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Is This Running Sensation the Next Eliud Kipchoge?��

ntriolo — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 23:14:30 +0000

Comparing athletes from different eras will always provoke debate, but few would argue that Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner of all time.

Since he marked his debut in Hamburg ten years ago, Kipchoge has twice been crowned Olympic champion, twice beaten the world record—lowering it to its current 2:01:09—and won 17 of 19 marathon competitions. Let’s not forget he also ran a 1:59:41 for the marathon distance (albeit on a non-ratified, pancake flat course in a Vienna park with a rotating cast of 41 wind-breaking pacemakers).

One of his losses came at this year’s Boston marathon, leading some to wonder if retirement is imminent following the Paris Olympics. After all, he will be 39 years old. But then, defying his critics, he won the Berlin Marathon for a record fifth time September 24 (in 2:02:42) improving the odds he will capture that third consecutive Olympic title in the French capital. The logical question though is who can fill his shoes once his competitive juices are satiated?

On December 3, we might well get an answer as Joshua Cheptegei treads uncharted territory with his marathon debut at Spain’s Valencia Marathon.

(Photo: NN Running)

In the Business of Breaking Records

Like Kipchoge, the Ugandan star is of the famed Kalenjjn tribe and made his name first on the track. While the Kenyan won just one major title wearing spikes, the 2003 World Championship 5,000m, Cheptegei easily collected his third consecutive world championship 10,000m gold medal August 20th in Budapest. Two years earlier he grabbed Olympic silver at the same distance. The Olympic 5,000m and the 2019 World Cross Country gold medals also hang on his wall at home in Kapchorwa in Eastern Uganda.

But Cheptegei also found time to break both the world 5,000m (12:35.36) and 10,000m (26:11.00) records in 2020, something Kipchoge never accomplished. The latter standard was set in Valencia a year after he first visited the city and broke the world record for 10K on the roads (26:38). Valencia has been good to him.

“For me the plan is to fully focus on the marathon after the 2024 Olympics,” says the 27-year-old. “I want to focus on Valencia and see what I can do there for my first marathon and then come back, recover, and have a great track season. The target I am aiming at is winning the Paris Olympics 10,000m. I got the silver in Tokyo so I need to upgrade and win a gold because the 10K is a very special distance for me and actually it is my favorite distance.”

Another candidate who could be next in line after Kipchoge is 23-year-old Kenyan wunderkind Kelvin Kiptum, who, unlike Cheptegei, doesn’t have an extensive background on the track. Kiptum, who is running the Chicago Marathon on October 8, emerged on the scene when he ran a pair of sub-60-minute half marathons as a 19-year-old in 2019. Then last December, he won the Valencia Marathon in his debut at the distance in 2:01:53, and then followed it up by winning the London Marathon in April in 2:01:25—the second-fastest time behind Kipchoge’s world record.

“I Am Really Living a Dream Now”

Cheptegei grew up in the Kapchorwa district as one of nine children. Education was a priority in his family despite the surrounding poverty. Both his parents are teachers and encouraged him to study. He would eventually spend a year studying English literature at Bugema Adventist University.

Like most of the boys at his primary school, he played soccer. But he was captivated by the exploits of Kenenisa Bekele, the Ethiopian superstar who won successive Olympic 10,000m golds in Athens and Beijing. It was Bekele’s world 5000m/10000m records which Cheptegei went on to beat. Ironically, Bekele who is the third-fastest marathoner of all time (2:01:41), will also line up in Valencia this year.

(Photo: NN Running)

“I was in primary school when Kenenisa was winning the 2004 Olympics. Also I was just beginning high school when Kenenisa was winning the Olympic Games in 2008,” Cheptegei recalls with affection. “At that time I was very passionate about the sport and I said to myself ‘I want to be like him when I grow up.’ I am really living a dream now.”

Later, the victory of his countryman, Stephen Kiprotich in the 2012 Olympic marathon, added fuel to his desire to become one of the world’s best runners. They are from the same area in Kapchorwa district. In the absence of domestic facilities Kiprotich had also trained in Kaptagat. “Stephen’s performance is still very fresh in my mind. It was a great time in my country when he won,” Cheptegei says. “But everyone thought he was a Kenyan. That gold medal was more special because people were not expecting it, and it came on the last day of the Olympic Games. Now the dream was getting closer because one of our countrymen had done it at the Olympic level. The dream was becoming more alive.”

New Territory

The dream of marathon success, like Kiprotich and Bekele, has fueled his willingness to sacrifice further. Among his training group are several experienced marathoners including Stephen Kissa, the Ugandan national record holder (2:04:48) and Victor Kiplangat, winner of the 2023 World Championships. They will undoubtedly provide valuable insight as he transitions into marathoning.

“It’s going to be new territory. I want to discover and enjoy it,” Cheptegei says. “I want to see the pain they always speak about and I want to learn the marathon and be able to become the best marathoner in the future.”

Kapchorwa is at 8,200 feet, and the camp where he trains sits on a six-acre property Cheptegei purchased with his earnings from running. It’s a joint initiative with Global Sports Communications, the management company which represents him and also Kipchoge and Bekele, and was also designed by his wife Carol, a civil engineer. When her father died she took over the family engineering firm ‘Afro Construction 2000 Ltd.’

There is a dormitory sleeping two to three athletes to a room, a kitchen, a fully equipped gym, as well as a 400-meter dirt track. The rainy season can cause havoc as it did in June when the curve was washed out and Cheptegei turned his left foot while training on it. The lingering effects demanded caution and, once he had secured his third world 10,000m title, he scratched from the 5,000m and went home.

Training for the Top

Each Monday afternoon he bids Carol and their three children Jethan 6, Jemima 4, and Janaya, 1, goodbye and leaves the two-story home which she also designed, bound for camp five miles (eight kilometers) away. There he will remain until Saturday afternoon.

