by Mo Farah
‘Slow down!’ he called out. ‘Faster! No, no! Slower!’
In a way, I could sympathize with Craig. When I was at the front, the pace was up and down, all over the place. When I followed him it was much easier, but then he was having to do all the work. At the time my main focus was to keep up with him and not get dropped. No doubt Craig was wondering what I was doing, keeping up with him at the end of a session but not helping with the pace. Simply put, I wasn’t helping him out. All I was doing was making him more and more annoyed. Towards the end of the session Craig exploded.
‘Why don’t you lead?’ he shouted. ‘If you can keep up with me, why don’t you lead instead of sitting on my tail!’
I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I just looked at Craig and shrugged. ‘What’s his problem?’ I thought to myself. Looking back on it, I realize he was understandably pissed off with me for not doing my job properly. That was a lesson well learnt.
Waiting to make my first appearance in the 2006 Commonwealth Games was a nerve-racking experience. I remember being in the call room in the bowels of Melbourne Cricket Ground, waiting for my turn to enter the stadium. I was competing in the same event as Craig: the 5000 metres. I could hear the noise of the crowd, people roaring and cheering. Some of the other athletes looked white with fear. That was the most nervous and tense I’ve ever felt before a race. I’d never competed in front of anything like that crowd before. This was a huge step up for me, a huge test of my abilities. I didn’t want to let my country down.
As I walked out onto the track with the other runners, I was confronted by this wall of noise. I’d never experienced anything like it. Camera flashes going off everywhere. A hundred thousand people screaming their support for Craig Mottram, the local hero. He was undoubtedly the star attraction of the games. They had come to see him mixing it up with the East Africans. I don’t remember much about the actual race, except that I finished in a disappointing ninth place. 13:40.53. Craig came second, behind another Kenyan athlete, Augustine Choge, with World Champion Benjamin Limo third and Joseph Ebuya fourth.
I knew I could’ve done better than ninth. I let myself down. I trained too much, too hard during my time at the camp in Falls Creek. I was doing everything the same as Craig. The runs, the gym work, the recovery sessions. In the end, I put in a lot more work at the camp than I should have done. There was no need for me to follow Craig’s routine, to match him in training. He was older than me. He had been a professional athlete for longer. I should have reined myself in. Instead I went into the Commonwealth Games feeling tired, and I paid the price.
I was determined to make up for my poor showing in the summer. In my heart I knew I could do a lot better than 13:40. I’d shown that much in training. At the KBC Nacht of Athletics in Belgium in 2006 I had the chance to prove it.
There are two major athletics meetings held in Belgium. One is the Diamond League meet in Brussels. The other is held in Heusden in July. I was competing in the 5000 metres. Micah Kogo was there. So too was James Murigi and Gamal Belal Salem, a naturalized Qatari born in Kenya. All three were athletes I’d trained with in Teddington. Also on the start line was an experienced indoor runner, Mark Bett, and Ali Abdalla of Eritrea. Micah Kogo won the race. I came home in sixth place. But that didn’t matter. I’d clocked a time of 13:09.40. Prior to that race my best time at 5000 metres was 13:30.53 in Solihull at the British Milers’ Club event the previous summer. For me, that was a massive leap in performance. Not only had I significantly improved my time, it was also fast enough to make me the second-fastest British runner after Dave Moorcroft. It was the big breakthrough I was looking for. I had made a statement. I was starting to get respect on the circuit. And at the European Championships in Gothenburg the following month, I had the chance to do even better.
Gothenburg was my first major track appearance since Melbourne. I was determined to make up for my poor showing. More than that, I wanted to go for the win. I felt I had a good chance of success at the Europeans. I would be better prepared this time. And there would be no East African runners to compete against. I viewed Gothenburg as a big opportunity to win a medal and earn some serious respect on the senior circuit.
In the 5000 metres heats I finished third behind Eduard Bordukov of Russia and Khalid Zoubaa of France. Three days later, I woke up to compete in the final. It was raining that afternoon. I felt a little nervous before the race. Ahead of the final, Paula Radcliffe gave me some important last-minute advice.
