Interview with Lornah Kiplagat
by Cecil Harris

Lornah Kiplagat "threepeated" at the 2007 NYRR New York Mini 10K.
Photo by: Ed Haas
New York Road Runners

Lornah Kiplagat, like a fine wine, seems to get better with age. The graceful 33-year-old continued a strong 2007 season with a wire-to-wire victory at the NYRR New York Mini 10K on June 9 in Central Park. Kiplagat finished in 32:10, winning the event for the third straight year and fourth time overall. She defeated a formidable field that included Kim Smith of New Zealand, Mara Yamauchi of Great Britain, Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia, Lidiya Grigoryeva of Russia, and Benita Johnson of Australia.

Kiplagat also won the 2007 World Cross Country Championships in the country of her birth, Kenya. In the past two years, she has won two World Championships gold medals and set world records at the IAAF World Road Running Championships 20K (1:03:21) and the Dam to Damloop 10-mile race (50:50). She’s also the world record-holder in the 5K road race (14:47).

Dominant on the road and the track, Kiplagat has won important races since her Los Angeles Marathon triumph in 1997. She’s the only woman to win the Peachtree and Falmouth road races in the same year—and she’s done it three times. She has won the World’s Best 10K in Puerto Rico five times.

Kiplagat has run for the Netherlands since 2003. She holds Dutch records at distances from the 5K to the marathon. She and her husband, Pieter Langerhorst, split their time between the Netherlands and Kenya. She uses her own prize money to fund the High Altitude Training Center for young athletes in Kenya. One of those athletes, Sally Kipyego, of Texas Tech, became the 2006 NCAA Division I champion in cross country.

Two days before her “three-peat” at the NYRR New York Mini 10K, Kiplagat talked to Fast-Women.com about her training center, her status as a role model, her unceasing popularity in Kenya, her love for New York City, and the one major goal left in her remarkable career.

Fast-Women.com: Congratulations on winning at the World Cross Country Championships. Was that an emotional victory for you because it was in Mombasa, Kenya?
Lornah Kiplagat: Yes. That contributed to my emotions and my happiness. To win a world championship in your motherland country was just fabulous.

FW: You and your husband, Pieter, divide your time between Kenya and the Netherlands. Do some Kenyans wonder why you officially run for the Netherlands now?
LK: No, they understand very well. Normally in Kenya, when a woman gets married she goes to where her husband is from. You still have this thing when I win where some say, ‘Ooh, I wish [the championship] was ours.’ But on the other hand, they know it’s not ours anymore because I’ve gone. What I’ve done is kind of a tradition that people know about and believe in and they don’t have a problem with it.

FW: But don’t your countrymen and countrywomen still see you as one of theirs?
LK: [Laughs]. Yes, absolutely. That’s what they told me at the World Championships. After I won, they told me, ‘We still love you. You are still for us.’ All of the people in Iten, the village where I live, were watching and cheering for me. I was competing as a Dutch runner, but they didn’t care. They wanted to cheer for Lornah. They were so excited. I know that I share all of my achievements with the [Kenyan] community.

FW: It’s admirable of you to use your own money to fund a training center for young athletes in Kenya. How do you select the girls who become part of the program?
LK: We work now with schools. Most of our runners now are schoolgirls. The schools let us know who would be the best girls for us. The high schools in Kenya charge fees, and it’s a lot of money. The girls whose parents cannot afford to pay school fees, we take them. It’s about $500-$600 per year for each girl, depending on what school they attend. Through the Lornah Kiplagat Foundation, we pay their school fees so they can keep running. It’s a running scholarship.

FW: I understand that your training center has a relationship with Collegiate, a prep school in New York, where Collegiate students get to visit Kenya. How does that work?
LK: The Collegiate students came to Kenya last summer to train as runners. This year they will still come to train, but in their [spare] time they will help our students with American English. Those are the [Kenyan] students who we hope will be enrolled in American universities on running scholarships. We have such a good relationship with Collegiate students and their families. Chris Williams, a 1500-meter runner at Collegiate, came to Kenya with his parents last year. They liked it and they want to come back again this year.

FW: Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech is one of the women from your program to earn a track and field scholarship. How many others have?
LK: We have about 20 students who have received scholarships. It’s boys and girls. The runners at the center, they don’t have to be elite runners. They just have to be able to run distances in certain times. They may not even have anything to do with running in the future. Academics is number one for us. Running is number two. Success in academics will benefit them more, but we want them to keep running also.

FW: Part of your motivation for starting the center was to overcome the difficulty Kenyan girls and women had being accepted as runners, as athletes. Is that still a problem?
LK: It’s getting better. In the running community, it’s definitely better than when I started. It’s still tough. But things are changing day by day, so it’s positive. I just feel good that I can do something to change somebody’s life for the better. I had a strong motivation to start the center. I feel happy because other people may have had the same motivation, but they did not have the time or they did not know how to do it. I knew how to do it.

