Through five seasons of new records and high drama, Festus Kigen dug deep into his own psyche to break the human sound barrier.
Festus Kigen could see it clearly, even from 40 meters away. On the final stretch of the men’s 5000 meters Mt. San Antonio College Invitational, he was in second place, barely a body length behind Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, the world record holder for the event. As Bekele powered up to a sprint and headed for the finish, the world champion’s domination seemed complete. Bekele, after all, is a lightning of a distance runner, a 6’2’’ 27-year-old who broke both the Olympic and world record for the men’s 5000 meters last year and whose nickname is the Bullet. Though the Horned Frog’s best hope, three-time All-American and veteran runner Kigen, 22, is no slow coach himself, to overtake Bekele, he would have to become temporarily superhuman.
For Coach Shawn Wiget, there was nothing to do but watch as his dream of five consecutive championships circled the drain on the Thursday morning in Walnut, California. As TCU’s senior head coach, it seemed that his team would come in second, but it had taken a world-record holder to beat him. Ethiopia’s Bekele record was 12.37:35. Kigen’s personal record of 14.40:23 was a mere one-hundreth of a minute over Bekele’s record heading into the conference. Then again, only a handful of men have ever broken 15 minutes—and all of but three was running in the race. Bekele’s form was strong, his gait well-paced and, according to ESPN, favored to win. Under Coach Wiget, the Horned Frogs use to win this race all the time. But then, at the Manhattan Invitational, they were beaten by the team led by Bekele and had to settle for silver, and at the Nike Team Nationals four months later, a bronze. Now, it looked as though they would have to wait another five years to regain the crown and that Kigen would be hseading back to Fort Worth with another medal of the wrong color.
However, Kigen did something we all dream of: a miracle beyond human ability. He reached deep within the depths of his psyche, regained lost ground, pulled even with Bekele at the 50 meter mark, and then performed a picture-perfect finish, his RFID chip in this shoe tripping the sensor without the slightest of a hesitation. Still, it was a tough call, and for a spilt second, no one knew what had happened. Coach Wiget, his heart pounding beyond measure, bent over the sidelines and glanced up to the official clock. Kigen’s team mates, Andy McDonald, Mark Barnes and Whitney Gipson did the same. Every mouth on the field gasped: The Horned Frogs had won by a .09 of a second.
And then Kigen leaned back and roared, all the energy, adrenaline and exhaustion culminating in one glorious, epic moment. He had run the fastest split in school history, 13.20:15, almost a full 2 minutes ahead of his personal record. The Horned Frogs had gouged a full 3 minutes out their previous school record, lowering it from 16.30:24.
This was not just speed; this was a brand new era in the world of cross-country racing. And for TCU, the stakes have never been higher.
The Plan
These are the nine months that Festus Kigen used tirelessly in preparation for his ultimate victory. He has been meticulously training for the seasonal conference in which he will likely become the most decorated Horned Frog in cross-country history. And in the weeks leading up to Mt. SAC, the nation had been waiting anxiously to witness the moment.
At 4.30am on Thursday morning, the competition began: 687 runners from all 50 states and 30 countries, a global caucus of Nike track suits and UnderArmor running shorts. There were battalions of coaches and squadrons of officials; busloads of volunteers and even a troop of cheerleaders, all wide-awake and boisterous at an ungodly hour. A pair of Red Cross patrols buzzed around in their ATVs ready to spring to the rescue. Every contestant had been registered, every coach briefed. Some 4 000 people filled the grandstand erected at the finish line, relatives and friends of the contestants cheering loudly and hoping for a loved one’s victory.
In this first of the 12 races that he’ll compete in, Kigen set his first personal record of 17.21:30. But this was only a teaser—more than 4 seconds longer than his predicted best this season. During the course of these nine months, Kigen would go on to shatter his own record more than 5 times.
Watching Kigen on the podium waving to his team mates and beloved coach, alternately emotional, joking with close friend Andy McDonald and laughing when event staff played the wrong TCU Alma Mater, you would never have known that he had just put up the fastest time in TCU history (Kigen admits that “the last 500 meters, I’m thinking over and over again, Lord, O Lord, just let me get to the next checkpoint.”). It would be impossible to guess that before the race, Kigen felt down and depressed, beset by what he called “bad form.” Rather, he looked hyped-up and energized. For Festus Kigen, the real race had already been won during training.
Pain Endurance
Although Kigen seems to make winning look easy, a single gold medal requires the movement of planets to accomplish. Take the training process of racing, of physically and mentally preparing no only to be able to win against the nation’s best but to also do it at the exact right moment, at events staggered throughout the year. This is an extremely arduous, as one can imagine. “When you train a superstar for a meet, it’s like undergoing open heart surgery,” says Shawn Wiget, Kigen’s coach of 4 years, “You never know if it will work till it’s way too late.” The racer needs to be well-nourished but not so much that fitness is lost; focused but not distraught. And each training plan has to be tailor-made to the individual athlete. Each individual has a different, unique muscle to fat ratio that needs to be carefully calibrated for maximum speed and endurance. For example, Kigen’s best race preparations could annihilate another runner.
Maximum performance means maximum training—meaning sweat, blood and tears, literally, every day for years before the actual race. In Kigen’s regime, Kigen himself incorporates pain endurance because being a champion long-distance runner simply depends on how much pain one can endure, and for how long. Kigen has no reservations as he so vocally demonstrated, “No pain, no gain in racing simply means more pain, more wins.” Coach Wiget has Gary Patterson’s knack for maximizing results with a disregard for personal pain. Workouts such as hypoxic training, in which the runner straps on a snorkel-like device that allows only a set number of breaths per minute, are commonplace. There are grueling sets of 50 x 100 meter shuttle runs and 50 x 500 meter sprints that requires Kigen and his team mates to continue running despite vomiting, dehydration, mental breakdown and even occasional blackouts (Coaches normally simulate race-conditions such as dehydration and “rain”(sprinklers) to maximize their runners’ potential). “It’s intense,” Kigen says, his voice taut and serious. “By lap 30, you spin around to continue, and sometimes we fall down from sheer nausea and disorientation due to the lack of oxygen.” However, Kigen is resolute and acknowledges that pain is just another part of racing, “Then we get right up and continue—then laugh about it after winning a race.”
