Altitude Training Options: Ethiopia

Ethiopia is less well known as an altitude training destination than neighbouring Kenya, but the opening of excellent training facilities like Yaya Village and the success of the 2012 film Town of Runners have done much to increase the country’s appeal.  Indeed, Ethiopia’s tourism potential across the board is considerably underdeveloped, and many are surprised to learn of the country’s beauty, cultural diversity, and friendlessness, and that Ethiopia has nine UNESCO world heritage sites!

Sululta, a small town just 11 kilometres north of Addis Ababa, is where many of the athletes who live in the capital carry out their daily training sessions.  It is also home to Yaya Village, a purpose-built training resort which has attracted athletes from across the world since it opened in 2011.  The eucalyptus forests, dirt roads, and grass clearings make for varied running terrain, and the recent opening of a synthetic track, owned by multiple Olympic Champion and world record holder Kenenisa Bekele, is a significant addition for those with a need for speed. 

Those who want to get to the real heart grass roots Ethiopian distance running can visit Bekoji, aka Town of Runners, a small town south west of Addis Ababa.  The town has produced athletes who, between them, have won 10 Olympic gold medals, broken more than a dozen world records, and won more than 30 world championship titles.  Derartu Tulu, Kenenisa and Tariku Bekele, and Ejegayehu, Tirunesh and Genzebe Dibaba.  Visitors to the town have the opportunity to watch the next generation of world-beaters train, and to meet the coach who guided the aforementioned stars in their earlier years.

The Great Ethiopian Run is the largest road race in Africa, and each year it attracts hundreds of overseas participants wishing to test themselves against the altitude, the heat, and more than 10,000 other runners and joggers.

Blogs from my 2010 visit include: Ethiopia by Picture, Farewell Africa...For Now,  This is Ethiopia, Can I be a 'Funrunner' for a Day?, The Carb Queen is Dead and Gone,  and Addis, while during my 2014 visit I blogged about meeting Haile Gebreselaise, wrote about my trip to Bekoji, and summarised my trip in a photo blog. Shane Benzie from Running Reborn wrote a guest piece about training in Bekoji for us in July, 2014.

Additional photos can be viewed here (2014 visit) and here (2010 visit).

More information on altitude training in Ethiopia, and details  of how to arrange a trip there can be found in Notes from Higher Grounds: an Altitude Training Guide for Endurance Athletes.

Farewell Africa...for now

-->Yesterday morning we were up at the crack of dawn to take our place with 35,000 others on the startline of the Great Ethiopian Run.  In it's 10th year of running, this is the biggest 10km in Africa.  The elite race boasts the likes of Haile Gebreselassie, Gebregziabeher Gebremariam, and Sileshi Sihinas it's past winners.

Unfortunately, though I'm not quite good enough to be among the elites who start in Addis stadium, and must instead make my way to the mass startline in Meskel Square.  Having pushed my way close to the head of the field, I'm still concerned of what might happen once the gun goes, and many of those in front of me look far from serious runners.  Even in Ethiopian there are fat people, and I'm not sure there should be that many of them in front of me on a 10km start line.  The sun is belting down on me, as we stand there in anticipation for almost 30 minutes (as predicted nothing in Africa starts on time), I wonder how long I can cope with my individually tailored race teeshirt (the sleeves have been shortened to allow for some air circulation and the collar has been removed to prevent me from chocking). I try to remain calm.  Myself and Jacob (the one reason that I don't return home speaking complete broken English) who is standing beside me on the startline have been training together for the past week and decide to run together until a couple of kilometres out when it will be every man for himself.

The gun goes.  We don't move.  I push through some people in front of me.  Nobody seems to be in any hurry to go anywhere.  Everybody is in a carnival mood.  I feel trapped.  I've been looking forward to this for months.  My legs are fired up to race (must be all those carbs), but they can't get a clear run at it.  It seems like I'm going to have to push and shove my way through this one.  That's that last I see of Jacob until after the finishing line.  Having a habit of going off too fast in races of this distance, there shouldn't be too much concern this time.  But I know I'm waisting too much energy.  The people in front have decided to get into the spirit of things and run along shoulder to shoulder.  My spirit is racing.  I barge through.  I spot a slight gap on the left hand side of the field close to the footpath and choose to take that, though I know that there's a right hand turn soon.  I pass a few hundred people.  I thought that we were only about 20 people back from the front at the start but there are still thousands stretched out in front of us.  While I was struggling to get going on the startline it seems that thousands of people on either side of the wide line stormed through.  I reach 1km in about 5 and a half minutes.  This is going to be hell!

