The Singore girls may be, collectively, the best high school runners in the world, but until this spring they haven’t had a track to train on. In December, they went 1-4 at Nike Team Nationals, dismantling a good field of American high schoolers. Their fourth runner, Mercy Kosgei, finished over a minute up on the first U.S. runner, and owns a silver medal from World Junior cross country. The team’s fifth, Emmy Kerich, placed a disappointing 45th while recovering from a very recent wisdom tooth excavation. In normal circumstances the girls could be expected to have swept.
Recent Singore alumna Janeth Jepkosgei won a world title at 800 meters last year, and in 1997, graduate Sally Barisosio took Kenya’s first womens’ world gold at 10,000 meters. Internationally, it is difficult to imagine another school even considering the Singore legacy, much less challenging it. Only one country, Ethiopia, has approached distance running success on a level comparable to this high school program. It is possible “best girls team in the world” doesn’t fully capture the Singore dominance.
And yet, for all this, the girls haven’t had a functional track in decades. Each year during rainy season, water cascades from the school’s hillside campus to the playing field below, washing away what appears to be a long-forgotten attempt at grading and constructing a soccer field and dirt oval. During his trip to Kenya last year with Matt Taylor and Tom Ratcliffe, Bellarmin Prep girls coach Matt Ellis decided something ought to be done. Ellis and his team raised over $2,000, and KIMbia agreed to oversee a track reconstruction project, to begin in early 2008. Political chaos, and a series of greedy contractors, have slowed construction, but we’re happy to report that the track is nearing completion.
Thus far, drainage has been the name of the game. The field is both at the bottom of a hill and itself canted, so that the curve from 0 to 100 meters sits nearly 4 feet below the curve from 200 to 300, compounding the erosion problem. Thus far, we’ve devoted most of our efforts to diverting water away from and around the field, and correcting the gradient imbalance from one side to the other. Next, we’ll mine a special soil called marrum, a crushed volcanic rock, and spread it across six (hopefully) level lanes. Most tracks in Kenya use marrum, which doesn’t absorb water during rain storms, because Kenya’s soil has a high concentration of clay and sticks underfoot with shocking tenacity. Tune in for a report from the girls’ maiden home-field interval session in a few weeks.
Another in an occasional series, checking in with our friends who competed at the Olympic Trials in Eugene. Today, Brent Vaughn:
