Kipyego running alongside Molly Huddle in the 10K at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. 

An exhausted Sally Kipyego clung to the railing that separated her from reporters in the Bird’s Nest. With long-winded breaths, she gave her immediate reaction to finishing fifth in the 10K at the 2015 World Championships.

 

In a matter of seconds, Kipyego lost a spot on the podium after running a pedestrian pace with the lead pack until 600m to go. It was then that Vivian Cheruiyot, Gelete Burka, Molly Huddle, and Emily Infeld finally unleashed the kick they had been conserving for the majority of the race. Despite Kipyego’s efforts of running with the leaders, the Olympic silver medalist was unable to match the sudden burst of energy and faded to fifth. 

 

She had missed a medal opportunity, and the frustration was apparent on her face.  

 

While the disappointment hung over her like a dark cloud, Kipyego had a secret she had yet to share. The track star had already committed to running her first marathon in New York City which at the time, was just 10 weeks away. 

 

A New Challenge

 

Fast-forward to two weeks before the race, and Kipyego sits in a house in Iten, Kenya. She is filled with nerves as well as excitement when asked about the opportunity that has presented itself so quickly since the frustrating day in Beijing. 

 

“For me, Beijing was a disappointment and so this is great for me to have something else to do, focus on as almost a different kind of motivation so to speak,” Kipyego said over Skype. 

 

“A new spark into my training because I’ve been preparing for 10Ks now for the last Olympic cycle and so I kind of needed a spark because Beijing was a disappointment. So coming back, I was excited to start something, something completely out of my comfort zone, something that I haven’t tried before,” she added. 

 

With just two half marathons to her name, the longest distance she has ever raced, Kipyego surprised many with the announcement that came so quickly after competing in a much shorter event on the track. But the marathon had been in the back of Kipyego’s mind since 2013, despite waiting less than three months prior to the race to tell her coach Mark Rowland. 

 

The Eugene-based Oregon Track Club athlete didn’t share her plans with her longtime coach until right before the World Championships in August when she finally made the decision to go for it. 
 

“I was fully committed to running the World Championships, that was the priority, that had never changed and I knew that was never going to shift….and so I did not mention it to him. I mean, I’ve thrown out the idea for a few years now so we’ve talked and we’ve joked about it so many times that Ithink he was anticipating,” Kipyego said. 

 

“I think at that point he kind of knew that I was leaning towards the road a bit and I needed a new challenge,” she said. 

 

Rowland was indeed anticipating some big news. After working with Kipyego for the past five years, he knows how to read her. 

 

“It was either going to be that [marathon] or she was retiring. I’d be lying if I didn’t think she had her moments,” Rowland said over the phone.

 

“She’s had her moments in the sun with the Olympics and the World Champs and getting medals there, you know, she’s been to the top. Maybe she felt like ‘well maybe I’ve had enough of that and I’m going in a different direction sort of thing,” he said. 

 

That direction was 13 miles longer than Kipyego had ever run, a distance that Rowland doesn’t coach often, but is more than willing to guide her through.

 

“We connected right in our early stages of our relationship, which was back in 2009-2010 so that bond is pretty close anyway, so that’s one thing, is you coach athletes first and event second,” Rowland said

 

Olympic Dreams Followed By Heartbreak

 

The Kenyan-born athlete has experienced numerous successes on the track — a silver medal in the 10K at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, a silver medal at the London Olympic Games in 2012, but the highs were followed by a career-threatening low when she broke her calcaneus, the bone in her heel, at the end of the 2012 track season.  

For two years, which included a stress fracture in the same spot in March 2013, Kipyego struggled to maintain health as she battled to regain the same form that earned her an Olympic medal. The difficult cycle of returning from injury took a toll on the gifted runner, which in turn, inspired her to seek a change. 

 

“Without being too dramatic, her career was over,” Rowland said. “She didn’t have a stress fracture, she broke her heel bone and that’s a potentially career-threatening injury, but she’s come back.”

 

“It can be mentally stressful just getting ready, always trying to rehabilitate from something like that…you just need a bit of a change you know? and I think that this period has provided her with that, and the gain after the marathon is going to be subtly different, but we just need to do something different and that’s what I’ve taken from the conversations I’ve had with her, that this would be a great stimulus,” he said. 

 

From 10K to 26.2

 

Since the World Championships, Kipyego has completely shifted her commitment to the marathon distance in a very short amount of time. From Beijing she flew straight to Iten, Kenya, where she has surrounded herself with training partners and increased her mileage to prepare for the 26.2 mile-race. 

 

“I am excited and terrified. I’m excited because it’s a new challenge, it’s a new thing. I don’t know what I'm getting myself into and it’s always exciting,” Kipyego said. “I’ve watched marathons, I have siblings running marathons and all that good stuff. And so I’ve always admired the distance but at the same time as much as I’m excited, I’m very terrified.”

 

Kipyego’s nerves stem from the unknown of the event as well as the sudden jump in mileage, a territory that is just as foreign to her. Her longest run prior to the start of marathon training was just 14 miles. 

 

“I do my long runs, even before this year, I would do my long runs mostly for 12 miles. That is my stable distance and then during the fall I would get up to 14, but I would have very few 14-mile runs in there,” she said. 

 

Since arriving in Iten, Kipyego has increased her mileage with the help of her training partners as well as her husband Kevin Chelimo, who is also running the New York City Marathon, his second marathon to date. 

“It’s great to have a partner that you do the same thing, at least for me,” Kipyego said. “We’re on the same page. You’re training, you’re tired. Nobody wants to be vacationing when you want to sleep all afternoon. So basically ladies, it is a bonus to be on the same page and the same schedule,” she added with a smile. 

 

Chelimo’s first marathon was run in 2013 in Sacramento, Calif., where he finished in a disappointing 2:29, an off day for the fellow Oregon Track Club athlete. 

 

“I know for a fact that he’s a much, much better marathon runner than that, but that was just one of those runs,” Kipyego recalled. “It was his first and he didn’t have a good day, all that good stuff. So this is his second marathon, I’m excited for him.”

 

“I’m excited about finishing the race together and then going home together. We get to come straight from Kenya to New York and spend a little bit longer there. So that is exciting. It’s great, it’s great to do that with a friend and a partner,” she added. 

 

Surprising Herself

 

Despite the short amount of time to fit in the rigorous training cycle, Kipyego has surprised herself with how quickly she has made the adjustment. 

 

“By the third week, my body had adjusted and I was amazed actually at what the body can do,” Kipyego said. “I never thought I’d ever get to a point where I could do so many miles and be normal because I tend to, even when I’m training for 10Ks, I do a lot of volume on the track but for things like long runs, I never really do that much and so I never thought that I could run 20 miles, for example, and just be ok with it.”

 

For Kipyego, the importance lies not only in the physical training aspect, but with the emotional side as well. 

 

“I think sometimes when you do this longer stuff, it is more important to be emotionally ready for it than physically,” Kipyego said. “Because we’re athletes, we’ve taught our bodies to adapt and to get used to this running for a while now, and you somehow can get away with it physically but sometimes when you’re not emotionally ready, that might be trouble.”

 

“I wanted to be emotionally ready and to kind of let my heart guide me and give me the green light, basically, to feel like, ‘ok, I feel ok about this, I feel right about this, I feel that I’m ready to step up, try one and see what happens,” she said. 

 

The new challenge awaits Kipyego this Sunday on the starting line in New York City.