they were to look at, they were almost impossible to run on. Most of us were reduced to a slow walk: most. The winner whipped through the stage in a staggering 2:41. The first Brit was Tobias Mews, who finished in 3:42, with Jen Salter the first British

to the track. He’s been running for 20 years, which is a long time by Kenyan standards, and now coaches army runners. Today he’s pacing a young athlete Doris Jerop around the track. They sprint 300m then walk the final 100m slowly to recover before setting off

I’ve come to Iten, a small village overlooking the Great Rift Valley, to discover why Kenyan runners are so dominant right now. The benefits of training at altitude play their part – we’re at 2,400m, which means that walking upstairs causes the kind

My second day in Kenya begins at 7:30am with a five-mile run. I set off with Sarah Baxter and Sarah Ivory – the other two journalists being treated to a few days of Kenyan running – at a gentle 10-minute mile pace but I soon feel short of breath

was not one of them. I broke into a determined walk and kept it up for the next four hours as the distant town of Tazzarine became bigger and bigger up ahead. At around 500m to go the sense of occasion got the better of me and I managed a bit of a shuffle

Stage 5: 42KToday was the marathon stage of the race. I managed to run the first half - I'd become bored with walking and wanted to test myself, but at the second checkpoint, at the 24K-mark, and with the temperature hovering around 50C, I took a

atmosphere with supremely scenic running. Think of the ultra distances as the ultimate in value-for-money racing. This top 10, put together by Runner’s World South Africa’s Online Editor Sean Falconer, should provide some inspiration if you decide to go south

to miss school on that day as I hated it so much." She did enjoy family walking holidays though and says her love of the mountains drew her to the Lake District in her 20s when she discovered fell running. With her early aversion to running long forgotten

to take you through a summer of running, set your sights on Berlin. www.real-berlin-marathon.com North Pole Marathon You might not be able to walk on water but you can run on water at the world’s most northerly marathon. Run entirely on the frozen ice

ever when he finished 12th at last year's race; and that there's a two-year waiting list for prospective UK applicants.I wanted to find out more, so I read several books, talked to previous participants and trained hard (for me), running and walking