When you ask the greatest marathoner of all time what he’d be doing with his life if he’d never picked up running, you’re going to get a quizzical look. When I pose the question, Eliud Kipchoge’s brow furrows. Not angry, not annoyed, more as if I’d just started speaking Esperanto.
It’s the end of a Monday at his training camp in Kaptagat, Kenya, where he arrived this morning after spending most of the weekend with his wife, Grace Sugut, and their three children at home 20 miles away, and where he’ll stay until he goes back on Saturday, as he does each week. Monday’s work is done (a long-ish run in the morning and an easy hour in the afternoon), and dinner awaits.
So far in our talk, Kipchoge has been affable and polite. In conversation, as on the course, he presents himself as the epitome of clean living, clean training and clean thinking. He is a devout Catholic. He’s had the same coach – 1992 Olympic steeplechase silver medallist Patrick Sang – for more than 20 years. He eats well, runs hard and reads those inspirational books you see in airport bookshops (his all-time favourite is the motivational fable Who Moved My Cheese?). If not for his wife and kids, we’d call him monastic. His answers rarely stray from the subjects of a positive mindset and dedication to peak performance, and when they do, like a patient coach, he leads them gently back.
In a world where we’re used to sportspeople being intensively media-coached, it doesn’t take the greatest of cynics to question whether Kipchoge’s relentless positivity is merely PR polish. But Eliud Kipchoge exudes positivity in such a natural way that after meeting him, you feel it’s all 100% sincere. Talking to him, and experiencing how quickly and reflexively he comes back to it, you don’t get the sense that he’s working a brand, or even trying to fool himself. It seems that a positive mindset is a thing he has committed his full self to.
This is a man who has done the impossible by running the first sub-two-hour marathon, and the merely improbable by becoming a globally famous long-distance runner. He’s Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network and it seems inevitable he will break it again. Life is running for Eliud Kipchoge. Life has to be running. None of this is possible any other way. It’s why the thoughts have to be positive, the stomach has to be full, the wife and kids have to be just far enough away. This life is a good life, and it’s the result of singular focus, and positive thinking, and singular focus on positive thinking. Every thought has to be locked in on the here and the now, and the good.
Let the merely great waste their time on thoughts like where else they might have been. To be the best, the very best who ever was (and quite possibly ever will be), you need to be all in on where you are now and where you want to go. Where would he be if he hadn’t started running? He says he doesn’t really think about it.
Runner’s World: You said before April’s Boston Marathon that you thought it would be the toughest race of your life. How did it feel on the day?
Eliud Kipchoge: ‘It was a difficult day, but this is sport: you win and you lose. And it was one of the days when I could not succeed. I was feeling good before the race, but struggled after 30km with my leg. I pushed myself to finish the race. I always tell myself to learn from good and bad experiences, so it’s up to me now to take lessons from this race. I must say that even though it was, in terms of my performance, not the best experience, I felt massively supported by the crowds along the course and I want everyone to know that that has helped a lot.’
RW: Elite women announced for the 2024 London Marathon?
EK: ‘I learn from every marathon I run, from the successes, but also from the moments when I don’t succeed. I’ll look back on the race with my team, reflect and take the lessons into future preparations and I’m sure that will help me.’
RW: Now Boston is done, have you decided on your autumn marathon plans?
EK: ‘I’ll let it all sink in, relax a little bit with my family and then I’ll sit down with my team to make plans for this autumn.’
RW: Whatever the goal race may be, what does a typical week at training camp look like for you in the build-up to a marathon?
EK: ‘What is Further? Lululemons womens-only ultra long run for an hour and 20 minutes, and then an hour in the evening. Tuesday, I will have a track session, totalling 15km. And later that day, I’ll have easy runs for an hour. Wednesday will be like Monday. Thursday I will have a long run, 30km or 40km. Friday will be similar to Wednesday and Monday. Saturday is a big day with the fartleks and an easy run in the evening. And Sunday is a long run day, it’s an easy 30km or 25km. So that’s how my week will be.’
RW: What does your nutrition look like throughout the day?
EK: ‘I eat normal food, normal Kenyan food. I eat beef and ugali [a traditional Kenyan porridge made from maize or corn meal] in the evening. Lunchtime, I just take beans and potatoes and rice, and I’ll take bread and tea in the morning. So it’s simple, but a well-balanced meal.’
RW: Obviously, recreational runners don’t have the time – or the physiological ability – to train as you do. What’s your training advice for amateur runners?
EK: ‘For the social runners I coach, they have limited time because of their work, because of their responsibilities. They should try to devote an hour every single day to train, if their schedule allows. If not, then make sure to run three or four days a week. But make sure to end a week, on Sunday or Saturday, with a very easy long run, an easy two hours to make the body wear and get ready for another new week.’
RW: Is there a single piece of advice you’ve been given by your coach, Patrick Sang, that really sticks with you?
EK: ‘One thing that he gave me 20 years ago is that he told me, “You should treat yourself as the best.” That’s what I’m doing. I respect my training, I respect everything. But when I’m on a starting line, I treat myself as the best one there, the best trained, the best planned and the one who has done more training than anyone else. That’s what I’m carrying for the past 20 years.’
