Club Member, Fred Davies , spent some time training before the London Marathon running 2.27.27 (nearly 5 minute off his previous best) in Ethiopia, see his story below
Here is a summary of my experience while training at altitude and living for 2 months in a continent that I’ve never been to before.
During my trip I stayed in Addis Ababa and trained with an elite distance running group called Moyo Sports. Our Shettleston Harriers teammate, 2022 British Marathon Champion, and someone you all know, Weynay Ghebresilasie helped me arrange accommodation in an area called Kotebe and I would go with him to the nearby forest for easy training. Hard training consisted of 3-4 sessions per week and these were at specific locations outside of Addis and were normally around a 30 minute to 1 hour
drive away.
The athletes in Ethiopia regard the location of training very highly and each location has a certain significance for developing an area of overall fitness and ‘condition’. Akaki Kality is the location of a long, winding gravel road. Ethiopian athletes call gravel roads “Corraconch” as this is the sound they hear when people run on it and they train on Corraconch as it easier to run fast here than in the forest but the surface is kinder to the legs than an asphalt road and reduces the impact greatly, reducing the chance of injury.
The various elite groups in Ethiopia will run speed sessions here or long runs of up to 40km.
The large forest on Entoto mountain climbs to around 3200m and athletes see it as a powerful and sacred place because of the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude and the presence of Orthodox Christian churches on the mountain. Orthodox Christianity is the most prevalent religion in Ethiopia and when athletes can train surrounded by churches, they believe they can be closer to God and that God can give them strength in their training. Easy, recovery runs or Monday long runs of up to 3 hours will take place in Entoto and the athletes will wind through the trees in a single file line, the leader choosing the
route at random and changing direction often to provide the athletes with a form of active
loosening and massaging of the legs. There are Hyenas in the forests in Ethiopia and
while they are often wary of humans, it is dangerous to run in the forest alone as the mothers can be aggressive if protecting their young.
Sendafa is the location of the only asphalt road that the athletes train on. There are only so many paved roads in Ethiopia and this may be one of the only ones that is consistently paved for a large enough distance to train on. The group would either be dropped off at the far end and would run back towards Addis or some runs would consist of an out-and-back route; training in Sendafa would normally be
longer speed sessions of up to 30km or faster long runs of over 40km!
The athlete bus and convoy of cars would usually stop every 5km to give bottles to the athletes as fuelling with carbohydrate and electrolyte drinks is very important during such difficult sessions. Athletes here train a maximum of once per week on asphalt roads, it is a surface that allows them to run fast but does have a much higher impact on the muscles than other surfaces. This is quite a contrast from athletes
training in Europe, where nearly all training occurs on paved roads. The final training locations are Kenenisa Stadium in Sululta and Legetafo Legedadi Stadium, these are both locations for track sessions but they’re slightly different. The Kenenisa Stadium track is a standard 400m athletics track with a Mondo rubber surface and we would run repetitions of 1-3 mins or 400-1200m here. The rubber surface is comfortable to run on and isn’t a high impact surface but the intensity of these speed sessions would mean the athletes’ legs will still feel fatigued afterwards.
The Legetafo Legedadi Stadium has a 400m track but the surface is Corraconch, we would do slightly different sessions to the ones mentioned previously on the 1.5km loop around the Stadium. This
loop is also Corraconch and was built to accommodate more athletes and allow members of the public to run too. We would run sessions of 1km reps or 4 min reps on the loop.
The athlete on my left in this photo is Kenenisa Bekele, arguably the best distance runner ever, 5,000m and 10,000m World Record holder for 16 years and multiple Olympic and World Champion.
Training at high altitude is very important for the athletes in Ethiopia and most believe that only the best performances can be achieved by training at high altitude. Kotebe, where most of the elite athletes lived in rented guest houses or small houses that they owned, is at an altitude of 2400m but most training would take place higher than this.
