I've run 1,000 miles in Baja, and that's pretty much nonstop.
I found I could also be good in cross country. I don't think my running style has anything to do with it. If you have speed and your body feels good, you can do any distance.
I'm a runner. I like to run.
My first competition outside Kenya was at the 2002 world cross country championships in Dublin, Ireland. I finished fifth in the junior race that day but the thing I remember the most was that it was very cold.
Beyond racing, I just love the art form of running, of conceiving new ideas like the 50 Marathons in 50 States in 50 Days. It's the ultimate expression of what I love to do, which is run, and travel, and see this great country.
Older boys were allowed to beat younger ones at my 15th-century English boarding school, and every boy had to run a five-mile annual steeplechase through the sludge and rain of an October day, as horses do. We wrote poems in dead languages and recited the Lord's Prayer in Latin every Sunday night.
Nowadays, to be a good world-ranked decathlete, you need to be good at everything.
I love running cross-country...You come up a hill and see two deer going, 'What the hell is he doing?' On a track I feel like a hamster.
I believe you'll develop speed via strength work which includes hill running, either repeats, or running hilly courses as the Kenyans do on a steady basis.
Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog.
You probably choose x-country because you were too small to play football.
I actually think the last time I stood with a race medal around my neck was after an eighth grade cross-country meet. I was gawky and 65 pounds soaking wet, and running 10 miles a day was no big deal.
