Ethiopian Running Documentary: Town of Runners

Here is the trailer for a new documentary on an Ethiopian town that has produced some of the greatest distance runners the world has ever seen: 

Town of Runners is a feature documentary about young runners from Bekoji - an Ethiopian highland town which has produced some of the world's greatest distance athletes, including Tirunesh Dibaba, Kenenisa Bekele and Derartu Tulu. 

Watch and share our trailer here, explore the stories behind the film, and follow all our news up to the film's release on April 20th April 2012.

Runners from Bekoji have won 8 Olympic gold medals, broken 10 world records,  and won 32 world championships.  This feature length documentary follows a few young runners from this town in their quest to achieve running greatness. It also looks like it follows female athletes, which is an interesting twist on the African running documentaries that seem to focus more on the male runners. It looks fascinating and I hope it makes it across the ocean someday as it seems like it is playing more in the British Isles. The Town of Runners website has additional information and video clips highlighting the town, the featured runners, and other things like the yearly remaking of the town track.


Town Of Runners Trailer from Met Film Production on Vimeo.

Some of the clips on the trailer reminded me of scenes in the Haile Gebrsalasie movie Endurance (which is finally out on DVD at Amazon), although the parents in this movie seemed more accommodating of their children's desire to be great runners than Halie's father did in that movie.

Update: Here is another athlete from Bekoji who is running the Boston Marathon this year. Askale Tafa Magarsa ran 2:22:23 in Dubai in January, a marathon she won last year. She also was the Paris Marathon winner last year.

While I was in Kenya this summer, one of the most relaxing times that I have ever had was at an Ethiopian restaurant outside Nairobi. We had traditional Ethiopian food.

I am not a coffee drinker. I tried it once in high school and didn't like it, so I never tried it again. However, this young lady was making the coffee for us in front of the restaurant, so I had to give coffee another go. It was good, but it kept me up most of the night!

Standing outside led to lots of conversations with the Ethiopian servers. I talked with this gentleman about the great Ethiopian runners, the history of Ethiopia (it is 2003 on their calendar), and their writing system. He wrote my name out for me and somehow I lost it . He also said that the Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia. I always though we lost it in some USA military warehouse!

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.

Running and Racing in Kenya and Tanzania

Last week I got back from spending two of the greatest and most rewarding weeks ever in Kenya. I was on a mission trip to work in the Mathare Valley slum of Nairobi helping out in the schools and with teachers. Despite the incredible poverty, I found the children to be happy and friendly and it was a privilege to be part of this trip. You can read more about the trip here: although there is plenty more to report and on that blog.

Who would have thought that I would ever be in Kenya and then who would have thought that when I was in Kenya that I could not run? Well, that was the case as I have not run a step since around March due to a torn labrum in my left hip.

Fortunately, I asked the doctor before leaving if there was anything I could take to relieve the pain I was feeling on my left side. I was told it is nerve pain from something being pinched due to the hip. I took a drug that left me basically pain-free for the first time in many years. My hip was not a worry at all and I was able to focus all my energies on the work that I was doing.

Anyhow, I could not resist the urge to run just a little bit. So while on safari, we got out of our vans at a marker seperatating Tanzania from Kenya and I did a short two country run. Then I invited some teammates to join me again for a race between the two countries. It was a blast. Never mind the 40+ pounds I have put on since not being able to run, it was good to move again.





To top off that day, I did some dancing and jumping with some Massai Warriors. I am suprised I got off the ground.



I got to talk Kenyan runners with many of the students I worked with and Ethiopean runners with a host at an Ethiopean restaurant, but I saw very very few Kenyans running. School children were all walking. I guess the runners are up in the mountain of Kenya.

Now the good news. My surgery for the torn labrum has been moved ahead to this coming Monday. If all goes well and after a long recovery, I may be back on the road to running by the end of the year!