The small forest in Yeka where recovery runs would take place was around 2700m, Entoto, as mentioned earlier was between 2700-3200m, Sendafa is around 2600m and Akaki Kality was actually slightly lower at around 2100m. Training in Akaki Kality would feel a little more comfortable to train at when it came to difficulty of breathing but, due to its lower altitude, it would be hotter, often reaching 30 degrees Celsius
during hard sessions. The reason that being at high altitude leads to more difficult but more beneficial training is that at higher altitudes air pressure is lower and this leads to the air being less dense and in turn, this means the air is less oxygen dense. Breathing in air that is less oxygen dense means that the body struggles to absorb as much oxygen as it usually would to supply to the muscles during exercise and this leads to athletes becoming out of breath and fatigued more quickly. This effect is known as being in a state of Hypoxia and can even lead to illness, known as altitude sickness. The reason this can improve fitness is that the body will adapt to these conditions by producing more blood cells and this means that there are more red blood cells to absorb oxygen from the air in the lungs and deliver it to the muscles. This takes a few weeks to occur and red blood cell count will continue to increase even after a
number of months at a high altitude. This is a way for an athlete that is accustomed to training and racing at sea level to become a lot fitter and efficient as once they return to sea level for a race, they now have a higher red blood cell count and can absorb more oxygen from the air than they were able to before training at altitude. The higher density of oxygen particles in the air will now make the athlete feel as if they can breathe more easily and stave off lactic acid build up more easily and they’ll be absorbing more oxygen to supply their muscles than they were once able to.
While the purpose of my trip to Ethiopia was to train for the London Marathon, I did also immerse myself in the local culture of Addis outside of training and one large part of that was the period of Lent and Easter. Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Christians observe Lent for 55 days and their Easter weekend falls a week after it does here in the UK. Lent in Ethiopia and Eritrea is a fasting period and is observed by fasting, eating one meal per day and only after 3pm, avoiding alcohol and removing all animal products from their diet. Most athletes observe fasting loosely as they require full nutrition to be healthy while training, so I followed their approach. Easter Sunday was a day of celebrating together and I joined the celebrations of some of the athletes I befriended; Easter is celebrated even more than Christmas Day so it was a privilege to be there for that weekend and celebrate with them. In general, Ethiopians eat a lot of meat when not fasting so Easter Sunday was quite the day of slaughter and a little shocking compared to buying a Christmas turkey from the supermarket. They mainly eat goat meat and often beef; goats are sold by the side of the road and butchered at home!
The food during the fasting period consists of dishes made from pulses, legumes and vegetables and normally have a rich sauce that is scooped up by hand with Enjera, a pancake-like flatbread with a bubbly, spongy texture, made from Teff, a type of millet and the batter is fermented to produce a slightly sour flavour. You can see an example of this food in one of the photos I’ve included, food like this is often served as multiple dishes on top of Enjera laid flat on a large plate and is then eaten with additional rolls of Enjera. I was told by the athletes that, while the traditional local food tastes good and is healthy, it doesn’t provide much energy for training so I had to revert to a diet of rice and pasta. I did become ill a few times, once from altitude sickness due to pushing my body early on at an altitude I wasn’t used to and two other times with food poisoning or a Typhoid-like illness. People that aren’t from Ethiopia can struggle with the change in diet but I think it was something I picked up on my hands that made me ill and I became even more careful about washing my hands after that! Another struggle during my time in Ethiopia was the fact that during Lent, the many local churches will have a priest delivering a sermon or singing hymns for hours on end played through a large loud speaker for the whole neighbourhood to
hear, at any time of day or night! This made it quite difficult to sleep and sleep is very important when training hard at high altitude. I eventually got used to it but for a while even with earplugs in I could hear every word.
If anyone wants to learn more about Ethiopian culture and the culture of distance running in Ethiopia, I’m happy to chat about it more and there’s a book that was part of my inspiration to travel there called Out of Thin Air by Michael Crawley. There are a lot of parallels between his research and my trip and the intricacies of distance running in Ethiopia are fascinating!
My time in Ethiopia was a mix of tough training, difficult lessons and a fair share of fatigue but with a lot of new knowledge, some great new friends who I’m still in contact with and some incredible memories. It was a steep learning curve but a very enjoyable and eye-opening one and I’ve not even mentioned
how my training has improved!
I managed to make the whole trip worth it by competing in the British Marathon Championships as part of the London Marathon and used my newly acquired red blood cells to run a 5 minute personal best of 2:27:27, position 70th of 48,000 runners and win Scottish Marathon Team Championship Gold alongside two fellow athletes of Shettleston Harriers, Weynay Ghebresilasie and Mark McKelvie.
This trip has given me a new level of fitness but not only that, it has given me the knowledge and experience to now push for greater achievements and who knows where that could take me.
