintain my Paris Marathon race pace on the hilly terrain of high-altitude Iten so I used a running calculator to convert my planned pace to its equivalent at 2300 metres above sea level. I set out slightly ahead of pace for the early predominantly downhill section of my route, but struggled to hold the pace as I climbed back to my starting point. My final pace ended up 5 seconds per kilometre slower than my altitude-adjusted marathon race pace, and I was struggling to understand how my training was proceeding against my target.

After a couple of easy runs on Tuesday I headed into a nearby forest on Wednesday. Setting out with another runner from the training centre we ran 7 km down the road to the forestry plantation that is a combination of pine and eucalyptus trees. It was pleasant running along trails between the trees, considerably slower than road paces but with considerably more hills.

On Thursday I headed to the old dirt track for a workout, after a session the previous week where I had not made my target times for a single interval. Thankfully this session, involving 2 x 1000 m, 1 x 2000m and 5 x 400 m, was much more successful, finishing each interval at my target pace.

Iten: The HATC Food

Iten – High Altitude Training Centre (HATC)

The food at the High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) doesn’t feature ugali at every meal, but it is featured at every dinner. The meals are based around a one-week cycle, so starting in your second week you become more and more familiar with the food you will eat on any given day. Below provides an idea of the food provided at each meal.

Breakfast

Porridge
Hard-boiled eggs
Bread (prepared and baked in-house) with spread options of butter, jam, and peanut butter
A rotation between french toast, crepes, flapjacks and a Kenyan type of fried bread

Hot water for instant coffee, hot chocoloate or tea
Chai

Morning Tea

Hot water for instant coffee, hot chocolate or tea
Chai

Bread with spread options of butter, jam, and peanut butter
Fried bread (if left over from that day’s breakfast)

Lunch

Soup
Rolls (prepared and baked in-house)

Rice, noodles or pasta
Rotating sauces/stews (predominantly vegetarian)

Salad featuring a varying combination of cabbage, carrot, cucumber, tomato, onion, pineapple, raisins

Iten: Week 1

I arrived in Iten having spent the previous two weeks travelling in Ethiopia, predominantly above an elevation of 2,000 metres. Therefore I was already quite well acclimatised to the 2,400 metre elevation of Iten, and could get straight into some good training.

I arrived on a Monday morning, settled in to my room and drank some chai. I had my first High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) lunch, checked out a map of the local roads, and plotted a 16 km route. Then I set out for my first run at a relaxed and easy pace.

Iten – Running Map

Tuesday morning in Iten is track day, with many of the local runners heading down to the old dirt track to swarm around in large groups at phenomenal speeds. I wasn’t planning on hitting the track for speed work on day 2 in Iten, but I did jog down to check out the action. From there I set out for my own easy run.

Iten: The HATC Lifestyle

A period of pure training is based around just three activities: training, eating and resting. While staying at the High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) in Iten all meals are included, and are served at set times, therefore defining the schedule into which all three activities are planned.

Iten – High Altitude Training Centre (HATC)

The schedule of meals is as follows, and based on those meals I think of each day as containing five possible training sessions:

Pre-breakfast
Breakfast: 07:30 – 09:00
Post-breakfast
Morning tea: 11:00 – 11:30
Pre-lunch
Lunch: 12:30 – 13:30
Post-lunch
Afternoon tea: 16:00 – 16:30
Pre-dinner
Dinner: 19:00 – 20:30

It is possible to arrange for some breakfast to be kept aside for you if you plan a longer pre-breakfast workout, and morning/afternoon tea can be easily skipped for long sessions. But most of my days have been constructed around placing my training, including workouts, stretching, sauna and massage sessions into five empty slots for each day. Any remaining empty boxes are then consumed with rest, which could entail reading, surfing the internet, the occasional shopping trip, or sleeping. The amazing thing I have found is that the amount of spare time does not seem to be very much.

Training Location: Iten, Kenya

If you were the reigning Olympic and World Champion over both 5,000 and 10,000 metres, and you were looking to run your first marathon, where would you go to train?

Iten can be considered the home of Kenyan running. At an altitude of around 2,400 metres above sea level, it is the town where a large number of the country’s best runners live and train. It is a place where you can turn up at the old dirt track on a Tuesday morning to watch (and if you happen to be quick enough then you are free to join) a speed session lead by Asbel Kiprop, 2008 Olympic gold medallist in the 1500 metres and World Champion over the same distance in 2011 and 2013. You can then head a few kilometres out of town on Thursday mornings to join the fartlek session lead by Wilson Kipsang (current world record holder for the marathon with a time of 2:03:23). And to answer my opening question, it is also the place where Mo Farah is currently training in the lead up to his first marathon in London in April.