‘Go out there and be brave,’ she told me. ‘Just believe in yourself.’
I remembered those words as I stepped out into Ullevi stadium. People in the crowd were waving the Union Jack. The field was strong. Spain had a tradition of producing good distance runners, as did France. The European field was generally considered very strong heading into the championships.
The main threat, I knew, would come from Jesús España. He had good speed and was the man to beat. The way people think of me now, as the distance runner with good speed in the sprint finish? That’s what people thought of España back in 2006. I had a strategy all planned out for beating him. My aim was to take the sting out of him by constantly pushing the pace, winding it up, making him run harder. By the time the last lap came around, España wouldn’t have the mileage left in him to sprint ahead of me. I didn’t worry about anything else. I just had to focus on my game plan.
The race began. At the start the pace was quite slow. That suited me just fine. I slowly wound it up. With about a mile to go, I surged to the front of the pack, winding up and winding up. Going faster and faster. The race was going to plan. The pace was picking up. Then the bell rang. One lap to go – everybody kicked on. Thirteen guys gritting their teeth in pain, giving it everything. I was still leading the way as I steered into the back straight. Then I saw someone coming up on my shoulder. I recognized him as the Turkish runner Halil Akkas. I couldn’t afford to let him pass, so I dug in and sprinted away from him, running as fast as I could. I was flying now. With just 150 metres to go, this race was mine to lose. As I came into the home straight, I thought that I’d done enough to fend off my rivals.
Then I saw this blur of red surge past me. Number 245 pinned to the back of his jersey.
España.
Somehow he managed to open up this tiny gap ahead of me. We’re talking inches. I dug in hard. I was going flat out, straining every sinew to catch my rival. With the finish line in sight, I managed to close the gap between us. The inches disappeared. We were neck and neck as we raced towards the line. Then España did something incredible. He found the strength to kick on and nudged a fraction ahead of me as we reached the line. He’d clocked in at 13:44.70. I finished on 13:44.79. One hundredth of a second between us. España had edged the gold. I was gutted.
At the end of the race he put his arm around me. ‘Don’t feel so bad,’ he said. I could barely hear his voice above the din of the crowd. ‘Okay, you lost today. But your time will come.’
I tried to smile back at him. I did a lap of honour to thank the crowd for their support, but I didn’t really feel like doing it. I was hurting inside. The fans were great: they had travelled a long way and the least they deserved was a show of my appreciation. They were cheering me and clapping and shouting, ‘Well done, Mo!’ as I went round. I waved back, trying to look pleased. Maybe I should have been happy with that silver, but deep down I was bitterly disappointed. I couldn’t stop thinking about how close I’d come to winning that gold. If I’d been well beaten on the day, I might have been able to deal with it. But with 200 metres to go, I’d believed the gold medal was in the bag.
Tactically, España had run a good race, making sure he had enough speed left in the tank to kick on with a couple of hundred metres to go. I hadn’t done well enough at the kick. After Gothenburg, I decided that I needed to work on my speed. Up to that point in my career, I didn’t believe in my speed at the sprint finish. I knew I was fast, but I would never plan a race around bursting ahead once I’
d heard the bell. Instead, I’d wind it up gradually with two or three laps to go, slowly increasing my speed so that, as the finish line drew near, I’d be pulling clear of the group. Clearly, if I wanted to get better, I needed to get faster.
Once I got over the disappointment of losing out to España on the home straight and processed my defeat, I realized that there was a silver lining to my performance. It was the first sign to me that I’d made the right choice by moving in with the Kenyans. I’d made a lot of sacrifices: going out with my friends, staying out late, pursuing other interests off the track. But I finally felt as if all my hard work was beginning to pay off. That feeling of standing on the podium with a medal round your neck – it was totally worth it. It was worth everything. I wanted more of the same.
On the back of finishing second at the Europeans I secured a good contract with adidas. When I heard how much adidas were going to pay me, I had to sit down and catch my breath. It wasn’t millions, but it was way more than I’d earned in athletics up to that point. From now on I wouldn’t have to pull shifts at the Sweatshop. I traded up my old Fiesta to a red Peugeot 206. Now I was really going places.
