Scouting Report: Gikuyu Running Club, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

With the workout done, we slowly walk up the hill to where the rooms are and I talk abit with one of the runners, Samuel Waweru.

Turns out he hated running in school! He only started running when he watched the Commonwealth Games on TV and thought that there was nothing special that these runners were doing. The next day he went for a mile run and felt a “burning in [my] lungs” but was not deterred. He continued to train from his home in Nairobi but one day he was attacked while running and so decided to join this camp.

Back in the common room, the day’s lunch was almost ready. A typical Kenyan meal – ugali (corn meal) and sukuma wiki (collard greens)! I’ve been eating this stuff for the past 12 years but I can’t remember when I was served it in such large quantities!  

The ugali was served in a huge plastic basin and I tried to show the before and after pictures of our ugali consumption:



With our stomach’s full, we started talking abit. The biggest complaint these athletes had was about the hardships they endure while training. Money, or lack of it, is the biggest difficulty. New running shoes cost about $70 although they usually buy used shoes at less than half that. Still it’s a lot of money for most of them.



Coach Pius has a tough job in trying to keep the runners and the camp together. Much of his time is spent calling relatives of the runners to solicit for money for food, transport to races and other essentials. Not many parents see the benefit of having their son or daughter training for races that might not earn them any money so Coach Pius has a tough sell most of the time.

I left the camp having a better understanding of what these athletes are struggling with and the amount of talent that is never realized due to the lack of opportunities for runners here. It’s really a sink-or-swim situation whereby if you cannot start winning money in the first year or so of serious training, there’s a good chance you’ll have to give up and do something more economically beneficial.

I’ll share some more thoughts in another post. I also hope to visit more training camps, especially the ones in the Rift Valley that harbour the elite runners. But I feel I’m off to a good start so far!

Scouting Report: Gikuyu Running Club, Part 1

Yesterday I visited a small running club or “camp” that’s located just a few kilometers from Nairobi in a place called Gikuyu. Organised by Coach Pius Ndung’u, this camp provides a training environment for some of the talented runners in the area.

I first visited where the runners sleep and eat and generally hang out. It became obvious that they are operating on a shoestring budget if even that. They rent 3 rooms- 1 bedroom for the ladies, 1 for the men and a common room for cooking, eating and everything else. But these rooms should not be mistaken for a suite at the Four Seasons. Each room rents for $6/month and is as Spartan as it gets- a door, 4 iron sheet walls and a concrete floor. Training is what’s important to these runners, not luxury.

At any one time, the camp accommodates roughly 20 athletes although today 12 show up for the mid-morning workout. They go for the morning run around 6am and obviously that is just too early for me to be around for.

But I was able to be there for their 10am speed work session (pushed back to 11am since they had to make me a cup of tea first). We walked about a kilometer to Kanjeru “Stadium”. I used quotes for “Stadium” because, well…judge for yourself whether it qualifies:

They start off with 5 warm-up laps around the 500 meter loop.  

The coach tells me that the camp has had greater success in producing successful women runners as witnessed by two of the runners here, Margaret Njuguna and Hannah Mbugua, who have both run in Asia in marathons and half marathons. In fact both of them returned to Kenya just a few weeks ago, having been in SE Asia the past 6 months.

Today’s workout is 1x1000, 2x800, 3x400 and 3x200 with minimal recovery in between. Keeping in mind that all of the runners are training for the half and full marathon, they do not go very hard during this workout. 



Continued in Part 2.

Upcoming Scouting Report: Gikuyu Running Club

Can someone remind me to bring my sun block next time?

I just got back from a day with the Gikuyu Running Club and I'm afraid more red in my skin pigment than I'm comfortable with.

But apart from that small oversight, the day was a success with me getting to talk to some of the runners and their coach at this small camp just a few kilometers outside of Nairobi.

I took some pictures which I'll upload tomorrow as well as writing a bit more about my day with them.