Mizuno to Sponsor the Honolulu Marathon

Below is a press release from the race organizers of the Honolulu marathon that is expected to take place on the 13th of December this year.

The Honolulu Marathon is excited to welcome Mizuno as its new apparel sponsor.

Mizuno has been confirmed as a supporting sponsor of the Honolulu Marathon. At this year’s event, scheduled for December 13, 2020, the Japanese run apparel specialist will provide all finisher, commemorative and volunteer shirts and sell official merchandise at the Honolulu Marathon Expo.

The Honolulu Marathon was first held in 1973 and is the fourth largest marathon in the United States. It is very popular in Japan; and to date about 470,000 Japanese runners have raced at the Honolulu Marathon.

The December 2020 race weekend includes three distances: the full 26.2-mile marathon, the Start to Park 10k, and the Kalakaua Merrie Mile.

“We are particularly proud to welcome such a premier athletic company at this difficult time,” said Jim Barahal, CEO & President of the Honolulu Marathon Association. “This demonstrates Mizuno’s long-term commitment to the people of Hawaii and Japan.

Common methods used to prevent and treat injury among Kenyan runners

Injuries happen in many ways. Most of the time, it starts out as something that one may feel like a slight discomfort that would simply go away on its own. Sometimes, it happens abruptly in the middle of their run and forces them to stop and find other means to reach your house.

Looking back at the time that I was a small kid in primary school, I think I now finally figured out why I would run to school daily for over eight years and cannot remember any day I ever got injured because of these runs.

There was a river I would cross every morning on my way to school. It didn’t have a bridge and I would wade through the icy cold water briefly stopping in the middle to bath my legs and face before proceeding to school.

Anyway, below are some of the common ways in which Kenyan runners use to prevent and treat their injuries.

Heat Therapy

Applying some heat to an injured part of the body enables more blood circulation in that area soothes the pain and speeds up the healing process.

The most common form of heat treatment among Kenyan runners is mostly the moist heat application where some leaves of special plants, and even cabbages, are heated over an open fire and applied gently on the injured part of the leg. Besides retaining the right amount of heat during the treatment, most of the leaves used by the Kenyan runners often have some additional healing properties in them as well.

Can virtual runs be used fairly to win titles and prize money in races?

On the 1st of this month, Canadian runners held the Canadian 10K national championships, virtually. By the end of that day, we had two newly crowned Canadian national champions for the 10K, Justin Kent who ran a personal best time of 28:52 and Natasha Wodak who won the omen's title in 31:42. And, they did also walk away with some prize money. 

Some of the conditions that the race organizer had put in place to ensure a fair race included racers running on an out and back route, obviously to ensure no one takes advantage of a downhill course; a race companion to take a video of the runner on the route and a GPX file to be uploaded to get the official results.

My new ebook on mental, weight and pacing strategies among Kenyan runners

Irene Cheptai, world cross country champion leading
 the rest in a local race in Kenya

Kenya is known the world over for the great long-distance runners that come out of it. The factors that make this country so lies in its great climatic conditions throughout the year, the places to train on high altitudes, the availability of many groups of athletes to train with, and the culture and history of running in the country.

I am lucky to have been born in Kenya and to have joined some of the biggest training camps here in my early life. This gives me enough experience to give out some insights on how Kenyan runners deal with a number of areas in their training.
Here, in my new Ebook, I am going to deal with their mental preparations, how they deal with their weight in different stages of their training, and their pacing strategies both in training and in racing.

Available ebook formats: epub, mobi, pdf, lrf, pdb, txt and html.

NOTE: You can enroll yourself in our Kenyan Online Coaching Services by sending us a message through this email

Why the right pacing in training and in racing is important

A runner on her morning run in Eldoret, Kenya.
 Photo by Justin Lagat

Whether one is pacing themselves or is being paced by other runners, choosing the right pace to use is the key to getting the best results out of any workout or race for any runner. Starting out a run too fast often leads to overall poor performance in the end, or even having to stop mid-way in a run. 

Just like in all the other elements of training, if not applied well, it becomes useless and might even be counterproductive.

In training, we have jogging, easy, moderate, and hard runs. Every run has a reason. Harder runs help build the aerobic capacity while the easier runs help in recovery while at the same time assisting in building endurance and muscle strength. Moderate and tempo runs help the body get used to the racing conditions.

A pacesetter is there to ensure that the runner maintains the right pace that will help them meet their goals both in a race and in training. They are not there to push the runner to run more than their ability as this will often result in a bad race. At times, some pacesetters end up competing with the runners they are supposed to help!

It is very common for elite Kenyan women runners to have male pacesetters accompanying and pacing them in their training and also during their races. In fact, some male runners are earning their living as professional women pace setters here in Kenya with some of the biggest camps here paying a stable monthly salary for their services.

Mental preparation for race day among Kenyan runners

Wilson Kiprop, the 2010 world half-marathon champion,
versus Bedan Karoki at a local race in Kenya

An athlete may have done enough training to run well in a race, but without the right mentality going into the race, all the training might become useless.

They say that experience is the best teacher, and if there is one place that this applies more, it should definitely be with the mental preparation among Kenyan runners getting ready to run their dream races. Some learn about the best ways to deal mentally with their races through experience while others are taught by a coach or by fellow runners.

One of the runners that have impacted me more on how to be tough and courageous in a race is Wilson Kiprop, the 2010 world half marathon champion. He told me how determined he was to finish in a podium place at a local race before no one ever knew about him. He had never finished in the top ten positions at any big race before. But here, the race meant everything to him. He had no more food where he stayed away from home, no money, and no one to ask for help. He was in Nairobi and he wanted to win some money at the cross country race to enable him to travel back to Eldoret. The race was paying the top three finishers only.

How Kenyan runners deal with weight at various stages of their training

A Kenyan runner doing an easy morning run. Photo by Justin Lagat

In their initial days of race preparations, one would find Kenyan runners wearing semi-waterproof tracksuits that make them sweat profusely during their runs. In addition, they would do these runs in the mid-morning to noon sun in order to maximize the effects of the heat.

These easy runs in the hot sun soon get them into their ideal training weight in about one month.

Kenyan runners believe that it is good for one to find out their ideal racing weight in order for them to tell if they will need to gain more or lose during their training. And the best way to get to one’s desired weight fast is not in the likes of lemon concoctions, but by training and sweating in the heat. It is also important to feel healthy and fit, so one should not quickly train more to lose more weight regardless of other factors.