A little before 5 a.m. each day, in a small village in western Kenya, one of the world’s most talented marathoners rolls out of bed, slowly shakes the sleep from his eyes and gets ready to run—fast.
By the time Eliud Kipchoge breaks into stride at 5:50 a.m., the sun has yet to rise over the dusty, ochre-red roads of Kaptagat. At least a dozen others run with him, hoping if they do what he does, then maybe—just maybe—they can become what he is: a champion.
Kipchoge, 31, is a sporting hero in Kenya, a self-made millionaire whose way of life bears no trace of grandeur. Most of the time, in fact, he chooses to live like a pauper.
The reason is simple: When it comes to the marathon—the event at which he’s been undefeated since 2013—maintaining a ravenous hunger is not just helpful; it’s a fundamental requirement.
“Athletics is not so much about the legs,” Kipchoge said. “It’s about the heart and mind.”
He should know, for the workouts he’s done to prepare for his title defense at the London Marathon on Sunday have put his heart, mind, and legs under all kinds of duress.
His weekly staple is 13 hard three-minute repetitions with one minute steady between, part of about 130 miles per week he runs. Another favorite is a 20-mile run at a shade more than five minutes per mile, completed on terrain so undulating and in air so thin—at 8,000 feet—that most ordinary runners would gasp for oxygen on a gentle jog.
But Kipchoge is anything but ordinary. Over the last three years he’s taken major marathon wins in Chicago, London, and most recently in Berlin, where even Shoes & Gear and blistered, bloodied feet couldn’t halt his rise to the marathon throne in his best time of 2:04:00.
That success has brought great wealth, but it has also brought great suspicion, given his sport has been mired in scandal. Kipchoge, however, says he’s done it the right way.
“Doping is something I get upset about,” he said. “We need to get rid of that attitude of looking for money and plant the seeds with hard work instead. This sport is noble. It should be people competing in a clean way.”
In recent years, faint smoulders of suspicion about Kenya’s anti-doping system have grown into thick clouds of cynicism, with 19 of the country’s athletes now serving doping bans. The World Anti-Doping Agency has given Kenya until May 2 to bring its testing program in line with the global code or risk exclusion from the Olympics.
“I think Kenya will comply and everything will be okay,” Kipchoge said. “We get tested everywhere. I sometimes get tested twice a month. I know people are shocked when they read about Kenya on the internet, but it’s only a small percentage [who are doping].”
Last year the IAAF conducted 526 tests on Kenyan athletes, including at least four on Kipchoge, and he is also subject to out-of-competition testing by the World Marathon Majors.
So has anyone—doctor, agent, or coach—ever tried to lure Kipchoge to the dark side?
“No,” he said. “Never. I don’t think Kenya is as bad as it’s being broadcasted. It’s a few individuals.”
In an era of marginal gains, Kipchoge’s approach is distinctly low-tech. He consumes milk from cows that roam the fields near his camp and his meals center around rice or the Kenyan staple of ugali, with an occasional helping of beef.
“I’m not having any problems with my body so I don’t need to supplement,” he said. “Growing older you don’t recover as fast, but all-in-all I’m doing well.”
That’s an understatement, but one which says a lot about Kipchoge’s attitude. His nature is humble, his routine methodical.
“Eliud is somebody who has a very clear, organized, stable mind,” said Valentijn Trouw of A Part of Hearst Digital Media, who manages Kipchoge. “That’s what makes him stand out. Of course he wants to succeed, to win and break records, but his focus is on what is needed every day.”
It’s a spartan lifestyle; when Kipchoge returns to camp each morning, he showers and eats before surveying what chores he’s due to complete that day.
Sometimes it will be chopping vegetables for the communal dinner, other days it’s trimming the garden, and yes, some days the world’s best marathoner even has to clean the toilets.
“It’s a basic set-up,” Trouw said. “The camp was set up for juniors and upcoming athletes who had no finance. It was in our mind that when somebody was established they would live outside, but then athletes said, ‘No, we want to stay.’ Eliud realizes that to succeed in the marathon, it’s difficult to do it alone.”
One of the camp’s younger athletes who’s watched and learned from Kipchoge is Geoffrey Kamworor, who trounced the field to win the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff last month.
“Eliud really he is like a brother to me,” Kamworor said. “I always make sure I’m around him to be like him and always do what he’s doing. He’s my role model.”