“Sometimes it’s hard because I want to be with them but then, at the same time, you have to balance things whereby the family is ok and the dreams and your career are ok,” he explains. “We try to strike a balance where we normally support each other in terms of what we want to achieve as a family. They always ask ‘Why are you going?’ and ‘Why are you not sleeping at home?’ Sometimes you explain to them. They also see on TV what I do. I sent them a video of what I was doing at the championships in Budapest. Then they have an idea of what really goes on.”

The group will run upwards of 80 miles (130 kilometers) each week in the hills around Mount Elgon. Typically, before each hard session, Victor Kiplangat will lead the group in prayer. He is also an assistant pastor at a nearby church. Faster tempo sessions are completed twice every three weeks at a lower elevation where the roads are flat. Until now his longest run has been 22 miles, but in preparation for the Valencia Marathon, he expects to run the full marathon distance in training.

The setup is similar to that in which Kipchoge trains in Kaptagat, Kenya. Years ago, after Cheptegei announced himself by winning the 2014 world under 20 championships 10,000m in Eugene, Oregon, he took his managers’ suggestion to move to Kaptagat, to experience training with Kipchoge.

“It was an incredible opportunity but at that time we didn’t have proper facilities or mentors in Uganda,” Cheptegei says. “There was not a big organized group for training. I had to go to Kenya. I stayed there for three months and then said to my managers, ‘This is not working for me. I need to go back home.’ And also I wanted to be able to inspire the young children that you can achieve success where you are and try to do the dream in a home environment.”

“He Can Run a Sub-Two-Hour Marathon”

Cheptegei is under no false illusions that moving up to the marathon will be easy. One encouraging factor is that he also ran a superb 59:21 while finishing 4th in the 2020 World Half Marathon Championships, without specific training. (That’s four seconds faster than Kipchoge’s personal best.)

“Joshua will be the next Eliud Kipchoge,” says Jos Hermens, of Global Sports Communications. “He can run a sub-two-hour marathon.”

Canadian distance runner Moh Ahmed of the Bowerman Track Club, who finished second to Cheptegei in the Tokyo Olympics 5,000m, agrees. “He has the opportunity to have a great marathon career,” Ahmed opines. “He’s quicker at 5K and 10K than Kipchoge. He has won more on the track than Kipchoge as well. Why shouldn’t he spark that sort of comparison or expectations?”

Cheptegei’s coach, Addy Ruiter, has a more cautious approach. He sees the move to the marathon as a motivator. “I will not say directly Joshua will break world records because, with the marathon, first you have to do it before you know the talent is also there for the marathon,” he says. “But I know Joshua is an exceptional talent. “After 2020, his motivation was a little less than in the years before. So I offered the [marathon] plan in March. He’s getting older and injuries are coming more. Running 10,000m on the track is very hard on the body.”

Cheptegei competes in the men’s 10,000m final at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile/Getty)

A National Hero

Kipchoge’s shoes will be hard to fill but Cheptegei was inspired by his time spent with him in Kenya. They have had a few encounters since. Kipchoge even sent a congratulatory note to the young Ugandan after watching his Budapest victory. Cheptegei is acutely aware that expectations placed upon him are enormous.

“I believe with time everything will fall in place,” he says. “We have learned from Eliud. My dream is to become the best of the best and also achieve success in the marathon. For me, whether it’s a world record or a personal best or a national record, that would be an honor.”

Cheptegei’s achievements have made him a national hero and many plaudits have been bestowed upon him. He has been promoted to Assistant Superintendent of the Uganda Police Force, although he retains total freedom to continue his athletics career. Come December, there will be much attention focused on his marathon debut and how it compares to those who came before him like Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele and Kipchoge.

“All these guys are living legends,” he says. “Their stories inspire all of us. I want my name to be among the greatest athletes who have ever lived. I may not be Eliud Kipchoge, but I will always be Joshua Cheptegei.”

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Olympian Faith Kipyegon Just Broke Three World Records. She’s Not Slowing Down.

ntriolo — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 13:11:21 +0000

Record breaking is vital to track and field’s success as a sport; it’s what excites the public. But every so often an athlete goes beyond running, jumping, or throwing further than anyone else and enters uncharted territory, leading the next generation to even greater possibilities.

Thirty-seven years ago, Soviet runner Tatyana Kazankina became the first woman to dip under four minutes for the 1,500-meter distance. Since then, 130 women have “beaten four,” including Kenyan superstar and Nike athlete Faith Kipyegon, who has a sublime tally of 26 such clockings, the most of any woman ever.

On June 2, the 29-year-old broke through the next 1,500-meter barrier—3 minutes 50 seconds—in Florence, Italy, ushering in what must surely be a new era in women’s middle-distance running. At the finish, she pointed with disbelief at the stadium clock which read “3:49.11. World Record.” She shaved 96 one-hundredths off Genzebe Dibaba’s record (3:50.07).

Her dominance was such that she finished eight seconds ahead of Britain’s Laura Muir, the Tokyo Olympic silver medalist. Moreover, she covered her final lap in a blistering 58.9 seconds, which is simply unfathomable. But this history-making effort was just the beginning of a record-breaking spree on which Kipyegon embarked over the past several weeks.

(Photo: Courtesy Global Sports Communication)

She toppled the world 5,000-meter record seven days later and then, most recently, took five seconds off the women’s world mile record with a time of 4:07.64 in the Monaco Diamond League meet, on July 21. The mile is not an Olympic distance and is run infrequently on the international circuit. After her stunning 1,500-meter time, it was therefore not entirely unsurprising.

“I knew everything was possible. I was not going into it for the world 1,500-meter record, but it was still in my mind that I would do my best,” she says during a Zoom chat from the Global Sports Communication camp in Kaptagat, Kenya. This is where, for most of the year, she spends five days a week eating, sleeping, and training.

