Kenyans in SE Asia: Margaret Njuguna

I had an interesting conversation the othere day with one of the Gikuyu Running Club members, Margaret Njuguna. One of the most experienced runners in the group, Margaret, 39, had just returned from an 8 month stay in SE Asia where she was competing in Marathons and half marathons.

She had been invited to participate in some of the major races in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore so she and a few other Kenyan runners packed their bags and flew out.

Climate Change!

Margaret found it difficult to train over in SE Asia because it was too hot. Too hot?! Kenya’s in Africa and isn’t Africa supposed to be hot? Well Kenyan runners train (and often grow up) in high altitude areas that are generally on the cool side. Plenty of sun- but still cool. So they tend to be just as adverse to hot and humid environments as their European counterparts are. Remember Bekele’s DNF at last years World X/C Championships? Remember his complaint?

So Margaret would have to start training at around 4am so that she could get her workout in before it became too hot. This also meant that she was not really following the proper training regime and she would lose fitness over the course of her stay.



Slower Times

Although she ran a 2:52 full and a 1:20 half, she complained that the climate and the courses were not conducive to fast times. Apparently the streets aren’t cleared of traffic as thoroughly as in other places so runners have to compete with motorcycles, cars and the exhaust that they produce.

The courses are also not optimized for speed so plenty of hills, turns and poor direction markings.

Again, the humidity! Sammy Wanjiru and the rest of the Olympic marathon runners triumphed over the early Beijing heat, but running 26 miles in muggy 80 degree weather is not a recipe for a personal best.

Too Many Kenyans

I asked Margaret about the number of Kenyans competing in these races in Asia and her answer surprised me. She said that at the marathons, she would see more than 30 Kenyan men lining up! That’s quite a high number and it brings up a slew of issues that I’ll try and explore in future posts. But it in one respect it shows how much running talent is in Kenya and also how difficult it is to make a living out of this sport as an athlete.

Luckily for Margaret, she was only joined by 4 or 5 other Kenyan women in many of these races. She was able to win many of her races or come in 2nd or 3rd.


Money, Money, Money

That’s why she spent 8 months away from her family of 5 children to stay in a foreign, unfamiliar land. Money. Unfortunately she didn’t bring a lot of it back with her.

The paydays for many of these races isn’t very much and after deducting the plane ticket and all other expenses, she returned home with $2000 or so.   And $1000 of that is earmarked for her airfare back so that she can race there in November.  That’s not a whole lot for 8 months work!

But there are very few races here in Kenya that offer much in the way of prize money and also the competition in the local races is nothing to be scoffed at. Races in the US and Europe again attract a very high caliber of runners and are difficult to enter unless specifically invited.

Currently Margaret is working to get back into racing shape and then she’ll return to Asia in November. It’s not an easy life but it’s one that she’s chosen as a runner.