It’s when a sport and nation become inseparably linked in the public imagination: Canada with hockey, New Zealand with rugby, India with cricket.
And, of course, Kenya with running.
The world’s greatest racing nation will be well represented today in the 26th Times Colonist 10K through the streets of the B.C. capital.
But the Kenyans’ one Achilles heel could be the cool, damp weather, which may face the 10,527 runners, 8,973 of whom are registered for the 10K race, 538 for the half-marathon and 1,016 for the kid’s run.
“If it’s going to be cold, it’s going to be cold for everybody,” said a philosophical Benard Ngeno, who is targeting the podium today regardless of weather fair or foul.
He has a way of just going with the flow. All he did last weekend was step off the plane from Kenya the night before in Vancouver and then go out the next morning and place seventh in the 45,000-participant Sun Run.
“I no longer have the jet lag [in Victoria],” said Ngeno, who won the Kenyan colleges 10,000-metre championship in 29:19.
So watch out. This guy has some serious goals. He wants to make the Kenyan Olympic track team, which is kind of like a Canadian hockey player saying he wants to make Team Canada. It’s the equivalent of when then-outsider Jamie Benn of Victoria targeted the Canadian hockey team for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and achieved his golden dream.
“It’s hard to make it [onto the Kenyan Olympic track team]. But if you train well, anything is possible. I believe it is achievable,” said Ngeno, who is targeting “27, 28 or 29 minutes” for the Kenyan trials next year.
Ngeno will be challenged today by fellow Kenyans, including 2013 Times Colonist 10K-champion Paul Kimaiyo Kumugul and Leonard Kipkoech, the latter third last weekend in the massive Sun Run and who is targeting a 29:00 clocking in Victoria.
A few droplets of rain, if they come, aren’t going to hamper Kipkoech.
“The cold doesn’t affect me . . . I don’t mind it,” he said.
Two-time defending women’s Times Colonist 10K-champion Jane Murage, however, isn’t so sanguine about a potentially cool morning running beside the Pacific.
“I don’t like running in the cold . . . my knees get hard,” she said.
“But you can’t change the weather. So you have to change your attitude. Just wear a long-sleeve T-shirt.”
But something does take the chill out of the air here for Murage.
“I love Victoria because the people are so warm,” she said.
Professional road racing is a interesting sub-scene of the sporting world, as runners go from race to race and city to city across North America and Europe.
“We train so hard because training and racing are our jobs,” said Murage, who was third woman across in the Sun Run.
“We can do it as a living.”
The prize purse for the elites in the Times Colonist 10K is $16,750.
For the rest of the 10,000-plus back in the pack, taking part will have to suffice as its own reward.