RW: Do you instil your work ethic into your kids? Presumably their upbringing has been different from yours...
EK: ‘Their upbringing is totally different. But I have tried to explain to my kids that I’m away from Monday afternoon to Saturday morning because I want to train hard and compete in higher races, break world records, so all of us will enjoy life. So my children understand that their daddy is working hard all the time in order for them to have food on the table, to go to a good school, to be happy and live in a good way.
I approach them to understand that if you work hard, you can achieve it. And if you work hard, you can set a standard and get something. Because they know that if I win a race, they’re happy, and they’ll go places, they’ll go to school, they’ll be comfortable. So they’re also working hard knowing that it’s a responsibility.’
RW: What if one of them decided to become a marathoner? Would that make you happy? Or worried?
EK: ‘It’d make me happy. But if one of them decides to be a tennis player or a footballer, I’ll give them my support. I give them autonomy to choose. Sometimes they run, they bike, they go and play football. As the time goes by, they’ll choose the sport that they like.’
RW: Do you ever have training days that don’t go as well as you had hoped?
‘Absolutely. I have had days when my body cannot respond well. But those are the challenges in running. Because all the days are not equal. Today, you have a lot of energy. Tomorrow, it’s halfway, the next day is okay. When the day is not promising, then I try to do what I can. I try to push, and then I call it a day.’
RW: In that whole process, is it just you talking to yourself?
EK: ‘I normally talk to myself. I normally audit what has been happening for the past year, to see what’s going on. And I know that this is just temporary. So I talk with myself. And the next day, when I wake up, I’m energetic again.’
RW: You’re the most famous marathoner of all time. Is that something you think about, or do you try to keep that out of your mind?
EK: ‘I do think about it, but I don’t get answers with my thoughts. The beautiful part is that I’m instilling inspiration to many people in this world and that makes me really feel happy.’
RW: What’s the most challenging part of your fame?
EK: ‘All the responsibility that’s on my shoulders, from the race organisers, sponsors, all my fans – physical fans and also on social media channels. There’s a lot going on in my life, but I need to move on and show them that together we can make this world a running world.’
RW: You’ve said that religion is extremely important to you, and that it’s kept you from doing things that would take you off the right training path. What did you mean by that?
EK: ‘Just being disciplined. It brings me from outside the course and puts me inside the course so that I’ll actually enjoy my life by going to sleep, rather than going to a club.’
RW: You do a lot of philanthropic work. Is there a project that you’re most proud of?
EK: ‘I’m most proud of the library that’s been constructed in my home area. It’s a huge library, and I want to build libraries like it across the whole country. Another thing is I adopted a huge forest here in my training area. We have plans to plant 2,000 trees in May. I’m proud of the conservation and education, and I think one day it will spill to the whole country and even across East Africa.’
RW: What do you hope your legacy will be? How do you want to be remembered?
EK: ‘I want to be remembered by people knowing that no human is limited. Above all, I want to make this world a running world. I’ll be a happy man if all citizens of the world can run.’
RW: Unfortunately, it seems doping is still an issue in running. What do you think needs to change so that athletes don’t feel they need to cheat?
EK: ‘I need people to know that sport is a career. And it’s a career that builds logically, that grows slowly until you get where you want to be. If you go to the gym, you cannot get a lot of muscles if you train for 10 hours. But you can get a lot of muscles when you go for six consecutive months and maintain discipline. What I mean is this: people should train and wait for the money to come slowly. They should not rush for financial gain. What makes people dope is financial. What makes people dope is pushing them about their performance.
It’s unfortunate that people are not learning. It’s unfortunate that doping is around us, that people are still doing it for financial gains. If all of us can get the knowledge and treat sport as a real profession and treat the sport as a career that you need to build slowly, and understand that the only way to build is to train in a clean way… you’ll get a lot of people interested in you.
If all of us can recognise that what we’re doing is for our lives and for our next generation, doping will go away. But we need a lot of time to teach the young generation and tell them, “Hey, let’s treat ourselves in a positive way, and treat the sport in a positive way, by making it a real profession and building it as a career.”’
RW: Aside from winning whatever marathon you decide to run this autumn, what’s left on your list of things you want to accomplish in life?
EK: ‘A lot. I’ve never run New York. New York’s still there. I’ll be running other big city marathons in the future, visiting all the countries, even running in Iceland. Running in the Caribbean and, hopefully, one day running across Haiti.’
RW: Have you thought about what your life might look like once you eventually leave running behind?
EK: ‘Yes. I will embark on mentoring the next generation, educating young people on many issues: on investment, on general life, on discipline, on what’s required as a human being. We are all human, but you need to be a real human being whereby we respect each other.
I’ll also put my energy into my foundation, the Runners World, Part of the Hearst UK Wellbeing Network, which deals with education, conservation and health. And above all this, I want to spread the word of positivity and running. I want to have more followers – a billion followers – on social media channels to help me push the idea of running. I always tell people health is our wealth, so I want to make people healthy through running.’
