May 19, 2008
In a Running Family, Someone Had to Be First
By JERÉ LONGMAN
KIPSIRWO, Kenya — Each morning around 5, the girl felt her parents shaking her awake.
“Time for your run.”
Leaving the family’s mud house, Mary Chepkemboi ran in her bare
feet and a frock along red dirt roads in the Nandi District, past the
rolling fields of tea and maize, coming home to milk the cows and
prepare breakfast, then running off again, this time to school.
Eventually, Chepkemboi took her place among the first generation of
elite female Kenyan runners. By the mid-1980s, she became an African
champion. She also inspired a younger brother, Bernard Lagat, who
earned two Olympic medals for Kenya, became a United States citizen in
2004, won the 2007 world championship at 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters,
and established himself as a favorite for the 2008 Summer Games in
Beijing.
“When I got to high school, she told me, ‘You can be good in this
running,’ ” Lagat, who lives in Tucson, said of his sister. “I listened
to her. I wanted to be just like Mary. She made everything seem
possible.”
It was somewhat rare for a girl to be a serious runner in Kenya in
the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her traditional role was at home. If
she left and married in some faraway place, a father might never
receive his dowry of cattle. And there was a history of uninformed
fear, not only in Africa but in the West, too, that distance running
would leave a woman unable to conceive a child. Not until 1984 was
there an Olympic marathon for women.
Here in this village of 90 families, located in Rift Valley
Province near the famed Kenyan running hub of Kapsabet, Lagat’s family
put practical necessities ahead of cultural taboos.
All 10 children, six girls and four boys, were encouraged to run.
Richard Kiplagat Leting, 75, and his wife, Marsalina, 64, were runners
when they were younger. Victories in community races brought them not
ostentatious trophies, but useful prizes like blankets, bed sheets,
machetes, axes, tin sheeting for the roof. The parents hoped the
children would also bring home rewards that were more functional than
ceremonial.
“These things were very expensive, and there was not much money,”
Richard Leting said. “It was a great opportunity to help the family.”
Today, Richard Leting is the village elder. He lives on a farm that
spreads over 26 acres and grows lushly green in the rainy season.
Bernard Lagat has built his parents a modern home with a blue metal
roof. A Catholic church sits next door on land donated by the family.
Bernard’s maternal grandmother, Maria Cheruiyot, who is 100-plus, lives
with his parents. She did not run as a girl but remembers herding
cattle a distance of 25 or more miles.
The eldest daughter, Anjalina Chepchumba, 44, once a national-level
runner, lives just down the valley with her children. Mary resides
about 30 miles away in Eldoret. Her living room is adorned with
photographs and newspaper clippings and medals won by her siblings,
whose careers she enabled with her encouragement and her sacrifice.
In July, Mary will be 40 or 42. Her parents give her birth date as
1966. She says it was 1968. She has worked for two decades for Kenya
Power and Lighting, the national electric company. Her husband, William
Lagat, died two years ago of diabetes, leaving Mary to raise their
three daughters: Joyleen, 15; Sheila, 9; and Ashley, 6. On weekends,
she still tries to jog for three and a half miles or so, though she
laughs and says she does not feel as light and nimble as she once did.
“I think I’ve put on a little weight,” Mary said in an interview in
April after looking at a long-ago photograph of a skinny girl running
earnestly on a dirt track.
A Kenyan Pioneer
She was born around the time that Kenya exploded onto the scene of
international distance running. The most revered Kenyan of them all,
Kipchoge Keino, was also from the Nandi tribe. His success served as a
kind of blueprint for Mary to build her own career.
Keino won the 1,500 at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City,
defeating the American favorite Jim Ryun, and then won the 3,000-meter
steeplechase at the 1972 Games in Munich. Today, Keino is the president
of the Kenyan Olympic Committee. Mary grew up hearing stories about him
and other great Nandi runners, saw the occasional tapes of Keino’s
victories, and decided that she, too, wanted a career of transcendence.
“I wanted to be a world champion,” she said.
In 1981, as a teenager, Mary had her first opportunity to run
outside of Kenya, at a youth competition in Japan. Until then, out of
modesty, she had always run in a dresslike garment. In Japan, the
Kenyan outfit called for a singlet and shorts.
“I felt half naked,” Mary said. But she won a silver medal at 3,000
meters and a bronze in the 1,500, and suddenly the uniform felt
liberating instead of revealing.
In 1982, Mary competed in the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane,
Australia, but injured her hip and fell during the 3,000-meter race.