After 2km in something over 11 minutes I remove the teeshirt.  Sod the decency, this is croptop weather!  At what must be 3km I run straight into two 'civilians' stupidly choosing a 35,000 person stamped as a suitable point to cross the road.  I'm not sure if the escape uninjured, but I battle on.  I haven't seen the 4km marker yet and my watch is approaching 25mins.  There's a marker ahead.  To my relief it's the 5km marker.  Crossing the halfway point has never felt so much like finishing a race before.  The revised finishing time of 50 minutes is still possible.  There are still hundreds of people obstructing the way though.  And people in front who shouldn't be.  I pass people who are walking and haven't even worked up a sweat yet.  I wonder if they started at a later point.  No time to ponder though, still plenty of obstructions to pass.  After 6km I see a sign for a shower.  That's a huge relief.  A splattering of water is exactly what I need at this point.  More obstructions though - half a dozen people have stopped to make the most of it.  I barge through.  Not far after the drinks station at 7km I pass a guy with a walking stick - surely he can't have gotten here quicker than me?  Can he?  I battle on.  I pass 8km and I'm still in one piece.  Just 2.2km to go.  My mind has obviously gone dead - how can a 10km race be 10.2km.  What am I thinking?  I battle on.  The 9m mark.  I up the pace.  Finally there is free running room.  And a downhill stretch.  Time to make up time.  I break into a canter.  What's this?  Meskel square?  The finishing line?  I'm closer than I think.  Time for one last effort.  I cross the line.    I'm relieved.  I swear 'never again'.  Jacob crosses soon after and we congratulate each other.  A guy with a mike grabs me and asks some silly questions.  I mention something about it being the hardest think I have ever done.  Someone else wants to interview me.  I pick up my finishers medallion and free water.  I take a sip.  My mood changes.  I feel like I haven't raced at all.  I want to do it all over again...

It was with some disappointment that I packed my bags to leave Addis this morning - I guess the thought of 26 hours in transit isn't really appealing to me too much - but a good long warm shower, and some food with something other than carbohydrates won't go a miss.  After saying goodbye to all the guys at the camp I got a lift to the airport in the camp bus.  I didn't really pay too much attention to the driver's surprise when I told him where I was from, and it was only when himself and his assistant (yes it took two of them to get me to the airport), started saying that they preferred Thai jeans to Chinese ones that I realised they had miss understood me.  I didn't have the heart to tell them that I wasn't actually from the South-East Asian manufacturing superpower, but rather I was from the small bankrupt island on the edge of Europe.

And so that draws to an end my African adventure...well at least for now (I plan to visit Morocco and South Africa later in my travels).  It's time now to return to the British Isles, catch up with family and friends, and most importantly get the passport renewed.

Can I be a 'Funrunner' for a day?

The main reason that I've chosen to visit Ethiopia at this stage in my travels was to take part in the Great Ethiopian Run, the largest race in Africa. Yesterday I made my way to the Hilton Hotel to pick up my race pack, only to be disappointed on a number of fronts. I knew before I came here that I would be expected to race in a teeshirt provided by the race organisers, and while I didn't expect the most high-tec sports garment, I didn't think that I would be given a medium men's sized bright yellow thick cotton tee-shirt with a tight neck, advertising coffee flavoured condoms. It's been getting warmer and warmer every day this week, and when I toe the starting line alongside 35,000 other 'fun runners' in the polluted city centre at 9am on Sunday morning, I'm pretty sure that all the Sure '24 hour protection' deodorant in the world won't stop me from having massive sweat patches. What I'll look like when I finish only time will tell.

After getting my head around the fact that I wasn't getting a tee-shirt that actually fits me, I proceeded to open my race pack to see what goodies were inside - a calender so small that I cannot see, a condom leaflet in a language that I cannot read, an advertisement for vehicles that I can neither afford nor drive, and an invitation to a prerace pasta party which, given its location, is not top of my list of things to do before I leave Ethiopia. Oh and no race number or timing device. Despite the £26 entry fee, if I actually care about how long it takes me to cover the course (as normal athletes do) and not just about how much I've raised for charity, in addition to the massive aforementioned tee-shirt I'll also have to wear a watch to time myself.

The Hilton hotel reminded me of everything that is wrong with the world. In the middle of a developing city, is a hotel of most epic superfluousness, where the guests, many of them aid workers and international dignitaries it seems, can be isolation from the poverty, and deprived of the culture, outside of the hotel compound. I'm not sure my ragged bottom tracksuit pants and torn trainers went down so well in this 5 Star hellhole, but I came to Africa to experience Africa. 'We can end poverty by 2015' the slogan on the back of the race tee-shirt reads. I'm all for a bit of optimism, but surely that's stretching things a little too far, especially when so many people live in complete ignorance of the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and when a hotel so disgustingly extravagant can exist in a city so poor.

Trying not to get too outraged, I did manage to smile at one thing in the hotel. Alongside the other sandwich boards and pull-up banners informing of events taking place was a sign for the 'Ambassadors and Heads of Mission Souses and Diplomatic Spouses' Diplomatic Bazaar 2010. Is that like W.A.Gs of the diplomatic world?

Before I get a barrage of hatemail, I do admire those who give their lives to helping others, and who do what, in their opinion, they can to help those in the developing world. After all I can't really speak. All I do is travel to these countries and spend a small few pennies on bananas, a fruit, which with or without my miserly investments will be extinct in a few years anyway.