CityReads│How do the Kalenjin Become World’s Great Runners?

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How  do the Kalenjin Become World’s Great Runners?

Why do the world’s fastest woman, Brigid Kosgei, and man, Eliud Kipchoge, both come from Kenya (marathon)? David Epstein tries to answer it from the angle of the sports Gene.

David Epstein, 2013. The Sports Gene:Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance, Current Hardcover.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/01/241895965/how-one-kenyan-tribe-produces-the-worlds-best-runners.

The world’s fastest woman and man are both from Kenya, Brigid Kosgei and Eliud Kipchoge (marathon). Another Kenyan athlete, Wilson Kipsang, won this year’s Berlin Marathon in 2 hours, 3 minutes and 23 seconds — an average of 4:42 per mile. It was easily the fastest marathon time ever recorded. But what perhaps equally remarkable was that his fellow Kenyans also came in second, third, fourth and fifth place in this major international race. On the women’s side, Kenyans placed first, second and fourth.

Brigid Kosgei and Eliud Kipchoge

We may tend to think of Kenyans as really good distance runners, but is this really the case? The further study shows all these runners are actually from the same tribe of Kenyans known as the Kalenjin.

Another set of data: There are 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon. However, There were 32 Kalenjin who did it in October of 2011.

The Kalenjin number around 4.9 million, accounting for 12% of Kenya’s population. But more than three-quarters of the nation’s top runners were born in this tribe. It can be said that the Kalenjin dominate most of the world’s long-distance races. Why do they perform so well in the world?

These findings and data come from David Epstein’s book, The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. Epstein was an athlete, and now he is a senior writer, specializing in sports news and related scientific issues. In The Sports Genes, he tries to answer a long-standing but still controversial question: How do the two factors of “innate biology” and “acquired training” play a role in sports, and what influence do they have respectively? Is there something like gene differences?

Superior runners and the role of genetics

Existing studies have proposed all sorts of explanations over the years for Kalenjin prowess on the track: from their high-starch diet, to the altitude, to socio economics. But the truth is none of them explain why this particular tribe is so dominant. So, with the knowledge of modern genetics, Epstein boldly asks whether there really are “the sports gene”. Or is there something genetically different about the Kalenjin that makes them superior runners?

A team of researchers from the university of Copenhagen’s world-renowned Copenhagen muscle research center initially tended to attribute this to an increase in training and genetic factors are only work as an aid. They hypothesized that the members of the Kalenjin tribe have a particularly high proportion of slow-twitch muscle fibers in their legs; that Kalenjin people are born with higher aerobic capacity(vo2max), which help them respond more quickly to endurance training. The scientists set out to study not only elite runners, but also Kalenjin boys  who lived in cities and those who lived in rural villages, as well as the European boys. Overall, the findings didn’t support the two hypotheses.

But the unintended result is that the Kalenjin do have innate biology that clearly helps Kalenjin: the shape of their bodies, especially their thin ankles and calves. This is particularly important in running because your leg is like a pendulum. The greater the weight at the end of the pendulum, the more energy is required to swing it. Weight that is far out on the limbs is called “distal weight”.For just one tenth of one pound to the ankle oxygen consumption during running by about 1%. Proportionally long legs and thin lower legs contribute separately to good running economy. “Running economy” is the measure of how much oxygen a runner utilizes to run at a given pace.  As an aid to understanding, good runners are more energy efficient. They can run faster at the same proportion of their oxygen-carrying capacity (the same amount of effort). The Kalenjin has both calf and ankle strengths. A 2012 report showed that the Achilles tendons of Kenyan runners were 6.9 cm longer than the average white man of the same height. And compared with the Danish runners, the Kalenjin runners tested by the Danish scientists had nearly a pound less weight in their lower legs. The scientists calculated the energy savings at 8% per kilometer.

It isn’t as though thinlower legs are confined to the Kalenjin. Eritrean runner Zersenay Tadese，the world record holder in the half marathon, also has fairly thinlower legs. But the Kalenjin do, in general, have a particularly linear build,with narrow hips and long, thin limbs, which is the typical “Nilotic” type, abody build common to Nilotic tribes who grow up near the equator. Subsequent studies have also shown that they have a genetic advantage.

The sports gene isn't the only one factor

Genetic advantage is important, but obviously it's not the only factor that determines athletic ability. Nutrition, living environment, cultures and other factors also play a very important role. South Sudanese are also linear build. But they are too long in turmoil to go abroad. The countries that had dominated distance running- Britain, Finland, the United States-were growing increasingly wealthy, increasingly overweight, increasingly interested in other sports, but at the same time, the long-distance running culture is disappearing. In fact, although the Kalenjin are born with favorable conditions, they came to the fore later. In 1980, their distance running record was a dismal feat because of the notion that in Kenya marathon training caused male infertility receded. It wasn't until the 1990s that this notion changed. In addition, domestic policies and the international environment are encouraging talented distance runners to go into the world.

Not only that, the Kalenjin athletes have also made considerable efforts in personal training to develop their natural advantages. John Manners, a retired journalist who for a long time had a specialty in covering the exploits of African runners, lived in Kalenjin for a time when he was 12. He recalled that his Kalenjin friends all had scars on their arms and legs where they’d burned themselves with hot coals. It's a rite of passage they have to undergo as teenagers, which is all about enduring pain and building mental toughness.

At the age of 15, a Kalenjin boy named Elly Kipgogei crawled mostly naked through a tunnel of African stinging nettles. But that was just warm-up; early one morning he was circumcised, with a sharp stick. He could not make a sound or flinch. He could only learn to tolerate and persist. Otherwise, He get labeled a kebitet — acoward — and stigmatized by the whole community.

Manners says that this enormous social pressure placed onyour ability to endure pain is actually great training. The same is a sport like running where "pushing through pain" is so fundamental to success. With the modernization of Kalenjin, they gradually abandoned the custom of circumcision, but they still believed in the power of perseverance and persistence.

This is best summed up by a quote from the book: “in these days of computer games, sedentary pursuits, and driving our children to school – it is the ‘hungry’ fighter or the poor peasant who has the endurance background, and the incentive to work on it, who makes the top distance runner. ”

Finally, the author emphasizes once again that it is far from enough for an excellent athlete to train alone, and that the key to the best performance is to find the right direction for your talents. Don't get obsessed with the 10,000 hours rule, which just overemphasizes the importance of a lot of deliberate training. To become a top athlete, the premise should be that the body has enough potential, and then with training to excavate. But on the other hand, we also need to notice that with the development of genetic technology and industry, there has been a huge amount of talk about “genius genes”. It must be unrealistic to get all the answers from genes. Athletic advantage does not depend on a single gene, but on thousands of genes. For the most part, random patterns are the norm. People with perfect genetic combinations are very few. In this way, try to learn your their own positioning, with the appropriate external environment and hard training, which may be more universal channel.

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