“I think I have shown the [next generation] the way that everything is possible and they can still break 3:49. It is achievable especially for me also. I can still achieve more than 3:49. I think I have shown them this is the barrier, but you can still go under this barrier.”

Kipyegon has won both the Olympic and World Athletics Championships 1,500-meter titles twice. Despite her success, she is often described as humble, and her popularity on the circuit was evident in Florence. At the finish line, every one of her competitors was there waiting to congratulate her as she completed a lap of honor.

“This is sport,” Kipyegon says with a smile. “We have to accept the outcome of each day and each competition. For me, it was really emotional, for all the athletes coming together and we celebrated the world record together.”

“One of the Best Moments I Have Witnessed on the Track.”

Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, who won the Olympic 1,500-meter gold twice—and who also set a world record for the distance—was among those who witnessed this performance.

“It’s beyond significant. Significant doesn’t do it justice,” he says. “Any time you break a world record it’s a big moment in the history of our sport, but breaking the 3:50 barrier is particularly big. The bare statistic really doesn’t tell the whole story. I have rarely seen anyone do a last lap like that. It’s a mountainous achievement. That was one of the best moments I have witnessed on the track.”

Seven days after the 1,500-meter record, Kipyegon shocked everyone again with a world 5,000-meter record (14:05.20) in Paris. Remarkably, it was her first 5,000-meter race in eight years.

Among those vanquished inside Paris’ Stade Charlety stadium was Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey, who had set the previous mark of 14:06.62 two years ago. The two are friends, and both are managed by Global Sports Communication, the Netherlands-based company. During the first three months of 2022, they even trained together in Kaptagat when Gidey sought respite from the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray province.

In truth, it was Gidey’s performance over this distance which had been the most anticipated, since Kipyegon couldn’t be expected to follow up her Florence result with another record-blazing effort.

“I was not expecting the world 5,000-meter record,” Kipyegon admits. “I was going there to enjoy twelve and a half laps, enjoy the event after eight years; to see what is possible in the 5,000 meter, and introduce my legs to the 5,000 meter. I was surprised to run a world record.”

Beating the mile record in Monaco emphasized her dominance of the middle distances and at a critical point in the season when championship medals became the focus.

Kipyegon celebrates after her world record in the one-mile, on July 21, 2023, in Monaco. (Photo: Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images)

Sights Set on Worlds

Next up are the world championships August 19-27 in Budapest, Hungary, where she hopes to become the first woman to win three world 1,500-meter gold medals. And since she also won the Kenyan 5,000-meter trials, on July 7, she will aim for the 5,000-meter also. Her coach Patrick Sang’s task has been to find a way to limit outside distractions.

Indeed, following the Paris competition, she returned home to Kenya briefly, to spend time with her husband Timothy Kitum (the 2012 Olympic 800-meter bronze medalist) and their five-year-old daughter, Alyn, in the village of Kipkorgot. It was a rushed homecoming as she was whisked away to Nairobi at the behest of�� Kenyan President William Ruto.

At a reception, Ruto praised her as “a role model for consistency, discipline, hard work, and family values,” and then awarded her a three-bedroom house in Nairobi, as well as $35,000. Other dignitaries hosted receptions for her, too.

Despite Ruto’s generosity, Kipyegon has no plans to leave her home in Kipkorgot. For one thing, it is conveniently located just 15 minutes from the GSC training camp. And, although the power is unreliable during the rainy season, she is comfortable there. “I will still stay where I am and will stay humble and focused,” she says. “I still have a bright future ahead of me until the marathon, so I will still have to be focused and be myself. That’s the most important thing.”

Growing up in the small village of Keringat as one of nine children she was introduced to running by local school teachers. The success of Vivian Cheriuyot who took Olympic 5,000-meter silver and 10,000-meter bronze at the 2012 London Olympics before striking gold in the 2016 Olympic 5,000-meter in Rio de Janeiro, caught her attention.

“When I was a very young girl I used to see Vivian running, I used to say, ‘when I grow up I would like to run like Vivian,’” she remembers. “She was young like me. She has a very small body, like me, and she was very, very strong. I met her in 2012. I was still a junior and she talked to me, motivated me, and here I am. Now I can motivate the young ones as well.”

There have been several mentors since who have helped propel Kipyegon into another stratosphere. Besides Patrick Sang, it is Eliud Kipchoge, the legendary marathoner, whose humility had a great effect on her.

Upon returning to Kaptagat, her companions celebrated her latest triumph, though it was an abbreviated occasion. The need to get back into world championship preparations was foremost on Patrick Sang’s mind. Still, Kipyegon enjoyed the moment. “It was emotional going back to the camp,” she remembers. “I can say it’s my second home. Here you stay with your team from Tuesday to Saturday.

“I returned with two world records. It was amazing and at the same time emotional because they had a cake with a “world record 1500 meter and world record 5000 meter” written on it, so we celebrated and had fun together.”

The following morning, the team was up at sunrise to begin their training sessions. When asked if the group took it easy on her on those first few runs, Kipyegon shakes her head and laughs loudly.

“No, I struggled a little bit but it was OK,” she concedes. “When my coach is there I just concentrate on the coach, and I don’t concentrate on my mind because if I concentrate on my mind I would just collapse.”

Sang is probably best known for his success at guiding Kipchoge to two Olympic marathon titles and the world marathon record. But he understands middle-distance running, too. At the 1992 Olympics, he claimed the silver medal in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. He somehow blends the training programs of both middle-distance and marathon groups in camp.

“Yes, absolutely we do all the training together,” Kipyegon explains. “We do the long runs together, the easy runs together, especially when we are starting the season. But when track season comes, we become separated. Track athletes train by themselves and marathoners by themselves.