With the track season over, I went away to South Africa for a month in a training camp in Durban. I came back home in time for the start of the cross country season. It was late November 2006 and I felt in great shape heading into the next race, a 9 kilometre course in Dunkirk, France. I won the race, beating Micah Kogo. That result caused a huge stir. At the time, Micah was the number one in the world at 10,000 metres. Beating him was a big deal for me personally, and it put me in good form going into the final major event of the year: the European Cross Country Championships in San Giorgio, Italy.
I wasn’t the hot favourite at San Giorgio. That honour went to the Ukrainian, Sergiy Lebid, who had dominated European cross country for years. He’d won the title five times in a row, from 2001 to 2005, and everyone fancied him to walk away with it a sixth time. I told myself, ‘I need to beat Lebid if I’m going to stand any chance of winning this thing.’ I’m sure he was looking at my result in Dunkirk and thinking, ‘I’ve got to watch out for this kid.’ That definitely gave me a little bit of an edge going into the race. You want your opponents to be worried about what you can do. It gives you a psychological boost.
San Giorgio is a great cross country course. It’s not too hilly – just a few man-made hills around the track – and it’s mostly flat, which suits my running style. It was cold that day, the kind of cold that eats into your bones. No snow, just mud. Lots and lots of mud. Beforehand Alan Storey told me, ‘Wait as late as possible before making your move, Mo.’
I started working my way through the pack and building up my speed. With two laps of the course to go, I swept ahead of the lead group. Soon I’d created a big gap between myself and the second-placed runner. I’d gone a bit earlier than Alan would have liked, but I felt comfortable with it. I was having to work really hard, digging deep. A quick glance over my shoulder going into the last lap, and I couldn’t see Lebid anywhere. The Ukrainian favourite was way back in the chasing pack. I knew then that I’d won for sure. I was unstoppable.
I won the 9.95 kilometre race with a time of 27:56, a good 10 seconds ahead of Portugal’s Fernando Silva. Juan Carlos de la Ossa of Spain was third. Lebid finished way down the list in eleventh. I hadn’t just beaten Lebid; I’d crushed him. It was the first time he’d missed out on the European title since 2000.
This huge feeling of relief washed over me when I won. Living with the Kenyans – training as they did – it had worked. I’d made a real breakthrough at San Giorgio. Winning that first major title on the world stage is something every athlete dreams of. I’d always known that I had it in me to win races at the senior level, but as long as that first title evades you, these little doubts linger at the back of your mind. The ones reminding you about all those other outstanding junior athletes who never quite stepped up. You’d overhear people saying, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember so-and-so. He was good as a junior. He went to the world juniors but he never broke through as a senior. Whatever happened to him?’ That wasn’t going to be me. Now I had the title to prove it.
It was the perfect end to a good year.
10
THE CAMP
‘FARAH!’ the Kenyan athletes would say whenever the time came for one of them to return home. ‘You simply must come to Kenya, Farah.’ For some reason, the Kenyans always insisted on calling everyone by their surname. ‘It’ll be fun. You can see my house. I will introduce you to my family. You can see where I grew up.’
It goes without saying that Kenyans are some of the most hospitable, welcoming people you’ll ever meet. They pride themselves on having good manners and always being polite and softly spoken. Almost as soon as I’d moved into the house, John Kibowen, Benjamin Limo and the rest were on my case to visit them. I liked the idea of heading out to Kenya and seeing how they trained at altitude. I knew that PACE ran a camp in Kaptagat for the Kenyan athletes it represented, but it was unheard of for Brits to train there. The main problem was finding a slot in my schedule to get out there for a month or six weeks because 2006 was a busy year for me. In terms of my training, I knew I’d made the right call in living with the Kenyans. To improve further, I had to keep doing even more of the same things. More sessions. More attention to my diet. More recovery.
Then, in 2007, I made another huge stride in my career. At the World Cross Country Championship in Mombasa, Kenya, I finished eleventh – an unbelievable result and the best of my career to date, especially considering the unbearably hot weather, with athletes dropping like flies throughout the race, and the fact that I’d suffered food poisoning in the Durban camp before the race. Eleventh place made me the highest-placed European in the race.
