Ole Miss senior Barnabas Kirui has got wheels. The Kaplong, Kenya native has a track personal-best time of 8 minutes 20.36 seconds in the 3000-meter steeplechase from when he won the NCAA Championship in 2007. Most recently he placed fourth overall at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships behind Liberty's Sam Chelanga, Northern Arizona's David McNeill and Stanford's Chris Derrick. With an indoor and an outdoor track season remaining, Kirui plans on running fast and placing high on the NCAA podium.

First off, do you go by any nicknames? “Barny” or anything?

No, no, no. They just call me “Barnabas”. Some of my teammates—because I'm a very little guy—they call me “Big Guy” or “Big B” or whatever, just to make fun of me. I like it though. It's okay when they do that.

Well, you run like a “Big Guy”. Congratulations on your fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships. Going into the race, where did you want to finish?

My goal was to finish as high as I could. This season has been one of those where I would go to race and have expected to do better and then it didn't happen. Going to Nationals, I was expecting to place as high as I could. I knew probably Chelanga was going to be tough, so I knew being close to him would have been good.

You didn't have a number in mind? Even after taking ninth at Pre Nats?

No, I knew I was going to be in the top 10. I wasn't ruling out myself being in the top three or something. I knew I wasn't going to lose to very many guys. At Pre Nats I knew I was still picking it up and going up a little bit. I had only been running two months.

Are you going into indoor track with a lot of new confidence?

Cross country is physical with endurance and being long distance. It's easier going into indoor and outdoor where I can focus on my events. I think it's easier to prepare for indoor and outdoor. I'm looking forward to having a great season.

Are you going to focus on the steeple again this upcoming track season?

I'm kind of open to all of the races right now. Anything up to the five and the 10. My goal is to run a fast time in any of the three. Of course, in indoor, it's going to be the three and the five. I'm going to be working on those. I can't say right now. I can run the five, the 10 or the steeple. If everything goes well, then the steeple is going to be my favorite.

Is a sub-four mile a focus for you indoor?

For indoor, we get like four or five meets. It's kind of hard to get times in the five, 3K and mile. I will tell you, my goal is in the first two meets to try to make a mark and try to make something where I can put myself in a rank and probably go to Nationals. As soon as I get that down, my next goal is to see how fast I can run a mile. I think a sub-four mile would be a good preparation for a good race in the long run. We only get three or four meets before conference. And, you can't wait for conference time to do it. You need to have a better start.

How did you get into running in the first place back in Kenya?

Basically, it's a story about trying to get a chance to come and study here. I went through my high school being a volleyball player. I played volleyball for my first few seasons. I know you've talked to a lot of Kenyans and you know running is a big deal. In our school system, you have three semesters. One semester, you play balls, second semester, you do running and third semester you concentrate on academics. Of course, I would used to run a little bit and that was one part of the semester. That was just in practice when you'd run with the team. After graduating from high school, I started running more. I used to get brochures about colleges in the United States. I remember going through those and it never occurred to me that there were scholarships and stuff at the time. After graduating, trying to find out what was happening next in Kenya, my friend said there was something about running and getting an education in the United States. That's what got me to start practicing and training and that's how I got into trying to run in the United States.

Why did you choose Mississippi? Did you have any other options?

I didn't look at any. If you talk to a Kenyan, all they will tell you is they just want to go to the United States. The first one I looked at. There used to be a Kenyan coach who actually coached at Ole Miss. Basically, I went online and emailed the coach. And that's how I ended up getting a place.

Did you train with any big-name Kenyans I might know?

No, not really. All my Kenyan friends I met over here. That's probably because we didn't have any type of organized way of coming to the United States. It was kind of like everyone was on their own. We just emailed the coaches and came over. If you leave someone back, you try to come back to get them.

Do you still play volleyball?

Volleyball? No. If I play volleyball, it's just where I'll get together with some friends and play some volleyball once in a while. Track, I'll tell you, gets a little tight. You hardly get any free time. With running, any day you lose...it will probably cost you more. I don't get to play as much as I wish to.

What else do you do for fun when you get free time? Any video games with your teammates?

That's one thing that I really don't know how to do. One thing I like to do is invite them over and make them some Kenyan food and Kenyan meals. Once in a while, we'll go and watch a movie together with the guys at our teammate's house. Occasionally we'll play some volleyball or something in that neighborhood.

What's your favorite movie?

I have to tell you, there's this one recently...it's called Tekken. It's a nice action movie. I'm an action movie guy, but not the supernatural stuff where someone blows up something. I just like some action and that one was one that I really liked.