“I can say I train with [the marathoners] most of the time because they give me energy to still push myself—especially seeing Eliud on easy runs and long runs—it gives me motivation to know that everything is still possible. I can still follow the footsteps of Eliud and run the marathon in the future.”

Running for Something Bigger

(Photo: Courtesy Global Sports Communication)

Although things are changing, and women are being appointed to important positions in Kenyan society, there is still troubling data. Young Kenyan women and adolescent girls, in particular, continue to be vulnerable to poverty and gender-based violence. According to statistics provided by USAID, 34 percent of women aged 15-49 have experienced physical violence. Kipyegon might be uniquely placed to make a difference in emboldening women.

“Absolutely, that is in my plan to visit schools and visit young girls,” she says. “It is not easy when the season is still on and you are focused on bigger fish like the world championships, and everybody wants you to go here and go there, and your focus is still training. After the season, I will do some visits to camps. What is in my heart is to talk with the young girls and young women to believe in themselves.”

Faith Kipyegon has earned a place among the greatest middle-distance runners of all-time with her championship record and three world records.

Coe is clear where her place is in history. “If she wins the world championships in Budapest this year and the Olympics in Paris next year, that is given to very few. It will make her almost unassailable,” Coe declares. “It would take brave arguing to say she wasn’t the best of all-time—she’s pretty close now. A double is rare, but three in middle-distance running would be unique.”

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Why Cam Levins Is North America’s Most Promising Marathoner��

ntriolo — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 16:49:14 +0000

When Cam Levins passed under the Tokyo Marathon finish line clock on March 5, the clock read 2:05:36.

Not only had he lowered his personal best by a minute and a half, but the time was a new Canadian record and, as he would discover in the post-race doping control room, the fastest time ever run by a North American—two seconds under Khalid Khannouchi’s 21-year-old mark and faster than Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, or Ryan Hall on a record-eligible course.

Moreover, battling with the leaders into the last mile and winding up fifth in Tokyo’s World Marathon Major field also validated—for the second time in eight months—that he could legitimately call himself a world-class marathoner, something he had been working toward for the better part of a decade.

The first validation that Levins had turned a corner in his career came last July when he finished fourth in the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, with a then-Canadian record of 2:07:09. That performance was a real surprise to anyone who had witnessed his dreadful 71st place finish at the 2021 Olympics.

“Tokyo was an improvement over Eugene,” Levins said. “I was very close to the win, and I think that was probably my biggest takeaway. Being competitive until the very end in a very high profile marathon is a big step forward again.”

Levin’s road to these results wound through surgeries on two stress fractures and a heel spur, coaching changes, being dropped by his sponsor before the 2021 world championships, and a generous dose of self-doubt. Now he eyes the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Fast-Tracked to Oregon

Levins grew up in Black Creek, British Columbia, a small town on Vancouver Island. He mostly ran by himself, always heeding his mother’s warnings to avoid the forest trails when cougar and bear sightings were posted. A couple of third-place finishes in the B.C. high school championship cross country attracted a scholarship offer from Southern Utah University (SUU).

Under coach Eric Houle’s tutelage, he piled on the mileage, sometimes running three times a day and regularly exceeding 160 miles a week. The altitude of Cedar City, Utah, also agreed with him, and he went on to complete his collegiate career, winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the 2012 NCAA championships. That achievement earned him the acclaimed Bowerman Award as the NCAA’s top male track athlete of the year.

In the spring of 2013, Levins received an invitation to join the prestigious Nike Oregon Project (NOP) in Portland, under coach Alberto Salazar. Nike supported this select group with money and science; it was a dream come true. But Levins knew he would miss the close relationship he’d had with coach Houle at SUU, who advised him on both running and personal matters.

“They come in as young people; they leave almost as partners,” Houle says of student runners at SUU like Levins. “It is sometimes tough to let go but, that being said, when you have that kind of relationship you can really talk about anything.”

Training with Britain’s Mo Farah, already a double Olympic champion (5,000m/10,000m), and Galen Rupp (2012 Olympic 10,000m silver medalist) appealed to Levins, but it was his wife’s career that ultimately proved the catalyst for his move to Portland, when she got accepted into pharmacy school at Pacific University. “Honestly, if she hadn’t managed to get into pharmacy school, it probably wouldn’t have worked out with the NOP,” Levins says.

Once on the team in Oregon, Salazar reduced Levins’s training volume and increased the intensity. Improvements came quickly, with personal bests at 1,500m (3:36:88), 5,000m (13:15:19), and 10,000m (27:07:15).

But all was not rosy. Whereas Houle invited input when planning training sessions, Salazar was more dictatorial, and Levins found some of his methods extraordinary. Occasionally, the NOP athletes would follow a race with an intense workout. Sometimes they’d wear “sauna suits”�� for easy runs to mimic humidity. And at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, Levins showed up with his head completely shaved because Salazar told him it would help him deal with humidity better. It didn’t. He finished 14th in the 10,000m.

Two years later, he ran a Canadian 10,000m record (27:07:15), while finishing behind his NOP teammates Farah and Rupp at the 2015 Prefontaine Classic. That ranked him fourth fastest in the world ahead of the world championships, but he failed to deliver in Beijing, finishing 14th in the 10,000m once again. Doubts surfaced—about himself, and his place in the program.

“There’s a lot of experience to gain by training with guys like Galen and Mo. Obviously, they were a couple of the best athletes in the world at that time,” Levins says. “I had some success here and there. But at this point it’s not something I look back as a super positive point in my career. Obviously there was some improvement, but I was not particularly happy at that time. I was not much of a priority to the coaches there.”

His time with the NOP ended with surgery and, he says, “Some neglect leading to that point.” If he draws satisfaction that his marathon personal best is now faster than Galen Rupp’s, and just 22 seconds slower than Farah’s British record, he won’t show it. “I think it’s a good contrast to what I have now,” Levins says. “I am in a much more positive situation. For me it is all water under the bridge at this point.”