“One of my best sets,” says Coach Wiget with a twinkle in his eye, “is strapping runners to 30 pound weights and having them run a 4K.” “It’s what makes my runners great,” he says, of a training regiment that might leave some readers in sheer shock. Though his other passion is training thorough-bred racing dogs, he does admit that “We can’t train humans like dogs. If we did, it’ll kill them.”
Mental Block
For all the emphasis on the physicality of racing, winning truly lies in the realm of the mind. By the time a runner emerges from the team tent, straps on his RFID (radio frequency identification) chip and heads out to the starting line-up, the competition has gone beyond the physical. Kigen delves deep down into his inner self and empties his mind of clutter. His mind shuts down and literally becomes an obsessed running maniac. “During a race, if some one walked out of the stands and sucker-punched me in the chin, I’ll probably just get up and go right on running”, says the running champion. “I try to invent my own little world, where the only thing that exists in it is me and the finish line.” Although the racer can be temporarily encouraged by a decent dose of ACDC or Jay-Z, when the gun goes off, only one voice remains. And that voice can be brilliantly encouraging or deadly.
For example, during the Mt. SAC race, Kigen recalls, “I saw the distance between us and I said: No way this is gonna happen,” But he recovered instantly and was able to, “Switch my mind into overdrive mode. This is it. My greatest race. I’m representing all that is TCU.”
This inner turmoil is hidden deep in Kigen’s mind and all that one sees on the exterior is pure confidence as the man himself says, “Act it out and it will become real. I love to race. It is my favorite thing to do.” This laid-back exterior changes the moment Kigen is off the starting-blocks. He morphs from a relaxed college student into a ferocious predator. It is the common knowledge that his talk is firmly backed by intense training and results. “That’s why I don’t worry about his mental ability,” says Coach Wiget, “He was born with it.”
Culture Shock
Along with the physical, mental and psychological costs of running, add in some cultural ones and Kigen’s abilities seem superhuman. “When I first got to the US, everything seemed so strange, so hostile,” recounts Kigen, “I could barely eat the food served at the cafeteria.” Within the first 4 months, Kigen had lost 20 of his 170 pounds. “My coach got so worried that he employed a nutritionist solely to stop my weight loss.” Asked what the cause of the drastic loss was, Kigen’s response was, “The food here is so bland it is tasteless. Back home, our food is so spice-infused that an average dish would make an American’s eyes water if he or she ate it.” To Coach Wiget’s relief, Kigen slowly got used to American food and is now as healthy as a horse. “I still love to cook my own food in my apartment but I no longer shun Tex-Mex,” says a grinning Kigen.
“When I first got here, I felt so out of place. Not only did I have an accent, but my English was horrible,” recounts Kigen. Now, he is a familiar face on campus and is never without a friend by his side. With an easy smile and penchant for jokes, Kigen makes friends easily and is constantly on the phone. In fact, during the course of the interview, Kigen received no fewer than 5 calls from various friends wanting to meet-up. His loyal close friends are now an important source of motivation for Kigen. He says his team mates’ genuine care and support are actually much more important than his daily 20K runs. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes a friendly hug can win more races than an energy bar.
Classes at TCU have been a very new experience for Kigen. Coming from a British educational style in Kenya, he is totally new to the expectations of class participation. “Back home, I would have been whipped for raising questions in class.” Kigen attended a prestigious boarding school in Kisumu, Kenya. An average day included morning prayers at 4.30am, class till 1pm, lunch, more classes till 5pm followed by sports, dinner, and more classes till 10pm. Every day, 356 days a year. “It was like prison! We weren’t even allowed to leave campus on weekends because we had the same exact schedule every single day.”
Royal Rampage
The high point of his high school career is strangely unrelated to racing. “One day, the student body just got so fed up about being cooped up that they staged a strike. We literally destroyed the school. Students would run all over the place, breaking desks, chairs and even burned down the two-story library.” The consequence, Kigen says was that, “We were all sent home for 3 months and when we got back, we were all whipped.” None were spared. Kigen himself received 100 lashes of the whip for the school wide rampage. No wonder his pain threshold is legendary amongst his team mates.
Kigen’s tough high school background combined with his brothers’ encouragement ultimately led Kigen to enroll at TCU. “My older brothers, (Wilson Kegan, 34 and Wilfred Kigen, 28 are world-renowned runners themselves, winning marathons all over the world including the famous Frankfurt, Hamburg and Seoul marathons) persuaded me to start running in hopes of getting a scholarship to TCU.”, recalls a proud Kigen, “I come from a farming family of seven where we live a simple life at a 20 acre farm where we grow our own food and raise sheep, cattle and goats. Coming to TCU forever changed my life.” Some might argue that Kigen has done even more for TCU than vice versa.
The Future
Festus Kigen plans to break Bekele’s world record, graduate from TCU, start a family with his girlfriend (who also runs for TCU) and perhaps run professionally. The future is bright as the Horned Frog’s greatest long-distance athlete graduates next fall and sprints down the lane that leads to Olympic fame. What, then, does the future hold for Kigen? It is best summed up in a quote from Andy McDonald, team mate and close friend, “He’s the best ever in this sport. Regardless of what happens.”
