media_artricles :: 2015

Rotich: TT athletes eat too much meat

THE WINNER of the Men’s 10K run in the Newsday Save the Children Challenge on Thursday has some interesting advice for local distance-running athletes: eat less meat

And the opinion of Kenneth Rotich might be worth paying attention to, given that he hails from Kenya, the African state that has produced so many champion Olympians over the middle and long distances for decades

“I first came to the Caribbean in June, and then I flew back, and I have been here a month now. My coach lives here and he shows me what to do,” the soft-spoken Kenyan explained

“I think I will be racing here in the Caribbean for a month and then go back to Kenya.” Rotich said he expects to compete in an event in Guadeloupe in mid-October. The Republic Day win was his third in as many road outings in TT ; most recently, he won the Venture Credit Union 5K in Couva

It was when asked to comment on the quality of runners he has met in TT that the Kenyan made his observation about the diet of local athletes

“I think everyone can run, I’ve been seeing a lot of people here,” he said, adding, “They need a programme on how to run and the food to eat, because I see most of the people here eat meat all the time. In Kenya, most of the elite runners take meat like once in a week and natural food for (the rest of the time). And we have to commit ourselves to like running twice a day; in Kenya, we run sometimes three times a day and we have to cover like 120 miles per week.” As for the actual race, while Rotich’s winning time was not available, he was convinced that he could have gone faster, had the weather been more conducive to running

“Yeah. This was my first race run in this kind of weather,” he said. “It was really hot, humid. My first kilometre was like a 5K; I felt it was very hot; I produced my best. I could run maybe 29 minutes, but because of the humidity, it was hard for me. But the course, it was good, it’s a nice course.” He added that he deliberately attacked from the start, putting pressure on his rivals — a tactic that eventually took a toll on them

In a few months, however, Rotich will be concentrating on the event in which he hopes to represent Kenya in Rio 2016. For that, he will stop running on the road

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