In 2017, after four years with NOP, Levins sought Eric Houle’s guidance again. A year later, Levins beat the 43-year–old Canadian record in his marathon debut, running 2:09:25 at the 2018 Toronto Waterfront Marathon, and Houle was at the finish line alongside Lizzy and Levins’s parents. The prize money included a $32,500 Canadian record bonus which Levins used for a down payment on their Portland house.

Then came some lean years. Three attempts at the Olympic qualifying standard saw him squeak onto the Canadian team for Tokyo, but then came that devastating 71st-place finish, a debacle most likely due to it being his fourth marathon in ten months. Fatigue, both emotional and physical, took its toll.

Distraught, he considered retirement. “After the Olympic cycle, it’s a reasonable thought to have,” he concedes. “It’s like ‘do I want to keep doing this or not?’ I felt I had more. But I’d certainly been struggling.”

(Photo: Agence SHOT)

New Coach, New Approach

After talking things over with family, he decided he had fallen short of his potential and wanted to keep moving forward. Last November, he signed a contract with Asics, while training under a new coach, fellow Canadian Jim Finlayson. The partnership appears to be working well.

“Jim has been exactly what I want in a coach,” Levins says. “I am not afraid to give him feedback. I am very good at buying into a training program, but having someone who respects my opinion as well is also very important. I haven’t always had that.”

Finlayson, who represented Canada at three world cross country championships, took on Levins at a very low point, but quickly established trust. He soon realized what Coach Houle had also discovered—Levins is a sensitive and introverted person. “Cam puts a lot of emotion into running, so when the races don’t go well it’s a pretty big knock to him,” says Finlayson. “But there doesn’t ever seem to be any doubt that he is going to keep pursuing the results he is capable of.”

Levins has set up a treadmill inside an altitude tent at his house in Portland. In addition to running on roads and trails around Portland, he also puts in between 70 and 80 minutes daily at altitude on that treadmill. By his reckoning, he can get in more than 170 miles a week during a marathon buildup. He also sleeps in an altitude canopy, which covers just the top half of his body.

“I am able to get in some pretty fast workouts and, getting the altitude component in, I don’t feel the need to go to an altitude training camp,” he says. “Honestly, I have always felt more comfortable just being home training anyway.”

His Tokyo performance went a long way toward erasing self-doubt, and he now looks forward to another Olympics, where a medal might be a tangible goal. Levins has already worn the Canadian vest for two Olympics—he finished eleventh in the 2012 London Games 10,000m in addition to his unfortunate Tokyo Games.

His 2:05 is well under the automatic qualifying mark (2:08:10) for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, removing that stress from his buildup. “I have more or less taken care of my qualifying for the Paris Olympics,” he says. “I have never really done that early in any other qualifying window. That’s a very big relief.”

Levins will be 35 at the time of the Paris Olympics, a year younger than Eliud Kipchoge was when he claimed his second Olympic marathon title in 2021. Finlayson says that every decision the pair now makes is designed to have the best possible result in Paris. Next up for Levins is the Canadian 10K championships on May 27.

“I have at least a couple of Olympics in me,” Levins declares. “I feel that I will be finished when I am ready to finish and don’t want to do this anymore. I have no idea when that will be.”

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Extreme Skiing

sperkins-pom — Mon, 01 Mar 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, Father? Do You Offer Last Rites by Cell Phone?

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When nearly 40 skiers converge outside Valdez, Alaska, on the sixth of next month for the ninth annual World Extreme Skiing Championships, they stand to log a series of performances that could collectively constitute one of their sport’s watershed moments. Armed with fat and shaped skis custom-built to handle the Chugach Mountains’ temperamental maritime snowpack, 50-degree steeps, and coffin-width chutes, these racers will blitz lines that would have been deemed suicidal by the slow-motion, hop-turning Chamonix mountaineers who invented ski d’extreme back in the late 70s. “This is a turning-point year,” says Shane McConkey, who finished sixth in 1996. “The creativity you see now is crazy, and the talent level has gone through the roof.”

That may sound like overbilling, especially in light of McConkey’s current job title: President of the International Free Skiing Association. But there are grounds for taking his assurances seriously. In the first place, there’s the unprecedented influx of world-class freestylers and alpine racers, more than 1,000 of whom have scrambled to sign on with the IFSA since 1996. And then there’s the stature of the WESC itself. Though still notorious for its low-rent digs and paltry prize packages (this year’s contestants will risk their lives for $3,000), the WESC seems to be emerging as one of the most significant championships in skiing, having just inked TV deals with the Eurosport Channel and ESPN2 at a time when the U.S. Pro Skiing Tour was forced to cancel its entire 1999 schedule due to lack of viewer interest.

The primary reason the WESC is able to flourish in the face of such apathy is that it consistently produces the sorts of spectacles rarely witnessed on the traditional gates-and-stopwatches circuit. These can range from the appalling to the absurd. In 1993, Wilbur Madsen fell to his death while peering over his intended line of descent, and three years later Brigitte Mead rag-dolled for 1,000 feet before bashing to a stop at the base of a rock wall. (She survived, thanks only to her battered helmet.) Last year, however, Frenchman Sebastian Michaud pulled off a feat worthy of a plane-crash survivor when he lost a ski just after throwing a backflip off a 50-foot cliff, made the split-second decision to speed away on one leg, rammed through another crux, lost his second ski, and ended up jogging across the finish line.

If conditions this year enable them to stick their intended lines, the course could favor McConkey and 1995 winner Dean Cummings in the men’s division and Jill Sickels Matlock and Switzerland’s Francine Moreillon in the women’s, all of whom ski with a style that embraces aggression and speed. But regardless of who gets to cash the winners’ checks, the competition should be worth watching. “This is another league,” says Cummings. “Rookies don’t understand that when you unhook from these mountains, you’re only going to touch down every 60 feet.”

