Article on Kenyan Running

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...unning-kenyans

This looks like it'll be interesting to follow over the next few months....

Seems a little selfish to move 3 young children away from all their friends and schools etc. for 6 months in Africa. That was my first thought

there's an interesting series in the guardian at the moment http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...th-the-kenyans

That's the same article alslim

You want an insight in to Kenya?

http://josh-tighe.blogspot.com/

The musings of forumite "Too Easy" who is out there at the moment with Nick Swinburn.

It makes me wonder if Josh is a reincarnation of Confucious.

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Originally Posted by Yorkshire Rob

Seems a little selfish to move 3 young children away from all their friends and schools etc. for 6 months in Africa. That was my first thought

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I know two families that have spent extended periods overseas (a year each) working on a hospital building project in Rwanda. In both cases, the children were fine: they easily made new friends in Africa and were able to keep in touch with their friends at home via the internet. The older children talk about it as a life-changing experience, and the younger ones were still at an age where they just went with the flow of things and got on with it. In terms of education, they'll probably learn a lot more from six months in Kenya than they would in their schools at home.

While on holiday I finally got around to reading that book in the article
Running with Kenyans by Adharanand Finn.

I was actually quite a good read, very interesting to see the backound that the Kenyan runners come from that massively contributes to them dominating world road running for the past few years.
Basically for every Kenyan that wins a race in Europe and the USA there is probably another hundred who are 90% as good running around the dirt tracks of Kenya hoping some manager from the "west" will spot them and bring them out of the country so that they can make some money.

Another review here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...nn-review.html

The book is rubbish. End of review :closed:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPatrickBarry

Basically for every Kenyan that wins a race in Europe and the USA there is probably another hundred who are 90% as good running around the dirt tracks of Kenya hoping some manager from the "west" will spot them and bring them out of the country so that they can make some money.

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And another 40 million plus, content on just being good at getting on with daily life, beyond sleep-run-eat-sleep-run.

I agree with DT. I really wanted to get some perspective after all the 'Barefoot' hype and this book should have been just that but it really is not. The children clearly did not enjoy the experience either from what Finn writes.

The whole point was that barefoot is just one part of the reason for their dominance. A tough upbringing is a much bigger contributer.

Barefoot, a tough upbringing and good juice? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/24736157

/tannoy

CL to the forum, CL to the forum

/tannoy

Apparently they have to run 20 miles to get an injection though ;)