100 Seconds to Beat the World: The David Rudisha Story

This outstanding documentary was shown on the BBC this week and is well worth watching.

Documentary telling the story of Kenyan athlete David Rudisha, the greatest 800m runner the world has ever seen, and his highly unusual coach, the Irish Catholic missionary Brother Colm O'Connell. Shot over ten years, the film begins in 2005 when we first meet David as a shy 16-year-old arriving at a training camp with nothing but a dream of emulating his father's 1968 Olympic silver medal. The camp is run by the unlikeliest of coaches, missionary and amateur athletics trainer Brother Colm, who quickly spots his talent. Together they embark on a journey through injury, disappointment and terror when violence sweeps through the country in the aftermath of the 2008 election, all the way to the 2012 Olympics and the greatest 800m race the world has ever seen.
With unprecedented access and featuring interviews with Seb Coe and Steve Cram, this is an epic, magical and uplifting tale that reaches far beyond sport.

If you have Hola installed on Chrome, you can watch it on the BBC:  If not you can watch it here:



One thing missing from the Documentary was video of his Olympic World Record run. You can find it here on youtube.

You might also enjoy this documentary on Brother Colm as narrated by Eamonn Coghlan: Man on a Mission.

I just got back from two weeks in Kenya, but I can count all the runners I saw on both hands. I will admit to being ready to run myself if those hippos or crocodiles got a little closer. This is on the Masai Mara at the Hippo Pool on the Kenya/Tanzania border.

Now this is racing! "Drama all the way!"

This is quite a race and definitively worth a watch if you are a fan of running. I won't give away the end result, but there is so much happening in this 1979 5000 meter track race with the great runners of that time. In this race are the world record holder holder Henry Rono (13:08.4), Rod Dixon bronze medalist at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in the 1500 meters as he is moving up in distance at this point (a few years later-1983-he would win the New York City Marathon);  Brenden Foster, the bronze medalist at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games in the 10,000 meters;  Eamonn Coghlan, the speedy miler who would later win the gold medal at the 1983 World Championships for 5000 meters; Bernie Ford, and English runner who finished 3rd in the 1976 World Cross-Country Championships, American Rudy Chapa, Alberto Salazar's college roommate and storied high school and collegiate distance runner, and English runner Mike McLeod, who would later finish 2nd at the 1981 Falmouth Road Race and win the silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games 10,000 meters. Throw all that talent in a race and interesting things are sure to happen, especially with Henry Rono's weird surging tactics. There is even a fall in the race. Watch and enjoy. This is spectacular racing and the video is very high quality, something you don't often see in these older videos.

At the end of this race, there is a bonus race of Steve Ovett setting the 2 mile world record. It only shows the final mile, but again we have Henry Rono, Eamonn Coghlan, and Mike McCleod, as well as Nick Rose. Steve Ovett plays with the constantly surging Henry Rono and celebrates as he passes for the win and Henry's record.

Of course, showboating the finish didn't always work out for Steve Ovett, as this popular video "Arrogance Personified" shows. John Treacy never gives up  in this race. We also get to see the late great Bill McChesney running.

Why are the Kenyan runners so great?

Man On A Mission from jamieleedalton on Vimeo.

I can't recommend this full length video "Man on a Mission" enough. It is presented and narrated by the great Eamonn Coghlan and highlights  Brother Colm O'Connell and his work at St. Patrick's High School in Iten, Kenya. Iten is a small town of about 4000 people, but is also the focal point for so many of the world's greatest runners. After watching it just once, I have to say it is one of the best documentaries on running that I have ever seem. There is the history, with videos and interviews with greats like Kip Keino, the wisdom and techniques of Brother Colm, the beautiful Kenyan landscape and people, and the immediacy with filming and discussions about the most recent Kenyan star David Rudisha.

There is no one secret to the Kenyan success in distance running. As Eamonn Coghlan says it is a "perfect storm" of many elements, but the simple approach to training that Brother Colm espouses with the basics of an inner calm mixed with courage that has helped propel many Kenyan greats over the past 20 something years to the elite world stage.

Brother Colm wants his athletes to be relaxed and not intense about their training. He doesn't want them imagining the exertion or the pounding effects of running, and this means a lot of slow running for his charges. In fact, 800 meter world record holder David Rudisha is asked at times to work out with younger runners to keep himself grounded. At the beginning of the documentary, Brother Colm is seen telling his proteges that he wants them to learn about the sport and that he is just not interested in putting on a training camp.

 Having visited Kenya last summer and having taught  in Kenyan schools, I must say that the intensity of the athletes looking at the coach at this point in the film so reminded me about the students I taught in the slums of Nairobi and how they hung on every word I said. There were no distractions. As an elementary school teacher, the biggest battle I face is that kids today can't sit still and concentrate, let alone care about what a teacher is saying. The Kenyan students are masters of knowing how important it is to listen to a teacher! My favorite part of the documentary is when Eamonn Coghlan goes into a classroom at St. Patrick's and asks how many in the crowd of students are great athletes. Now this class is in the hotbed of the greatest distance runners on the planet. I am sure the slowest person in the room could be a top runner for any high school in America, however only a few hands shot up. Then Eamonn asked (it was a chemistry class)  how many of them are great chemists. Hands shot up around the room. Yeah, that is the Kenya I remember. They are more interested in academics than sports. Do you think you would get the same response in a classroom filled with America's best high school football players?

Brother Colm also talked about his training system that he calls FAST. It stands for Focus, Alignment, Stability, and Timing. He has them run slowly as he gets them to focus the eyes, work on the core with alignment and stability, and then work on the timing of their feet on the ground. Maybe you have seen videos of the Ethiopian runners doing similar slow running drills with their arms rotating around like clock hands. Brother Colm explains that this is to distract the body so that the core is strong so that when they race they can be "locked" into position.

You will learn a lot from watching this video. Brother Colm is a calm and relaxed coach who had done much to bring about the dominance of the Kenyan runner.

Here is a newly published book: Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth.

Eammon Coghlan Documentary Video

I really enjoyed watching this Eammon Coghlan video documentary that juanmarti2 just uploaded to Youtube. You get to see some great historic Olympic and World Championship video from this great Irish runner.



Here is a picture I took at Franklin Field in Boston at the National Cross-Country Championships back in 1982 (I believe). It was won by Pat Porter. The first of eight that he would win. In this photo you can see Pat Porter in the lead with Ed Eyestone directly behind him. Eammon Coghlan is third in ithe NYAC singlet. I believe that is Jeff Drenth behind Eammon. Leading the 2nd group is Dan Henderson, a former teammate at Wheaton College. He is the tall thin guy running in the Athletics West shirt (#6). Next to him is Dan Dillon #3, who is now married to the former Amercan record holder in the marathon, Patti Lyons-Catalano. Two other runners in this field (not visible) were my former high school teammates Mark and Andy Whitney. They were running this race as teammates of Eammon Coghlan for the NYAC. I believe that is the last time I saw these three former teammates. The Whitney's sister is Laura Bianco, a (former) Gate City Strider runner and the winner of the Hollis Applefest half-marathon back in the early 1990s.