KIMbia Athletics

With a wedding to plan and a marriage to start, it’s been a busy winter for Chris Solinsky — to the point where it might be forgiven if he started 2010 showing a little rust.  Yet a new house, wife, and home life seem to be agreeing with the Stevens Point native, as he ran 3:55.75 at the UW Invitational in Seattle, on Saturday.  Opening the season indoors, Solinsky defeated Galen Rupp by a little less than half a second.

His 3:55.75 is a facility record at one of the fastest tracks in the world; a PB of over a second, indoors or out; his first time under 4:00 indoors; and is just .11 seconds off the current world leader.

Michelle Sikes, Rhodes Scholar-extraordinaire, has spent the past few weeks in and around western Kenya  pursuing some first-person scholarship about the rise of the female Kenyan distance runner.  Between dozens of interviews with local running legends, she has even managed to fit in some training, and shares below…

We ran up a mountain today.  Godfrey (Kiprotich) was EXACTLY on-time – 8:30am on the dot.  Thinking that he just might happen to arrive late, I went off to breakfast in order to have a pre-run coffee.  However, just after I left the room, he pulled up in Ben Maiyo’s faithful white truck!

We took our usual seats, in our usual order, in the cabin of the truck.  From left to right, we sit (fellow Oxford student) Jonathan, then me, and then Godfrey behind the wheel (the driver sits on the right in Kenya!  Another legacy of the British…)  We passed the Viewpoint and from there, it was down, down, down…The Viewpoint was to be our finish line.  Our starting point was a primary school 2000 meters below it. Read the full article

In a match-up pitting Canada’s best distance runner against the fastest American half-marathoner in history, KIMbia’s Simon Bairu came home the victor, winning the Rock and Roll Arizona Half Marathon over Olympian Ryan Hall. Bairu’s 1:02:47 not only won the day, but also took nearly of two-minutes off of the course record. Running just his second half-marathon, Bairu used the 11th mile to put 26 seconds between himself and Hall, and only lengthened his lead to the tape. With high hopes for his next race — the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Poland — Bairu certainly seems on the right track.

Meanwhile, a hop, a skip, and a very long jump away in eastern Texas, the USATF Half Marathon National Championships brought together a deep domestic field.  Houston has a history of auspicious, break-out races — from Hall’s own AR, to KIMbia’s Jim Carney winning the National Championship in his debut in 2008 — and Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn looked to add their own chapter to that story as each took his first swing at the 13.1-mile distance. Read the full article

The domestic professional season kicks off this Sunday with the American southwest serving as ground zero.  The US Half Marathon Championships will run through the streets of Houston and feature a handful of KIMbia athletes, while the Rock and Roll Arizona Half Marathon goes off in Phoenix, with Simon Bairu taking on American Record Holder Ryan Hall.

There is plenty to be watching and a couple of Running Times pieces have gone inside the KIMbia stories that will be playing out this weekend. Chief among them? The half marathon debuts of Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn. Vaughn expressed his confidence as he looks ahead with a new coach and new training approach:

“I’m training harder. I’m doing a lot more general strength stuff. My coach now is Jay Johnson. I think he’s a great coach. One of his strengths is knowing how hard I can push once the running is done.”

The full interview can be found here.  Read the full article

As we move into 2010, our athletes will each be sharing a look back at 2009, which we will be running throughout the next two weeks.  Next up: Matt Tegenkamp, who spent the past year making his third global championship final and breaking 13:00 in the 5k, running 12:58.56 in Brussels — a 6+ second PB and just two seconds away from the American Record.

What were you thinking with 800m to go in Brussels? Were you anxious that the pace was slowing too much and perhaps you would not get a shot at sub-13:00 and/or the US record?

With 800 to go, I knew exactly were I was for time and I was disappointed that the pace slowed and by the fact that I didn’t do anything about it.   I don’t think the other athletes would have let me get to the lead but I think if I had just made the effort the pace would have picked back up.  It was tough coming so close to the AR but it was a huge ste p forward and I know I left time on the track that day!

