Darkness is total, footsteps distant but a murmur is growing. The occasional moo of a cow breaks the din.
A crowd is gathering by the gates of the Global Sports Communication (GSC) camp ready for their Thursday ritual, trying to hang on the coattails of the world’s best.
Nerves abound, a winding journey up the Rift Valley escarpment beckons. Today the GSC group and their collection of local dreamers will tackle the Boston loop, an undulating straight out course at over 7,000 feet of altitude.
The course needs a new name, the marathon after which it takes its title a collection of gentle rises in comparison.
Yet one person is excited. Not the seasoned marathoners, world champions and record holders alike but the four lap specialist in their ranks.
For Faith Kipyegon the favourite day of the week has arrived.
“One day I want to be like the marathoners, taking the drinks, enjoying the 40km.”
You get the sense she means it but today it’s just the 30km, cruelly just before they start their descent.
Instructions received from Patrick Sang and off they go.
Kipyegon heads out fresh off the back of two world records in a record breaking eight days. In 29 days time she will break another but for now she blends into a ten strong pack.
By her side, as always, for each of the last 13 years, her pacemaker, Bernard Soi. He does not quite share the two-time Olympic champion’s sentiment. It is another day of work.
There was a time before their partnership.
Many see Kipyegon’s introduction to the sport as the barefoot 16-year-old finishing fourth in the World U20 Championships but it started some time prior.
Embed from Getty ImagesCharles Ng’eno is generally credited for that World Cross breakthrough, no doubt taking her to a new level after discovering her at Keringet Township school aged 15 but her first steps in the sport were simpler.
“When I was in class 5 (aged 13) I met with my teacher and he introduced me to running where we were doing school competitions so I used to run 1km around the school to prepare.”
Aged 14, moving away from Keringet, Kipyegon spent a year paid for at boarding school in Ndugu, something more common in Kenya than elsewhere and this is where she met her first semblance of a coach.
“I was given some training shoes and I started serious training with Mr Chepkoen.”
Remembering that time, in barely 20 seconds she mentions variations on the word enjoyment four times. No mention of ambitions or dreams, just joy.
Perhaps you enjoy a sport more when you win a World Junior Cross-country title aged 17. That’s fair, but it doesn’t explain why 12 years later, 15km of rising hills in a flicker of a smile appears on her face.
Life is different nowadays. The 1km and 5km runs round the school, replaced by the endless cycle of testing training. A mother, wife, world and Olympic champion, the mantle of perhaps the finest athlete on the planet.
A heavy burden you would expect.
“It’s a lot of sacrifice to be away for all the week from Monday to Saturday. Every week I am with my daughter for two days. So it takes a lot of dedication, discipline but this is my career and this is my office.”
A fun one for sure, but not one not absent of hard work. Two days earlier at Moi University, like today Kipyegon has arrived with a smile. The moment she starts, however, it dissipates, locking in on the feet of Soi in front of her.
2km in 6:18 is prescribed and duly delivered.
She jokingly asks Sang for some longer rest and jogs round the one lap recovery smiling once again.
3x1km follow, all in 3:00, the last a fraction quicker, eyes glued to the orange shoes.
“I just leave everything aside and just focus on training. Even if a dog is passing in front of me, I’m going to hit that dog.”
There’s a purpose to each stride, and whilst once each interval ends the joy returns, there’s a laser like focus that refuses to budge.
Seven more reps are on the schedule that day, each hit out at exactly Sang’s instructions. Three single laps at 66 seconds and four at 64.
To say Kipyegon’s motivation is built on joy is not fair on her ambition. Her dreams range from the practical to the profound.
An eight-year-old 1500m world record, Kipyegon’s father has been waiting with more interest than most for that barrier to be broken, not just motivated by his paternal pride:
“He was very happy after a long journey where I promised him that one day I will break a world record and I will buy him a car. He has been really patient in waiting for that time to come.”
A 1500m, mile and 5000m world record holder, it remains a matter of time before she attempts the marathon mark too.
“In the future I am going that route of 5000, 10,000m and marathon.”
Her biggest ambition? Well that’s a little different. The first in history to hold 1500m and 5000m world records concurrently she did so having put on half her body weight to carry her daughter, Alyn in 2019.
Whilst examples abound of women coming back from maternity to succeed over the longer distances, few inspirations exist over four laps or less. Kipyegon has had to forge her own path:
“I hope to motivate them to know that everything is possible in life. I want to show them the way. I’ve got a lot in my mind to inspire women and inspire girls.”
Back on the long run, Kipyegon takes her final steps. Her 30km of work over once more.
“I will walk for a bit.” She says to the driver of the minibus following her, gesturing she needs to cool down.
She immediately breaks into a slow jog before a kilometre later she stops. Two bottles of carbohydrate drinks to recover she stretches for some moments before jumping into the back of the vehicle.
Her knees reach towards her face and it will be over an hour till she is home.
A smile enters her face.
There’s a notion in athletics that the best have some mental fortitude that mere mortals lack. They get out the door when others can’t, they grind when others give up.
In that there may be some truth but that’s not what I see in Kipyegon this day.
Focused, ambitious but most importantly loving what she does, Kipyegon will be hard to beat in Budapest.
