Interview with Catherine Ndereba

By Duncan Larkin

Catherine Ndereba, 35, is one of the best female marathoners in history. A former world record-holder at the distance (2:18:47 at the 2001 La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon), Ndereba won the Olympic silver medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. In addition to these Herculean feats, she is a four-time winner of the Boston Marathon (the first and only woman to hold this distinction) and a two-time winner of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon (2000 and 2001). She is remarkably consistent, having run 12 sub-2:26 performances and three sub-2:20s in her career. Runner’s World ranked her the #1 Runner of the Year for five years.

In the summer of 1994, while working as a prison guard at the Kenya Prisons College in Nairobi, she met her husband, Anthony Maina. Two years into her meteoric running career (1997), Ndereba decided to take a year off from racing to have a child, Jane, now 10. Since that time, Ndereba has split her time between her home in Nyeri, Kenya, where her daughter and husband live, and at her training base in Royersford, Pennsylvania.

This Sunday August 5, Ndereba is racing in the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, where she is the defending champion, having won the inaugural race in 2006, and a top contender for the win.

Fast-women.com caught up with Ndereba via phone as she was receiving a post-run massage after her second run for the day.

Fast-women.com: How’s your fitness? How has your training been going?

Catherine Ndereba: It’s going well. In fact, I feel like my speed is getting back. It’s on the right track.

FW: In a previous interview, you mentioned that you wanted to run under a 1:10 half-marathon to see where your fitness was. In that same interview, you said that if you didn’t run that fast (sub-1:10), then you’d be doing some more speedwork. You ran a 1:11 half-marathon in Sapporo, Japan, earlier this month.

CN: Yes, July 8.

FW: How did that race go? It’s a minute off what you wanted to run. Have you adjusted your training to do more speedwork now since you didn’t get under 1:10?

CN: It depends. When you do a race and you have a lot of mileage in your body, your legs get kind of sluggish. So now I have to look at balancing my mileage [with my] speedwork. It’s going well. .

FW: Were you pleased with that race?

CN: Yes, I was pleased. Based on the mileage I had and my training that week, I was pleased—really pleased. I was not disappointed.

FW: What kind of speedwork are you doing—like mile repeats or 1K repeats?

CN: I’m doing 1K repeats.

FW: The typical Kenyan approach to recovery running is to not care about the pace during that easy session. Do you find yourself running like that the day after your hard workout?

CN: Yes. That’s how I normally plan my training. After a hard training day, I have to have an easy performing day to get my body balanced and back to how it was.

FW: Do you not care about your pace on those days—taking it slow?

CN: Yeah. I take it slow.

FW: You have amazing running mechanics and posture. Many Kenyans do a lot of drills to build those characteristics. Do you do a lot of drills?

CN: [Laughing] I don’t know. You know, that’s the hardest part of my training. I hate them [laughing]. They are tough; I’m not very good at them.

FW: So, I take it you don’t like doing them.

CN: I don’t like doing them, to be honest [laughing]. Drills are so good. They work your speed; they work your strength. You know, there are likes and dislikes. Sometimes you enjoy part of your training and sometimes you don’t. Those [drills] are the parts of my training that I don’t usually enjoy. But I know they are very good.

FW: Are you still coached by Mostafa El-Nechchadi?

CN: Yes.

FW: I read that he said your highest weekly mileage total is 100 miles. Is that true?

CN: Yes. Maybe sometimes when I’m at my peak mileage.

FW: A lot of your competitors run more mileage than that. Does that bother you? And, how did you settle on the 100-mile weekly number?

CN: What I do is what is comfortable. I can only handle what I can handle. It doesn’t bother me that my opponents are running 120 to 130 miles. There is a different amount of mileage that each individual can handle. Each individual is different.

FW: Do you find that when you go over 100 miles a week, your body has a hard time adjusting?

CN: Yes. If I go over 100 miles in one week, the following week I feel like, “Wow. I’m done.” I need some time to recover.

FW: Do you run your mileage mostly in doubles?

CN: Yeah. I do a morning session and evening session, [but] not every day.