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Take Yosemite, Then Multiply By 20

With U.S. help, China sets up one of the world’s largest national parks

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Ever since he traded his Marine combat boots for a pair of penny loafers and stepped from the mud of Vietnam to the cloisters of Harvard Law School, Ed Norton has been something of a specialist in tempering ironclad idealism with diplomatic savoir faire. Insiders like to recall how Norton, as head of the Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff in 1987, clipped the wings of the air-tourism business while simultaneously charming Republican politicos into attempting to push no-fly-zone legislation through Congress. Now 56 and a senior adviser to The Nature Conservancy, the silver-haired Norton is about to begin what could be the biggest challenge of his life: acting as a point man in an audacious effort to build one of the world’s largest networks of national parks in the most populous country on Earth.

When it is finally up and running sometime after 2005, Yunnan Great Rivers National Park will embrace three major waterways as they cascade from Tibetan glaciers to lowland forests, a vast wilderness wedged deep in China’s remote Yunnan Province that is of inestimable value to conservationists. The 25,819-square-mile swatch, which dwarfs Yosemite by a factor of 20, hosts half of all plants used in traditional Chinese medicine and numerous pockets of endangered predators such as the snow leopard. “It’s like you took all the wondrous diversity of California,” says an American ecologist working in the area, “and squeezed it in a vise.”

While a venture like this would be noteworthy anywhere, the fact that it is taking place in China, a nation tearing through one of the fastest industrialization phases in human history, is downright revolutionary. But after more than 3,000 people perished in last summer’s massive Yangtze floods, Chinese leaders experienced an epiphany regarding the link between natural disaster and irresponsible ecosystem management. Thus their willingness to embark on a partnership with The Nature Conservancy that is being closely watched by environmentalists around the world.

This spring, the first order of business for Norton and his Chinese counterparts will be to select the most critical regions to be preserved, even though some have barely been studied. They must also forge alliances with hostile timber-industry interests, paper-pushing magistrates, and tetchy representatives from 25 ethnic minorities ù all while adroitly tiptoeing through the political minefields of China’s inscrutable and ossified bureaucracy.

Norton, who moves to Kunming next month, pronounces himself “excited to be a part of it.” Others, however, are waiting to see how the project will fare in a society that has virtually no experience with environmentalism. “I have to take this with a grain of salt,” admits Doris Shen, a scientist with the International Rivers Network, noting the remark a Chinese official once shared with a colleague of hers: “Conservation is what you talk about only after you’ve had your meal.”

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No Death, No Car Chases, and the Star Doesn’t Fall in Love

A new movie about Ethiopian distance legend Haile Gebrselassie breaks the tired form

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When Olympic distance runner Haile Gebrselassie returned to Ethiopia from the Atlanta Games in 1996 clutching his gold medal from the 10,000 meters, more than a million of his countrymen lined the streets of Addis Ababa. When British film director Leslie Woodhead set out to begin shooting his upcoming documentary of Gebrselassie’s life later that same year, he confronted similar evidence of the runner’s phenomenal popularity. To prevent crowds from besieging their national hero, Woodhead was forced to keep the 25-year-old star concealed in the back of a blacked-out van until they were ready to film, at which point he would emerge, shoot the scene, and then duck back into the vehicle. “It was very difficult,” says Woodhead, recalling the only comparable experience in his 35-year career. “It was like filming Paul McCartney in London in 1965.”

The result of Woodhead’s resourcefulness is an 83-minute documentary, produced by Disney and titled Endurance, which opens next month in 11 American cities. For years, aficionados have mourned the lack of believable and inspiring running films. (Pre, the 1997 story of American distance legend Steve Prefontaine, was typical for its lack of depth and its use of actors who represent running’s ethos with the zest and ‰lan of department-store mannequins.) Endurance may be welcomed as a refreshing break in this trend.

Featuring members of his immediate family, the film offers a vivid account of Gebrselassie’s rise from son of an impoverished Ethiopian farmer to world record-holder in the 5,000-meter, 10,000-meter, and two-mile runs — and a man now considered by many to be the greatest distance runner of all time.

As the documentary wends through theaters, its star plans to focus on the world indoor championships in Japan at the end of this month. “I will try to break the records for the 3,000 and 5,000,” says Gebrselassie, with businesslike alacrity. “That will be my target for 1999.”

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Well, Women Think I’m Kinda Weird

And if you lived in a hole for 10 years, they’d probably say the same of you

When authorities on Massachusetts’s Nantucket Island recently discovered that Thomas Johnson had spent the last decade secretly living in a 158-square-foot bunker beneath some of the priciest real estate on the eastern seaboard, they were astonished at his amenities: Belgian stone floors, cedar paneling, skylights, a queen-size bed. Intrigued, we caught up with the 38-year-old recluse, who’s staying with a friend while he appeals his eviction notices.

So … you’re a hermit?

I don’t fit the bill of an underground kook. And I’m not prejudiced against anybody. I hate everyone equally.

You were eight feet underground. Was it, you know, kinda dirty down there?

When people think underground, they think dirt. My place is not dirty at all. I’m a cleanness freak. People are envious.

What about the winters?

It never got colder than 52 degrees. The stove would eventually heat up the stone floor. The stonework was beautiful. It looked like I had a team of Aztecs come in there and lay it.

Must have been pretty lonely.

Every day I got to talk to the animals. Red squirrels. Chipmunks. Owls. They liked to listen to me talk.

Any critters you’re not so fond of?

Rats. One time one dug in through the back vent into an empty space behind the wall. God almighty, did that infuriate me! I drilled holes and shot the space full of foam. I hope I nailed the son of a bitch with foam.