Has there been anything about that United States that has been hard for you to get used to?

A lot of things have been hard of course. The most outstanding would be learning the culture. The culture comes in all ways. From the way people dress to the way they eat to the way of their mannerisms and the way you respond to them. All this stuff has been in my transition. In Kenya, when you go out of your house, you dress kind of way that if you were in America, you'd look like you were going to a banquet or something.

Wearing a suit and a tie?

Not necessarily a tie, but you would have a nice shirt with nice trousers and polished shoes. I remember for the first few weeks, my professors would congratulate me for looking nice in their classes. I got to thinking that something was wrong. To me it was a normal thing, but to them, I was being a nice student for wearing nice things. I came to learn that it was okay to wear warm-up clothes to classes. Then, when I would go to restaurant and try to order things, it was tough. To describe exactly what I wanted. For a while I used to use like sign language. And in my country when you ask someone to go with you, you are footing the bill. I remember one time I went with a friend and he said, “would you like to eat?” And I said, “yeah, I'm hungry.” I went with them and they paid their bill and I had to pay my bill. Those are the real small things, but they're real tough. You're like, “you brought me here, you're supposed to pay my bill.” I didn't tell him...but I looked at him and he realized that I was desperate and didn't have any money. He ended up paying and that was my teammate. It happened twice. I went to a movie with a friend and he paid his way and stepped aside. Luckily, that time I had a 20-dollar bill. I paid mine. It's been a long process with me learning and learning.

Can you explaining your mileage and training?

The best thing, my coach tells me, is to do two long runs in a day whenever we don't have to do speed training. By long run, I mean anything in the neighborhood of six to 10 miles. That means in a week, I try to run between 80 and 100 miles. The higher, the better. I try to stay in the 90s most of the time. If we have three doubles in the week, I'll hit close to 100.

Can you race off of that type of mileage? Or do you taper for races?

I do not really rest toward the end of the week to race. All I do is I don't do the speedwork close to the race time. Otherwise, in terms of my mileage, I never bring it down.

Do you see the half marathon/marathon in your future?

As of now, I'm really scared of running a marathon or anything longer than a 10K. I've seen people who've transitioned nicely from running something as short as a 5K to being a half marathoner to a marathoner. I won't rule out the possibility of running those, but I would like to stay more on the track. I would stay for a while with the track and see how I can do with that before I make the move to the longer stuff.

Can you give me a crazy running-related story?

There was one instance my freshman year in cross country. It was me and my teammates and we go to line up for a cross country race. As soon as the gun went off, of course the first one minute everybody has to sprint for position for themselves. That's what we did. We were sprinting and really going hard. If you know me, I'm a front runner most of the time. I don't know how to stay behind and maybe catch up later. I am sprinting and someone did something terrible and tripped me down. When I was sprinting, because it was still a group, one of my teammates, a freshman at the time, was right behind me and was following me. Now, when somebody tripped me, I fell down and my instincts tell me, “stay down until everybody jumps over you, that way nobody will step on your back with spikes.” Now, we were in front of a lot of people. The guy following me literally stops and is trying to be so protective of me, telling everybody, “are you okay?” He caused a spectacle and everyone was like, “keep running! Let this guy alone!” I thought it was so funny that he was concerned about my safety that he stopped right there to make sure I was okay. We always laugh about it. I worked up the rest of the race and passed everybody and within a mile, I was in the front of the race. What was really cool about it was that it ended up being the course record. I ran faster than the person who had run really fast the year before!

 

About the Running Warehouse:

My KWIK-Es are sponsored by runningwarehouse.com, located on the California coast in the small community of San Luis Obispo. The folks over there include one of the owners, Joe Rubio, a two hour, 18 minute marathoner and current head coach of the Asics Aggie RC. Jonathan Spiros oversees footwear buying and served many years as assistant coach at College Park High School helping Lindsay Allen. Erik Dube is in charge of accessories and helps with footwear buying. Erik has finished the Western States 100-Mile Race several times and was assistant coach at San Ramon Valley High School helping Scott Bauhs through high school. Erik’s wife, Tera, is in charge of customer service and is an ultra marathoner and former track star at Campolindo High School, where her brother Chuck Woolridge is currently head coach. Kara June handles web content. Kara was sixth at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in the steeplechase. Kara was also third overall at Last Fall’s USATF Club Cross Country Championships. The entire online and phone customer service representative staff at the Running Warehouse, including the staff listed above, have spent considerable time working the retail floor. This, along with the coaching and personal athletic experience, enables the company to have a unique perspective of understanding the needs of every level of runner from beginner to All-American. Check them out when you get a chance!