Running in Ethiopia – Track Tuesday Chaos
The session planned for today didn’t quite pan out as expected. Matt and I had agreed to meet at 8 and head to Kenenisa’s track for some 1km repetitions. As we left reception and headed towards the gate of Yaya a commotion at the track caught our attention. Normally void of activity, the track was filled with over a hundred local athletes this morning. We headed over to investigate.
We have recently moved to Yaya Africa Athletics Village, a resort owned by Ethiopian running legend Haile Gebrselassie. The track in the resort is a full 400m, however the arcs at either end are narrow and truncated, meaning that going around the corners on the loose gravel can be a little sketchy. Normally empty throughout the day, with only a couple locals or resort guests training here, the level of activity this morning was very abnormal. As we walked across the field a coach called us over. After briefly asking where we were from and welcoming us, he told us the session his group was running and insisted that we joined.
Five sets of 5 x 200m with 100m recovery jog between, 5 x 150m with 50m recovery jog between. We jogged a few kilometres to warm up and then jumped in with a large group of guys that had already started. Coach Ayenew, who says that the winners of all four of the XC races we watched at Jan Meda last week are members of his squad, had multiple large groups of athletes completing the workout around the track. He said that the first bunch we jumped in with were 5,000m/10,000m athletes. We were panting too hard to talk, the athletes were very fit. We rolled through one set with each kilometre split being in the low 3-minute range, even with the recovery jogs. One of the athletes was running in what I can only approximate to Crocs (foam sandals), and still killing us.
One of the craziest parts of this session was the number of athletes on the track and the congestion that ensued! Our group of fifteen would run up behind another large group who were on their recovery jog, and all split and dodge through the crowd of at least twelve athletes, and then finish the rep only to have the group we had just pushed through do the same thing coming from behind us. It was hectic, chaotic and extremely disorganised.
Despite all the dodging and weaving (on loose gravel with tight corners), the 200m splits were in around 30-32s. Matt and I were wrecked after the first set and jumped in with a group of female athletes who were running at a more manageable pace. We continued dodging groups each lap and being aggressively passed by the groups coming from behind us.
As we finished the workout we went over to Coach Ayenew and had a chat. He said that the athletes who had run the junior races last week were all on the way to Asala in the South, where the National Junior championships are taking place this week. As he moved towards the front of his huge group that had congregated for the post-session debrief we thanked him for the session and agreed to meet in Addis later in the week. The experience of the workout today was really striking, especially how frenzied the activity on the track was. With so many groups all running different workouts at different speeds, there just wasn’t space for everyone. But the athletes made it work and there were no confrontations despite the tight conditions that were far from ideal.