Even better was to follow. In August I travelled to Osaka in Japan for the World Championships. Competing in the 5000 metres, I finished sixth behind Bernard Lagat, Eliud Kipchoge, Moses Kipsiro, Matt Tegenkamp of the USA and Tariku Bekele, Kenenisa’s younger brother. This was another big step forward to add to my very positive performance in Mombasa. The only disappointment was that I was still falling short of winning or even getting a medal. A pattern was starting to emerge. I was finishing ahead of the Europeans, but behind the leading pack of Kenyans, Ethiopians and Eritreans. Coming so soon after beating Micah Kogo in Dunkirk and winning the European Cross Country Championship in San Giorgio, I knew I had the talent. I had no doubt I was on the right track with my training, but I had to take it to the next level. I knew then what I had to do.
I had to go to Kenya.
I ran four more races after Osaka, a 3000 metres race in Zurich in early September, the 3000 and 5000 in the World Athletics Finals in Stuttgart, and a 3 kilometre road race in Newcastle. At the end of the month a deal was arranged with UK Athletics that enabled me to travel and train in Kenya. UKA generously agreed to pay for my flight, and I’d stay in Benjamin Limo’s house in Kaptagat.
I couldn’t wait to get out there. My belief has always been: if you want to be the best, you’ve got to learn from the best. The Kenyans and Ethiopians were dominating the distance events. I’d learnt so much just from living with each of them for a few weeks in Teddington; I’d learn a whole lot more by living with these guys in their own back yard.
From the moment I arrived at Kaptagat, Benjamin Limo and the other guys made me feel at home. They didn’t have to do that. These were world-class distance runners who’d beaten me time and again on the track. They didn’t have to give me the time of day. Some of them I didn’t even know that well. And yet they welcomed me with open arms. That’s very typical of the Kenyans; they have a humble, gracious mentality.
Kaptagat is a tiny village set high up in the mountains, at almost 2500 metres. It’s also near the equator, so it’s dry and sunny all year round. Many of the great Kenyan athletes lived and trained in Kaptagat: Vivian Cheruiyot, Daniel Komen, Sally Barsosio, Elijah Lagat, Moses Tanui, Brimin Kipruto. The village is totally isolated
. The roads are dusty, red dirt trails criss-crossing the rocky hills. The people live in shacks. Kids run around barefoot. Up there in the mountains is as basic as you can get. You’re on the edge of the Rift Valley, surrounded by this vast wilderness of acacia trees and tall elephant grass. If you want to go to the shops, their nearest town is Eldoret, a good 25-minute drive away.
There’s no hot water in Kaptagat. If you want to wash, you have to boil water in a big pot. There’s no such thing as an oven, either. Cooking is done over an open fire, and we’d collect firewood for this purpose at the end of training each day. The food was usually chicken – preferably a live one that the Kenyan runners would catch. I remember sitting down to my first meal at the camp, my belly growling with hunger.
‘Hey, Farah!’ one of the guys called out. ‘You must eat lunch with us.’
‘Yeah, yeah, cool,’ I replied quickly. ‘What’s for lunch?’ Thinking they were going to rustle up a tasty stew, or maybe a serving of ugali.
‘Chicken!’ the guy replied. I frowned. I didn’t see any chicken meat anywhere. Then he pointed to a chicken pecking at the soil by his feet and grinned. ‘I think this one will do nicely!’
When there weren’t any chickens to hand, the guys would cook big pots of ugali. I shared a room with three other athletes training in the village, following their routine. I ate when they ate, I slept when they slept, and I trained when they trained.
At first, adjusting to life at the camp was a bit of a culture shock. I had to make do without the luxuries we all take for granted in the West. They had satellite TV with a lot of sports channels but there was nothing else, no Internet, no shops, restaurants or cinema. I had to drink bottled water because my stomach couldn’t tolerate the tap water the Kenyan guys were drinking. Kids ran alongside me, keeping up the pace and shouting, ‘How are you?’ Others shouted, ‘Mzungo! Mzungo!’, which means ‘white man’ in Swahili but they also use it for anyone who is a foreigner.