FW: Has the Kenyan government helped you in terms of funding the center?
LK: No. It’s still all from my earnings. I’m not the type of person to go around saying, “Help me do this, help me do that.” I do this because my hope is to put as many girls as possible in school. I think so many lives can be changed through education. It’s changing somebody’s life completely. In Kenya, our kids are being brought up by moms. So I think the more educated the moms are, the better for the kids. And that’s better for the future. That’s why the Lornah Kiplagat Foundation pays the school fees for the girls. In this way people can help [www.lornahkiplagatfoundation.nl]. After I stop running, the center will continue. I’m very positive about that. We are doing things to make the center self-sufficient. Like the food in the camp we don’t have to buy because we have our own garden. We grow our own organic vegetables. We have our own cows. We get milk from our own cows. And there is the ING Run for Something Better program. I’ve won it two times. From the money I received I put solar panels on the roof for hot water, so we don’t have to use electricity to make the water hot. So the electric bills are coming down. We’re trying to cut all the costs so that later on when I’m not running anymore we won’t have to pay big bills.

FW: When did you first have this goal that you would become an elite runner who would use her success to help others?
LK: I started training in ‘94 and, because of all the difficulties I had, I said if I ever win money I want to start helping other girls. That was my dream as soon as my running allowed me to compete outside of Kenya.

FW: You’re known as “Simba” because of your ferocious training regimen. Do you still train as hard now as you did in your 20s?
LK: Yes. I believe in training so hard for all these years because it pays. I believe the reason for my achievement in Mombasa was my hard training. I love to still train hard. It keeps me motivated.

FW: You came to New York in search of your fourth championship in the NYRR New York Mini 10K. How did you train for this event?
LK: In my training for this, I did up to 100 miles a week. I do repetitions of 1,000 meters 15 times. I do minute runs, like one minute, two minutes, five minutes and then come down to four minutes, three minutes, two minutes, one minute. Then I do long runs, up to 2-1/2 hours. On a Sunday, I just go for 2-1/2 hours. That’s like 21, 22 miles. I do strength training. And I like to run at altitude. I train a lot at altitude. That means I train a lot in Kenya.

FW: What do you like about the New York NYRR Mini 10K besides winning it?
LK: What I like about this race are the hills. I like to run on hills a lot when I’m training. It would be quite an accomplishment to win this race for the fourth time, because to win again and again and again is something I don’t take for granted. It’s a challenge every time. I’m now at the top and everybody wants to beat me. When I win, I’m so happy and appreciative. I’m always thankful that I can still keep that level up each year.

FW: Is it special for you to compete in New York City?
LK: Yes. What I love most about New York is this park [Central Park]. This park gives me such a refreshing feeling. I’m in the middle of New York—one of the biggest cities in the world—but I can still go for my runs because this park makes me feel like I’m in the forest. I call this ‘The Forest,’ not Central Park [laughs]. When I run in The Forest it feels like I’m in the middle of nowhere, but I’m still in the big city.

FW: In the past twelve months, you’ve won two gold medals at world championship events, run world-best times and won major races around the world. You’re 33. Are you running as well as ever?
LK: Yes. I’m running better than ever. And I think my best times are still to come. I’m excited about the Olympics next year. My goal is to win an Olympic medal. [She finished fifth in the 10,000 meters in 2004 in Athens]. If I win an Olympic medal, I will be very happy. And if it doesn’t come, I’m still very happy with what I’ve accomplished already. Not many runners have achieved what I’ve done, and I don’t take that for granted.

FW: You’ve won everything but an Olympic medal. If you win one next year, would you say, ‘That’s it. My career is complete.’? Or would you continue running?
LK: I would continue running. Running is part of me. Running is my life. I will never stop running. Even if I’m not competing at a high level, I will never stop running. I hope I stay healthy and my knees will allow me to keep running for as long as I live.

FW: That’s good news for us. Your running form is beautiful to watch. Is that something you developed over time, or have you always had such graceful form?
LK: I work hard on my technique. I know so many people work on their technique the same as I do, but they still don’t have what I have, so I think it’s just the talent I’ve been given. [She laughs.] You know, I was running yesterday in The Forest here and some people saw me. They were smiling and they said, ‘Hey, Lornah. How are you?’ Then they were running behind me. And later on they said, ‘We went behind you because we enjoyed so much just watching you run.’ That was really something. Those people just wanted to watch me run. The way I run, I was just given that by God.

FW: I’ve interviewed Catherine Ndereba and Susan Chepkemei, great Kenyan-born runners as you are, and they are quick to publicly thank God for all their success. Do you feel the same?
LK: Yes, I feel the same. I’m a very religious person. But most of the time I keep it private. But so many times a day and so many times in my life, I thank God for what I have achieved, for who I am and for what is going to happen. My faith is very personal, and I care very deeply.

Interview conducted on June 7, 2007, and posted on June 13, 2007.

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