Apparently, she and her former coach said, she had run too many miles
at too young an age.
By 1984, Mary had recovered sufficiently to become the African
champion at 3,000 meters. Her best time did not qualify for the
Olympics in Los Angeles, but African women were ascendant. At those
Games, Nawal el-Moutawakel of Morocco won the 400 hurdles and became
the first African woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
An offer for Mary to run track at the University of Iowa
came in 1988, but she declined. There were seven younger siblings at
home. An eighth would soon be born. Her parents needed help raising the
children and paying their school fees. So Mary took a job with Kenya
Power and Lighting, where she now works in human resources. She
continued to run, but stayed home so her brothers and sisters might
eventually find success abroad.
“I don’t regret it,” she said. “I’m comfortable in Kenya.”
If there is a sense of disappointment or loss, it is only a twinge,
Mary said, like a slight muscle ache that comes and goes quickly when
she sees the flood of Kenyan women now winning international distance
races.
“I wish I could still be younger to continue running,” she said.
Houseful of Champions
Although Mary’s career was interrupted, it served as the muse for
her family’s bounteous achievements. William Cheseret, 37, built an
estimable road-racing career in Europe. Bernard Lagat, 33, won a bronze
medal in the 1,500 for Kenya at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and a silver
at the 2004 Athens Games. Everlyne Lagat, 30, won the cross-country
championship in 2000 for Malone College of Canton, Ohio, in the
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
Robert Cheseret, 24, won the N.C.A.A.
5,000-meter title for Arizona in 2004 and the 10,000 title in 2005.
Irine Lagat, 22, competes for Arizona now. Nathan Lagat, 25, runs for
the Kenyan military. Another sister, Tecla Jelagat, 36, a former
military runner, serves in the United Nations
peacekeeping mission in Darfur. The youngest daughter, Violah Lagat,
18, hopes to compete in the fall at Pima Community College in Tucson.
“Everyone wanted to follow Mary and be better than the one before,” Richard Leting said.
Bernard’s career began in a familiar Kenyan way. He walked or ran a
mile to Kipsirwo Primary School, came home for lunch, returned for
afternoon classes, then ran home again. He did not know at the time who
encouraged his older sister, only that she was not discouraged. It was
Mary’s discipline that impressed him when he was young, the way she ran
in the morning, then milked the cows, prepared the tea and washed the
dishes before heading to school.
As a sophomore at Kaptel High School, Bernard received his first pair of running shoes in 1992, courtesy of Mary.
“You must train harder now,” she told him.
A Family’s Pride and Joy
At the 1996 Kenyan Olympic trials, Bernard became the only college
student to make the final of the 1,500. He did not qualify for the
Atlanta Games, but took the advice of Mary and a Kenyan coach and
transferred to Washington State University.
In the United States, Mary believed, Bernard would get a worthwhile
education and the coaching to make him a national and international
presence. Eventually, he earned two degrees and two Olympic medals.
“He made a promise and kept it,” Mary said.
Bernard’s decision to become an American citizen in 2004 was met
with some hesitation by his father, who later gave his consent. Kenya’s
top track and field officials said they held no resentment, noting that
Bernard has lived in the United States for more than a decade. He
maintains ties to his native country with a foundation that has paid
school fees, which can reach $500 or $600 a year, for 10 Kenyan
students.
One exception to his agreeable departure appears to be Keino, a
fellow Nandi, who said dryly of Bernard: “He comes like a tourist. He
has to have a visa. He is a foreigner.”
Kenya’s loss has been the United States’ gain. Last August, at the
world championships in Osaka, Japan, Bernard became the first American
in 99 years to win a major international competition in the 1,500.
As Bernard approached the starting line, Mary’s youngest daughter,
Ashley, said a prayer for her uncle as she watched on television in
Eldoret. When Bernard entered the homestretch and the race was still
undecided, Mary’s teenage daughter, Joyleen, began yelling: “Don’t come
home empty-handed! A bronze medal at least!”
When Bernard won, Mary and her children screamed even louder, which
alarmed the neighbors. They came out of their houses and gathered
outside the metal gate and thick walls that shield Mary’s property,
thinking something was wrong. No, it was O.K., Bernard had won a big
race, Mary said. They were screaming in triumph, not fright.
More ear-splitting celebration will undoubtedly take place if he wins a gold medal in Beijing.
“When he is running, I will feel like I am running,” Mary said. “If he gets the gold medal, I’ll get the gold medal.”
Accueil 