FW: Regarding the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the weather and the air pollution are going to be factors for the marathon. These conditions should be similar to those that you faced in Athens in 2004 when you won a silver medal. What did you do to prepare for the weather and pollution in Athens and will you be doing the same thing as you train for Beijing?

CN: Well, I did all my training in the [United] States. I believe that for the weather and the conditions, I don’t have to do anything. All I’m going to do is the best I can do in my training and the rest will take care of itself.

FW: You train out in Valley Forge National Historical Park, correct?

CN: Yes.

FW: I run out there and have seen you and your teammates training. I noticed that on a hot day, some of you appear to be overdressed—wearing more clothes than what is right for the weather. What’s the reason for that?

CN: I really don’t know. For me, I just run in a t-shirt and tights. I don’t know how to run in shorts. I only wear shorts when I’m racing or relaxing. For training I prefer to have the skin-tight tights or something thicker when it’s warm. But some guys, depending on which part of Kenya they come from, they can train in a full track suit.

FW: You’ve had great placings from year to year; but since 2001, when you ran the world record, your times have declined. I think you probably want to get back under a 2:20 [marathon]. What will it take to do that?

CN: Well, I can’t tell what it will take. Sometimes it’s hard to do it. You can think of the Olympics. The main goal for that kind of competition is the medal so you could look for the time and end up losing everything. [In those races] you need to run and feel what’s best for you.

FW: Have you ever considered running distances longer than the marathon?

CN: Oh, never. I don’t think of that at all.

FW: Have you ever thought about coaching?

CN: Yes. Coaching is much better.

FW: Why wouldn’t you want to run longer than a marathon?

CN: Oh, man! I guess I’ve put a lot of mileage in and if you want to run a longer race, you have to put in more. I don’t think I need it.

FW: Have you ever beat your brother [world class runner Samuel Ndereba] in training?

CN: I don’t think so. I don’t think I can beat my brother [laughing]. He’s too fast.

FW: Regarding your daughter, Jane, do you have plans to encourage her to take up running?

CN: Well, when she was young, she used to like running, but not anymore. Maybe at some time it will come back. For now, she doesn’t like it. But I don’t blame her. She has the talent. Maybe she thinks that running causes her mom to leave her all the time. On the other hand, she may think that it is much more stressful. She sees how I am when I come back from my road runs—I’m exhausted.

FW: I know that a lot of Kenyan women look up to you as a role model. What kind of advice do you give when you speak to them?

CN: The advice that I give is that I tell them to just keep on doing what I’m doing. When I have a challenge, I really don’t count it as a challenge. I count it as a stepping stone or my project. I don’t get down. I just keep on going.

FW: In a lot of your interviews you thank God and talk about your close relationship with God and your Christian faith. Have you ever wrestled internally with the potential inconsistencies of living selflessly and humbly in the way that your faith prescribes versus seeking individual achievement and winning that are inherent in becoming a world-class athlete? I know a few Christian runners have struggled with this paradox.

CN: Well. I’ve never thought about it. What I know is that I never wrestle with God. Because I know, very well, that my running is a gift from God. He gave it to me with a purpose. He gave it do me so that I can go inside Him with it. Whenever I run and win, it is not me who is winning, it is the Christ in me because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I’m able to do without Him. I get that from the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13, that says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And in the book of Deuteronomy where it says that the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. So I believe in God, in He who has saved us. He is very faithful to keep his word and the Bible tells me that.

FW: You went to a school for prison guards and started your running career while working as one. I don’t think there many elite marathoners in the West that did this kind of work. I know that job takes a lot of discipline.

CN: Yeah. It takes a lot of discipline and I like it.

FW: Did that prison guard experience help you in any way with your running?

CN: Definitely. To do anything, if you want to be successful in anything, you have got to be self-disciplined. My experience really helped me with that. I really thank God for blessing me with that kind of job. It has really played a role in my development. I joined the prison right after high school and I came to run a lot of things through them [the Prisons College] and it was there where I got to develop my running career. That was the very first time that I got a running coach—from the prison. He is still there training people and helping them to get somewhere.

Interview conducted July 27, 2007, and posted August 2, 2007.