How long do kenyan runners live

Just last month, a Kenyan, Mary Keitany, was the first woman to break one hour and six minutes in the half-marathon when she set the world record at Last year, Kenyan men won four of the five world major marathons and lay claim to 60 of the top ranked marathoners. An astonishing Kenyans broke two hours and fifteen minutes last year in the marathon. By contrast, Canada had three under the same time - and that was a good year for us.

Factor in the population of the two countries Kenya, 39 million, Canada, 34 million , and it's evident just how excellent the East African country is at producing world-class distance runners.

As a marathoner, I wanted to observe first-hand how these great athletes were training and living. For one month this winter, I went to Iten, Kenya, and immersed myself in the culture of Kenyan running. Iten is a small town of 4,, about kilometres northwest of the capital, Nairobi, and is home to many of the world's best distance runners and hundreds more who make a living winning road race purses.

It's not a coincidence that the rural town sits about 2, metres about 8, feet above sea level where athletes benefit from training in thin air.

I soon learned, however, that there are many other reasons why Kenyan runners dominate. Here are some tips that all runners can incorporate into their training in order to run like a Kenyan. Running - a lot - is the key to distance running, and the Kenyans are no exception when it comes to logging many kilometres day in, day out. Most of the runners I met run at least twice a day but some run up to three times.

If you can squeeze a few more kilometres into your week, without compromising quality, you will reap the benefits. Train hard. The motto "train hard, win easy" is exemplified by Kenyan runners. If you want to run hard come race day, it's best to prepare with some sort of speed session intervals, fartlek, tempo one to three times a week to get used to the specific effort of your race pace.

Rest hard. You'll often find that up to about 70 or 80 percent of its winners since the late s, when East African nutrition and technology started catching up with the West, have been from Kenya. Since , for example, 20 of the 25 first-place men in the Boston Marathon have been Kenyan.

Kenyan women appear to have had a later start, winning none of marathons before possibly due to discriminatory laws and a tradition of forcing girls into marriages, both of which were partially rolled back by s reforms and 9 of 13 since then. Of the top 25 male record holders for the meter steeplechase, 18 are Kenyan. Their record in the Olympic men's marathon is more uneven, having placed in the top three in only four of the last six races. Still, not bad for one country.

And even more amazing is that three-fourths of the Kenyan champions come from an ethnic minority of 4. It turns out that Kenyans' success may be innate.

Two separate, European-led studies in a small region in western Kenya, which produces most of the race-winners, found that young men there could, with only a few months training, reliably outperform some of the West's best professional runners. In other words, they appeared to have a physical advantage that is common to their community, making it probably genetic. The studies found significant differences in body mass index and bone structure between the Western pros and the Kenyan amateurs who had bested them.

The studied Kenyans had less mass for their height, longer legs, shorter torsos, and more slender limbs. One of the researchers described the Kenyan physical differences as "bird-like," noting that these traits would make them more efficient runners, especially over long distances. Surprisingly, Western popular writing about Kenyans' running success seems to focus less on these genetic distinctions and more on cultural differences.

For years, the cultural argument has been that Kenyans become great runners because they often run several miles to and from school every day. But, about a decade ago, someone started asking actual Kenyans if this was true, and it turned out to be a merely a product of Western imaginations : 14 of 20 surveyed Kenyan race-winners said they'd walked or ridden the bus to school , like normal children do.

Another cultural argument says they run barefoot, which develops good habits, but if this were true then surely the far more populated countries of South Asia, where living without shoes is also common, would dominate over Kenyans.

Another ascribes it to the "simple food" of Kenya, but this again is true of many parts of the world, and Kenya's not-so-great health record suggests the country has not discovered the secret to great nutrition. And there is a cringe-inducing theory, still prevalent, that Kenyans' history as herders means they get practice running as they chase their sheep across the countryside. Another argument notes that many of Kenya's best runners come from the sunny highlands in the Great Rift Valley, which also happens to be the birthplace of homo sapiens.

The land there is flat with mild year-round weather, encouraging regular outdoor running. The high elevation -- about 7, feet -- could help runners here develop lungs capable of functioning in thinner air. When these runners descend to the relatively low-elevation courses at Boston or Beijing, the thicker atmosphere there would give them, in effect, a sustained oxygen boost.

This may help explain why they developed physical traits better suited for running, although it's possible that these features are also due to something called "genetic drift" -- evolution is based on random genetic mutations, after all, so any isolated community will "drift" to certain common traits for no reason other than chance. They've passed on the passion for running across generations, turning the Rift Valley -- especially the small town of Iten -- into a mecca for the nation's elite long distance runners.

There, children start running at a young age. A lot of the young people from these areas grow up surrounded by successful runners. Most of them look at running as a way to make money, says coach Bernard Ouma, who trains elite Kenyan runners. As a result, their communities have a deep tradition of running excellence built over the years. They train and live in a high-altitude area. Most of the Kenyan runners who dominate marathons worldwide train and live in the high-altitude Rift Valley. Iten, one of the towns that produces elite runners, sits nearly 8, feet above sea level in western Kenya.

Training at high altitudes contributes to a running dominance that makes running at lower elevation child's play, Onywera says. Then there's diet and constant motivation. Iten has become known internationally as the place where long distance champions are made.

So much so, runners from around the world go there to train before major races. Running aficionado and author Adharanand Finn spent a lot of time in the town trying to find out the secret to Kenyan marathon runners. And when I saw there was no book, or at that time no films, on the subject, I decided to go there and write one.

His book , "Running with the Kenyans," gives more insight into what he found out. And there is no one major secret, he says.