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The Daily Free Press) - By 2:15 p.m. last Monday, Kenya had reclaimed victory in the Boston Marathon, after relinquinquishing its hold for a single year. This year, the nation's athletes had swept the top spots, finishing first, second, third, fourth, sixth, and seventh in mens' and first and second in womens' races. While they relaxed and recovered, the rest of the world's runners caught up. Kenyans lead the pack when it comes to long-distance running.
A decade of leading the top-10 rankings in the Boston Marathon suggests the Kenyans have something the rest of us just can't quite master.
The Kenyan combination of body structure and lifestyle make their mountain culture a close match to that of our elite runner ancestors. Their ability to maintain that culture enables them to keep on running, just as humans did millions of years ago to survive.
The Kenyan physique, of all the bodies in the world, most closely resembles our ancient mom and pop. The first inkling of our modern body type — the runner — is dated to about 1.8 million years back. Around this time, savannas and plains were growing, and forests were becoming fewer and fewer on Africa's mainland, our ancestors' home.
In the 200,000 years before modern man came into the picture, the human body had evolved from a stumpy-legged, big-bellied primate that only occasionally walked upright into the lean, long-legged figure we worship today.
In a time and place where food meant survival, our Homo ergaster ancestors had to be able to run long distances just to live day to day.
Boston University professor of Anthropology Dr. Laura MacLatchy said it's hard to determine exactly why we adapted to such an efficient body type, though Darwin's theory of natural selection ("Survival of the Fittest") probably has a lot to do with it.
"We're very good at pursuing prey," she said. "Unlike most of the animals we would chase, our efficiency doesn't vary with speed."
MacLatchy said although humans may not rank among the fastest of the animals, we rank at the top when it comes to endurance. Because of our efficiency, we can outrun animals that run twice our speed.
"Because we're very good at sweating and thermoregulation, we can run long distances," she said. "We can chase an animal until it is worn down, and we can catch up with it."
It is believed humans' hairlessness and incomparably large number of sweat glands evolved to help our ancestors shed excess heat while running.
Today, however, running has little to do with food in western culture. Westerners often run for exercise and recreation. Kenyans, says MacLatchy, still run for the right reasons.
"Kenyan children travel a long way to school every day," MacLatchy said. "You are automatically at a disadvantage if you start running at a later age."
Unlike America, Kenya follows the recruitment practices of countries like Romania and China, where toddlers are evaluated and sent to live at specialized sports schools to train. This practice in Kenya enhances its abilty to consistently produce the top runners in the world.
Sports Medicine Chiropractor and 15-time marathoner Dr. Tim Maggs of Scotia, N.Y., brought 16 elite Kenyan runners to live and train in his home in 1993. After observing diet, training and lifestyle habits, Maggs said it's easy to see why the Kenyans are so fast.
"They are raised in such deprivation," he said. "Life becomes single-minded, goal-oriented."
Kenyans live virtually stress-free compared to westerners. "Stress for [westerners] is that a button fell off their shirt or their radio stopped working," Maggs said.
Biologically, Kenyans tend to have ideal bodies for running. They hover at 5 feet 7 inches tall and 120 lbs.
Kenyans aren't just great runners, though. They are also great trainers and great adapters. A recent study in western Kenya explored the phenomenon of women who carry one-fifth of their own body weight on their head as they walk for up to eight hours each day.
Dr. Norman Heglund of Belgium and colleague Dr. Giovanni Cavagna of Italy found that Kenyan women are able to adjust their walk to be more efficient and economical while they carry heavy loads atop their heads. This involuntary adjustment means the women need the same amount of oxygen to carry 25 lbs. as they do to walk with no extra weight — something other humans cannot seem to do.
Maggs and MacLatchy predict that because women fit the Kenyan mold naturally with their smaller frames, built-in determination and stamina, they will soon outrun the men.
As a result of the high-altitude training and their ability to adapt, it will likely be a Kenyan woman that makes the leap and beats the men in a coming race, they said.
The differences between Kenyan and American lifestyles runs beyond tradition and biology, Maggs said.
While Kenyan bodies are lean and well balanced from a life of hard work and physical challenges, technology-dependent and tool-oriented western cultures have an admitted problem with weight maintenance. Maggs said the prosperity of westerners hinders their ability to run.
"Affluence is a negative when it comes to running," he said. "We're all about glory. The typical American takes off at the crucial point in a marathon, while a Kenyan just keeps pacing himself."
So where, when and how did this biological divergence take place? About 100,000 years after modern man stepped out of his cave, according to a team of researchers who discovered an important piece of evidence in May 2000.
An international team found the skull of what lead researcher Susan Anton from the University of Florida calls "the African version of Homo erectus," or modern man. The key in the finding was the discovery was made in Georgia, a country on the Black Sea just north of Turkey.
Anton's report of the discovery in Science suggests our ancestors' early migration out of Africa was "appetite-driven."
Appetite is the one thing that still drives the Kenyans, Maggs said, and Americans seem to have lost their appetite. He says Kenyans could live in America for years, but they would still eat the same, they would still train the same and they would still be excited about the simple things.
Maggs was not surprised, then, when he walked into his living room to see the Kenyan men ecstatic over playing checkers in a Nike shoebox.
Maggs said it would be equally to train an American to run like a Kenyan because of the differences in body shape and mentality that have developed over the last 1.7 million years.
"If a westerner were to go at the age of three and come back at 20, he might have a chance," Maggs said. "Of course, that 3-year-old would have to have the right body type and determination that the Kenyans are all born with for him to even have a chance."
He noted that American Josh Cox trained in Kenya before running in Boston in 2001. Yet, Cox sprinted ahead at mile 20, like any American would do, Maggs said. Only four months of training can't have much effect, since living like the Kenyans takes a longer amount of time, he said.
Though difficult and unlikely, out-running a Kenyan is not impossible. The marathon world record holder, just crowned for a second time at the London Marathon on April 14, is a Moroccan-born American named Khalid Khannouchi.
Khannouchi is one of very few who runs consistently faster than the Kenyans. Right behind him in London, of course, was a Kenyan.
