Interview with John Korir

by Scott Douglas

John Korir, 30, was ranked the top road racer in the world last year by Running Times. Over the last several years, he has won many of the top non-marathon road races in North America, including the Peachtree 10K, the Bix 7-miler, the Bloomsday 12K, the Utica Boilermaker 15K, and the Cherry Blossom 10-miler. His best times on the roads include 27:47 for 10K, 46:12 for 10 miles, and 60:47 for the half-marathon.

Korir joined the KIMbia management group last year, and therefore now has training partners such as top road runners Gilbert Okari and Thomas Nyariki. When training in Kenya, he splits his time between the Ngong hills outside of Nairobi and the KIMbia camp in Iten. When in the U.S., Korir is based with other KIMbia runners in Boulder, Colorado.

We sat down together in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the day after Korir placed fifth at the Beach to Beacon 10K, one of the few major races in the U.S. that Korir hasn’t won.

MensRacing.com: You started your year by winning the World’s Best 10K in Puerto Rico. Then you made your marathon debut at Boston, and dropped out. What happened there?
John Korir: At Boston, I was not feeling okay. I trained very well for it, but at Boston I was sick before the race. And I got racing shoes for Boston to use just on that day—I had not used them before. So it was not going very well for me.

MR: You dropped out where?
JK: 35K, on the hill, when I was in position four. Again, I was so sick. When you run marathons and you are sick, it’s not like for [shorter] road races—you cannot run good. I was sad, because even now I am excited to run the marathon. I need to focus on the marathon now.

MR: Because...?
JK: My age—I need to run the marathon. I think by next year, I will have the endurance and tactics for running one strong.

MR: Are you running one this fall?
JK: I think it is 50/50 that I run New York, but I will talk with my coach [Dieter Hogen]. Next week, I run in Falmouth, and then I go to Boulder, and if I train very well for the marathon, we talk.

MR: How long after Boston did it take you to feel healthy and strong again?
JK: For Boston, I had trained very hard, but for the marathon. Then I returned to road racing. I still have not caught up—training for the marathon is different than training for road races. You cannot do both. My mind now is set on the marathon—I think I can do it. My age is now 30. When you are 26, you are fast, but maybe not as strong. Now if I do the marathon training, I should be fast and strong. I want to do something big, like win the Boston Marathon, or New York, or Chicago.

MR: You told me yesterday that the Beach to Beacon course is for you a tough course. Why is that?
JK: I don’t know. I have run many races over the years, and I’ve noticed that when I train, my mind is not on this race, but on others—Falmouth, Puerto Rico, Peachtree. This is a weakness.

MR: In general, do you like road races that are hilly or that are flatter?
JK: Yesterday, I struggled early, but when I saw the hill at Mile 5, I passed some guys, and moved from eighth position into fifth position. On the hills, I was strong.

MR: So when you think about what marathon you might do best at, is it a hilly course like New York or a flat course like Chicago?
JK: Where I train in Ngong, there is much hillwork. I think I run very well on hilly courses, like when I caught up to those guys yesterday on the hill.

MR: You’re 30, and have raced over here for a lot of years. When did you first race outside of Kenya?
JK: When I came here the first time, it was ten years ago. I ran the Bix 7.

MR: How did that go?
JK: I remember that I did very well—I won a car.

MR: Now when I was in Iten, the temperature was about what it is here today [in the low 70s]. Most of the guys ran in a lot more clothing than Americans do at the same temperature. Why is that?
JK: You know sometimes, for us, when we are starting training, you put on extra clothes because you are heavy. You need the weight to come down before you start speed. When I am running very well, I am about 53 kilograms.

MR: What about when you’re not in shape?
JK: 57. That is heavy.

MR: You’ve been around for a long time, but you just joined the KIMbia group last year. Why?
JK: My good friend Fred Tressler, in Boston, I’ve known for a long time, and he knows [KIMbia manager] Tom [Ratcliffe]. My agent in Italy, he was not communicating with me well. Fred took care of me so much, and visited me in Kenya, and I talked to Fred, and he mentioned Tom, and so I went to Tom and asked if I could join his club and train. Because all the time for road racing, I was training alone. For road racing, you can train alone. Not so in the marathon. The marathon, you have a lot of work—you need a car, you need someone to give you water. Coach Dieter helps with this. For the marathon, you need a group. You cannot do it alone.

MR: In training groups, there are usually some people whose training is better than their racing, and some people whose racing is better than their training. Which are you?
JK: Once I get the weight to where it should be, I need not to do so much. You can wear yourself out if you work too hard. I would say I am medium in training volume, once my weight is good.

MR: There are guys in your group, like Charles Kiama, who are very young—he’s 20. Do you ever give them advice on things you’ve learned that you wish you knew when you were their age?
JK: No, never.

MR: Why is that?
JK: Somebody like that, a young guy, it’s good for him to run track, and not so much on the tarmac, because if he races too much on the tarmac now, he will not be able to run for a long time. He should do track and cross country now. They cannot be around a long time if they try to win everything now. They’ll make $5,000 and say, “That’s good money!” And for us, in Kenya, it is a lot of money, but if they get too much when too young, they get distracted. It’s better for them to get a little money, then come back the next year and maybe make more, and see what is possible.

MR: So a guy like that, you don’t give him advice on how to manage his money?
JK: No, because they never listen. Even if you are in a group and they see that you have been around for many years, they don’t care. You cannot tell them anything.

MR: You must have made a decent amount of money when you were young, but you didn’t get distracted. When you were a child, was your family better off than most in your area?
JK: We were not poor, but my father was not a good manager at home—he had two wives. So we had land, but my father, he was not concentrating on us—his attention was here, then there, because of two wives.

MR: You have just one wife, right?
JK: Yes, and two children.

MR: Where do they live?
JK: Mulot.

MR: You travel around a lot. How often do you see them?
JK: When I start training, I stay like two weeks in camp, and then I go home, maybe for a weekend.

MR: What about like in December?
JK: In December, I am there all the time, and am working. I own a shop in the village that my brother watches over.

MR: How much do you train when you’re in Mulot instead of a training camp?
JK: Maybe I’ll run in the morning.

MR: Now something like this week, where you raced yesterday, and you’re racing next weekend in Falmouth—what will your training be like this week?
JK: I did not run this morning, but we will run maybe one hour in the afternoon. [As it turned out, Korir went on a boat ride in the afternoon, and then said he was too tired to run.] Then tomorrow morning, we will run, and then we are traveling to Falmouth. Tuesday, we will run maybe 50 minutes. On Wednesday, I think, we will run diagonals at the track.

MR: Something like this week, does Dieter Hogen say, “Korir, you’re doing this this week, but Okari, you’re doing something different,” or do you all do the same thing?
JK: We are doing the same thing, because now we are in a group and racing.

MR: Yesterday at the race there was drug testing. How much of a problem do you think drugs are in road racing?
JK: I think that not a lot do doping. For me, I want to compete a long time. Doping, it’s not good—maybe you can lose your life. It is better maybe to win a little less money than to die.

Interview conducted August 6, 2006, and posted August 15, 2006.