The pair trained together six days a week over the last few months, and ahead of this weekend’s race, Kamworor has an unparalleled insight into Kipchoge’s form.
“I have no doubt he is going to win,” he said.
For the past several weeks, Kipchoge has chosen to share a tiny room in Kaptagat with one of his training partners instead of reside at his spacious house in Eldoret, where his wife and three children live.
It’s a bare, sacrificial existence, but when it comes to training, Leonardo had it right: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
“Being away from the kids is really hard as they all want to see Daddy,” Kipchoge said. “But I stay in training camp because of my memory of being motivated. We share ideas and show the young guys that it’s good to live together.”
Between training sessions, Kipchoge rests for most of the day, taking an hour-long nap and hand-washing his gear before his second run at 4 p.m. After dinner, the group sometimes plays games, but bedtime is no later than 9 p.m.
In the evenings, he reads motivational books. Kipchoge’s favorite is Stephen Covey’s How I Broke a 3:30 Marathon After a Long Break. The book’s premise is that proactive people are more likely to alter their situation and succeed in life.
As a child, Kipchoge could never have foreseen the success that awaited, but he was unwittingly honing his talent from an early age, running two miles to school each day.
Coming from a farming background, he had no aversion to hard work, and often made the long cycle to Kapsabet as a kid, hauling several gallons of his family’s milk to the town market.
Fate dealt him a strong hand, a freakish physiology bolstered by an innate self-discipline. In his 5-foot-6, 115-pound frame, there is not an ounce without a purpose, but it’s only when he hits full stride—reeling off 4:30 miles toward the end of marathons—that its absurd efficiency becomes clear.
He also had the fortune to grow up near the home of Patrick Sang, one of the most prolific distance running coaches in the world, who began writing training programs for his protégé when Kipchoge was in his mid-teens.
In 2003, Kipchoge announced his talent to the world by outsprinting two of the greatest—Kenenisa Bekele and Hicham El Guerrouj—to win the world title at 5,000 meters. He was just 18 years old.
Since then, he’s won Olympic silver and bronze medals at 5,000 meters and five out of six marathons he’s contested since moving to the roads in 2013. His only defeat came on his debut in Berlin, when he finished second to Wilson Kipsang’s then-world record of 2:03:23. On Sunday in London, he’ll again face Kipsang along with current world-record holder Dennis Kimetto (2:02:57).
Published: Apr 19, 2016 6:54 PM EDT.
“My mind is fully on defending the title. The training is faster this year. I’ve had no injuries, nothing bothering me, so I think I’ll do a fast time,” he said.
When he says he’s faster, that’s not just a hunch.
“He has a book with all his training from when he first started,” Trouw said. “Every day is in the book, so when he goes to the marathon, he can look back at the last four months and know he has done everything. It gives him the confidence to go and deliver.”
Kipchoge’s training partner sees his diligence on a daily basis. “He is always the most disciplined,” Kamworor said. “He tells me to be a smart athlete, to follow the advice of my coach and focus on training. He really is a fantastic runner.”
Kipchoge is certainly a rare breed, a Kenyan whose flame has burned as long as it has bright, an all-too-rare occurrence in such an attritional game.
“I’ve always found the secret is to stay fit and treat sport as a profession,” he said. “I chose sport as a passion.”
In four months, he will get the chance to plug the final hole on his glittering résumé and try to win an Olympic gold medal. “I absolutely want one of those,” Kipchoge said. “It’s the only one I lack in my career. It means more than everything.”
When his running days are over, Kipchoge plans to go into business and open a sports store, but right now he’s focused on building a legacy to rival the greats.
“I really want to make a big mark in athletics, to be a legend and be a good example to kids,” he said. “I want to go around the world and educate kids on the importance of activity.”
Given that objective, what he would he say to an up-and-coming athlete who’s had his faith in the sport washed away by doping scandals, who begins to wonder—with good reason—if it’s still possible to reach the top as a clean athlete?
“Absolutely,” Kipchoge said. “I’ll be the first to say it: If you train well, concentrate well, stay healthy, then you can run a world record and win medals without anything bad.”
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Cathal Dennehy is a freelance writer based in Dublin, Ireland, who covers the sport for multiple outlets from Irish newspapers to international track websites. As an athlete, he was Irish junior cross-country champion and twice raced the European Cross Country, but since injury forced his retirement his best athletic feat has been the Irish beer mile record. He’s happiest when he’s running or writing stories about world-class athletes.
