Indian athletes coming to train in Kenya
The athletes that I'm coaching in India are making good progress. Last year we worked a lot on improving their foundation of strength, endurance and speed. Of course, that means that the results will not come immediately. But if you want to be a top-athlete you have to be patient. I told my athletes: "if you build a weak foundation, your house will collapse after 2 or 3 stories, but if you make your foundation very strong, you can keep on building, even 10 stories high". That is how it works for athletes. Working on your foundation is often something others don't see. Just like the foundation of a house is under the ground, so the foundation of an athlete sometimes does not translate immediately to visible results in races. But you can't do without it.
This year we took some time (not too much) to do specific track sessions, in order to prepare them for the Federation Cup - which is a kind of National Championships in India. The results came quickly. Our boys won the 1500m, the 5000m and the 10.000m for Juniors. Also 2 of them qualified for Asian and World championships Juniors. I'm convinced that we would not have seen these results, if we had focused on specific track work from the start.
In the coming years we will keep on working on their development, on all aspects of running, so that hopefully by 2020 they will be strong enough to qualify for the Olympics.
Later this year, our Indian athletes will come to Iten for a 6 week training camp at altitude. I'm glad they get help from their sponsors Global Sports Communication and Procam, who enable them to come here and learn from the Kenyans.