Now that you’re under 13-minutes, does it feel at all like a weight has been lifted? Read the full article

As we move into 2010, our athletes will each be sharing a look back at 2009, which we will be running throughout the next two weeks.  Next up: Brent Vaughn, who is preparing to step up to the half-marathon later this month.

1. You have talked a bit about moving up in distance starting in 2010.  Any idea yet when and where you might make your 10k/Half debut, and if longer races will be a part of the coming year?

I am planning to try out a longer race this winter before the track season starts.  I’m not planning to specifically get prepared for anything, but just want to run a road race during my preparation for the 10k and this upcoming track season. [Ed. Note: Brent has since entered the Houston Half Marathon where he'll compete for the USATF Championship at that distance.] Read the full article

As we move into 2010, our athletes will each be sharing a look back at 2009, which we will be running throughout the next two weeks.  First up, Tim Nelson, arguably the most-improved male American distance athlete in 2009.

This year you qualified for your first National teams, competed in your first World Championsip, became the 14th-fastest American at 10k, and twice took Olympians to the wire for a National Championship.  If you had to rank your races from 2009 based on how fondly you remember them, what would be #1 and what would be the runner-up?  And why?

My number one race would have to go to the Cardinal Invitational 10k.  It was an awesome experience to finally achieve my goal of running the Olympic ‘A’ Standard and getting under the 27:40 mark.   Read the full article

Brandeis student Paul Norton traveled to Kenya this past summer to intern with the KIMbia Foundation.  Below, we continue sharing his journal entries, which will run daily for the remainder of the 2009.

Perhaps American investment bankers (if any of them still exist) could learn a thing or two from Kenyan athletes.  Paul Koech and Lornah Kiplagat serve as two of many examples where Kenyan athletes have operated successful businesses while giving back to the community around them.

Paul Koech’s school, Silgich Hill Academy, is the best-run primary school in the area.  The facilities are superior, the teachers caring, smart, and thoughtful, and the food filling, consistent, and good-tasting.  Paul even has plans to build a library at Silgich that will serve all the primary schools in the area.  In addition, Paul’s wife Zipporah has formed a partnership with a local stationary store her friend owns.  This partnership allows Zipporah to buy school supplies very cheaply for all of the schools in the area. Read the full article

Brandeis student Paul Norton traveled to Kenya this past summer to intern with the KIMbia Foundation.  Below, we continue sharing his journal entries, which will run daily for the remainder of the 2009.

As an economics major, I am always fascinated by how things like money and banking work in other countries.  Earlier this afternoon, I received an unintended lesson about Kenyan banking.  I was sitting in the main house/common room/lounge area having a cup of tea and watching Kenyan music videos when Mike (one of my speedy training partners), Nyanye (Swahili for grandmother, and the only name I have heard the caretaker at Silgich referred to) and a few teachers trickled in.  For a while, all of us were sitting around talking, watching TV, sipping tea and eating snacks. After about a half an hour, the TV went off, and between the people around me 1500 Kenyan shillings (about $20) and a half a kilogram of sugar were put on the table.  As all of the conversation coinciding with this was in Swahili, I was a bit confused as to what was going on. Read the full article

Brandeis student Paul Norton traveled to Kenya this past summer to intern with the KIMbia Foundation.  Below, we continue sharing his journal entries, which will run daily for the remainder of the 2009.

MY FIRST RUN
“Swing Paul, swing!” was what I heard from Mike, a worker at Silgich who used to train at one of the famous Kenyan camps told me the last 200 meters of our run.  It might have been the hardest end of a run I’ve ever had.  You hear it all the time, but you don’t realize until you get there that this country is seeping with running talent.  The two men living next door to me are both workers at the school, but also happen to be semi-elite runners in their spare time.  Sammy ran 2:25 in his marathon debut at the Nairobi marathon, which is an impressive time to begin with, let alone the fact that it was at 5000 feet. Mike has run 14:20 for 5000 meters, and at 6000 feet. Read the full article