Did you ever think, gee, it sure would be nice to order a pizza?

Hell, no.

So what happens next?

I’ve got a cliff dwelling in the Catskills and a bunker near a waterfall in Pennsylvania. I’m like a beaver. I can carve a place into the woods, and you’d never know it was there.

Like the Ewoks, but More Pungent

In Oregon, a group of radicals communes with the Arboreal Oneness

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Deep in the heart of Oregon’s Willamette National Forest, surrounded by clearcuts, lie several scattered patches of ancient hemlocks and majestic Douglas firs. Because these areas contain some of the Willamette’s (and by extension, the nation’s) last stands of 200-foot old-growth trees, news that the U.S. Forest Service had auctioned them off to the Zip-O-Log Company last March incensed many environmentalists ù among them a group of Earth First! activists who convened in a Eugene coffeehouse shortly after the deal was announced to form an ad hoc brigade called Red Cloud Thunder, in honor of the last war chief of the Teton Sioux. At its inaugural meeting, the 150-member group resolved to take turns occupying a number of trees slated for the saw in the hopes of forestalling Zip-O’s plan to convert these forest giants into patio furniture.

This, of course, is merely the latest expression of a decade-long tree-sitting trend whose most recent form is perhaps best articulated by Julia “Butterfly” Hill. For the past 14 months, the 24-year-old former barmaid and model has conducted a running media-fest from the upper branches of a tree she’s named Luna to protest the destruction of one of northern California’s last remaining redwood stands. When Butterfly isn’t chatting up reporters on her cell phone, she’s updating her Web page, schmoozing with her PR agent, or mourning the death of David “Gypsy” Chain, a fellow protester whose demise beneath a logger-felled redwood last September cast the national spotlight on an even larger stand of endangered redwoods six miles to the south.

Curious about how Red Cloud Thunder’s spec ops were proceeding amid these larger developments, we decided it was time to pay a visit to their compound, a kind of dendriform paradise-without-plumbing that seems to have taken its blueprint from the Ewoks, the arboreal rodents of Return of the Jedi fame. For living quarters, they have rigged up five aeries inspired by architectural styles that range from Backwoods Henhouse to Mississippi River Raft. Each is connected to the others by a cat’s cradle of climbing ropes, winches, and pulleys.

We swiftly discover that the RCTers have anointed each of their trees with a name. Yggdrasl, the “party tree,” is inhabited by a protester with the admirably unpretentious nom de guerre Dirt, who describes himself as a “freelance forest defender.” Fangorn contains the group’s library, which includes works by Einstein, Thoreau, and Emerson, plus a variety of field guides. (The books are circulated via pulleys from one tree to the next.) There’s also Comfrey, Guardian, Friendly, Grandma, and a tree called Happy, which we ascended by means of a rope to speak with Nettle, a 22-year-old anarchist hailing from Augusta, Georgia.

Nettle currently resides on a round plywood platform with a sleeping bag, a two-burner camp stove, and a car battery that powers her string of Christmas lights and a tape deck on which she listens to the cutting-edge punk-folk chanteuse Ani DiFranco while contemplating Happy’s bark. “There’s a natural mark the shape of a goddess in it,” she says. “See?”

We did see, though not as clearly as Nettle. But then, she’s been up here for eight months, sipping herbal tea, keeping house, and paying visits to the abodes of her comrades. (“Comfrey’s like a hammock,” she says. “I go over there and I have the most amazing dreams!”) Nettle also enjoys trading bits of woodsy banter with her neighbor in nearby Fangorn, a 35-year-old activist who calls himself Pacific, wears camouflage pants, paints his face green, and used to play the stock market. “The trees,” Pacific volunteers, “they talk to us. They warn us, you know. Happy will say, ‘The Freddies [the Forest Service rangers] are coming on Tuesday.’ I’ve gotten used to accurate tree reports.”

Nettle smiles. “I love Pacific,” she croons with all the warmth of her home state. “Idn’t he great?”

Alas, the Freddies don’t think so ù an opinion that stems, among other things, from the RCTers’ habit of dropping gallon jugs filled with urine onto the heads of Forest Service personnel. “These people are downright obnoxious,” says agency spokesperson Patti Rodgers, expressing a sentiment that is echoed, none too surprisingly, by a growing number of mainstream environmentalists.

Though their more moderate colleagues find the RCTers’ dedication admirable and their loopiness mildly endearing, they clearly worry that Nettle and her friends are helping to sustain the impression that environmental activists are all a bunch of … well, nitwits. “You don’t build support,” grumbles Mitch Friedman, director of the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, “by constructing a counterculture up in the trees.”

On that point, Nettle and her colleagues beg to differ, vehemently offering up a rebuttal that must, in fairness, be given some credence ù if only because Zip-O has yet to fire up its chainsaws in this section of the Willamette. “Hey, our sit is the highest tree village ever!” exclaims Dirt. “And as long as we’re in the trees, they can’t cut ’em down.”

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Ghosts in the Machine

Update

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Ever since profiling Austrian powerhouse Hermann Maier (“Thinking About Machine-Man,” November), we’ve watched with interest as, in the process of tearing through the World Cup ski season (winning five races to date), the Hermanator has proved that he can wreak havoc on more than just the slopes. To celebrate his victory in the Super G at Aspen last December, he overturned furniture at a late-night soiree, then commandeered a 1986 Acura Integra for the sole purpose of cutting doughnuts (the car was later deemed undrivable). Just after sunup, two law-enforcement officers responding to complaints that “juveniles” were firing up a backhoe happened upon Maier, who was furiously pedaling for the airport on a “borrowed” bicycle, toting teammate Andreas Schifferer. The bike was abandoned and a brief chase ensued ù with an embarrassing denouement. “The Hermanator slipped on some ice,” scoffs Pitkin County sheriff’s deputy Ron Ryan, who removed the handcuffs only after Austrian team officials promised remuneration and discipline. “He had the same look on his face as when he fell at Nagano.”

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Kites Are Da Bomb?

Apparently yes—but only when attached to surfboards for the purpose of grabbing big air

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“We’re on the doorstep of the next millennium,” proclaims Marcus “Flash” Austin. “And kitesurfing is ushering it in!” Typically, when greeted with such breathless declarations, our response is, well, gack. But if you try to look at it from the standpoint of those who frequent Maui’s Ho’okipa Beach, Austin’s blustery rhetoric begins to make some sense. Here, on any given day, one can find a crowd of tourists gawking as a cluster of boardsailors and surfers strap themselves onto fiberglass boards, don harnesses attached via 100-foot lines to inflatable nylon kites, and go scorching across the ocean at speeds of 35 miles per hour while executing rail grabs, fakies, and double backflips that can send them as much as 40 feet into the air.

A combination of boardsailing, surfing, and paragliding, kitesurfing offers the equivalent of attaching a small airplane engine to the front of your board. “Because of the upward angles of wind force,” says David Dorn, president of the newly formed Maui Kiteboarding Association, “maneuvers and jumps are unlike anything that’s been done before.”

Austin, 28, is the unofficial world champion of a sport that may be on the verge of an X Games-style breakout. And a decade after French brothers Dominique and Bruno Legaignoux first dreamed up this activity in Senegal, Ho’okipa Beach has become its epicenter. Each summer, the area’s robust trade winds, capricious surf, and nerve-jangling minefield of submerged reefs draws a small clique of veteran surfers and boardsailors eager to tap a notch or two deeper into their adrenaline reserves.

This crew, which includes such luminaries as perennial boardsailing world champion Robby Naish and renowned big-wave surfers Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama, will have a chance to showcase its freshest moves next month at the Mondial du Vent festival in Leucate, France. In the meantime, however, the sport must overcome a number of lingering hurdles before it can claim to have attained the status of a full-blown craze. Though Austin makes it sound like child’s play ù “I taught an eight-year-old how to do this in two hours,” he boasts ù kitesurfing has yet to shake the perception that, in the hands of the uninitiated, it can be a foolhardy pursuit. “You’ve got guys cruising along at the end of hundred-foot razor blades with lots of tension on them,” says Naish, referring to the lines that connect surfers to their kites. “If you’re not careful, it can be really dangerous.”

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For the Record

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Hang on Honey, There's a Goatweed Leafwing in Your Veil
“I've seen people moved to tears!” exclaims salesman Rick Mikula. “If you order three dozen, you can actually hear their wings fluttering. It gets a lot of oohs and ahs.” Unfortunately, Mikula's shipments of live butterflies are provoking blubbery outbursts from more than just weepy-eyed brides. With the spring wedding season just around the corner, entomologists are decrying the latest trend in nuptial fashion: toasting happy couples with swarms of monarchs and painted ladies express-mailed to the ceremony in cardboard boxes at $100 per dozen. “It's environmental terrorism, period,” says Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the North American Butterfly Association, which claims that Mikula and his colleagues are spreading diseases among butterflies, muddying the gene pool, and abusing the fragile lepidopterans. “I witnessed a release once, and all the butterflies were crippled,” laments Glassberg. “They just plopped out of the container. It was kinda gross.” To throw a net over the problem, Glassberg and company are going directly to the source: wedding coordinators. “A fair number of people selling butterflies don't know any better,” he says. “But some do, and they sound like tobacco-company executives. They're in denial.”

Alright, If You Guys Insist, I'll Win …
Just after the Association of Surfing Professionals anointed him world champion at last December's Banzai Pipeline on Oahu, Kelly Slater offered up a rather strange victory pronouncement. “Everyone else losing,” he declared, “was an indescribable relief.” Odd, yes, but also appropriate. Slater, who hadn't won a single tour event since the previous March, entered the season's grand finale Pipe Masters languishing in third place. His only hope for victory: the unlikely possibility that Australian rivals Mick Campbell and Danny Wills would tank in the early rounds. Which, fortunately for Slater, they did — opening the door for his sixth world championship. In the wake of this nail-biting triumph, however, Slater may now opt to step down before experiencing the novel taste of defeat. “My goals are focused around things I haven't done before,” he says, hinting — somewhat ambiguously — at perhaps sitting out part of next year's circuit. “It's getting harder to stoke the fire.”

Mel Fisher, 1922-1998
“Mel was the P. T. Barnum of treasure salvors, and I mean that as a compliment,” says Ole Varmer, an attorney with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fisher, who died of cancer late last December at age 76, was arguably the most successful — and controversial — treasure hunter ever to scour the high seas. He achieved something akin to folk hero status among fellow Key Westers for his lucrative discoveries — the biggest being $400 million in gems and doubloons aboard a 16th-century galleon in 1985. And though Fisher also developed a reputation as an obsessive plunderer, those close to him insist that his incandescent optimism, rather than his glittery treasure or his environmental indiscretions, will be his most lasting legacy. “Mel always felt things would fall his way,” says former spokesman Pat Clyne. “And usually, they did.”

And Next Year, Lance Will Be Competing for the Nobel Prize in Literature …
“I'm not showing up as some publicity stunt,” claims 1993 World Champion road racer Lance Armstrong, who has decided there's more to life than a new bride, a remarkable recovery from testicular cancer, and a successful return to his sport. Last December, Armstrong, 27, announced that between the European spring cycling classics, the Tour de France, and October's World Championships, he'll somehow wedge in some single-track contests as a member of the Trek Volkswagen mountain-bike team. “I know what I'm going to whisper to Lance at the start of his opening race,” says fellow crossover cyclist Bob Roll, who'll be on hand this May in Red Wing, Minnesota. “Be careful.”

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