I know running’s focus is rightfully centered on the USATF and UK National Track & Field Championships going on this weekend to select their respective teams for August’s World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. But I could not let the passing of marathon great, Joseph Chebet, go by unnoticed or unmentioned.

The 52-year-old legend died after a brief illness on July 7, 2023 at the Mediheal Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, according to his brother Ben. No cause of death was released.

Joseph Chebet was among the trail blazing Kenyan marathoners who took up the mantle from pioneers like Ibrahim Hussein and Cosmas Ndeti in the 1990s and established the Kenyan marathon domination that still lives on to this day. 

In January 1999, I joined colleagues, Larry Rawson and David Monti, on a familiarization trip to Kenya to look over the new Fila-sponsored, Rosa & Associates led training camps in around Eldoret in the Central Highlands, the epicenter of Kenyan running excellence.

Here’s the account of one such day.

Saturday, 23 January 1999 Eldoret, Kenya. 

While taking breakfast downstairs at the Hotel Sirikwa, we plan our day trip up to Kapsait to visit the most isolated of the Fila camps organized by Dr. Rosa. At 6:35 AM, the cars arrive.

“Today,” says Dr. Rosa, the taciturn physician/coach from Brescia, Italy, “the American people will ride in this car, the Italians will ride in this other car. So you can enjoy your own company.”

It’s his way of saying we all talk too much and share not his taciturnity. 

A low clinging fog holds close to the fields as we head out, with dawn breaking on the edge of the savanna. It’s a 100Km drive up to Kapsait, the first 64 km paved to the junction turn off where the tarmac ends. 

8:15 AM. Oh, my God, the last stretch up to Kapsait was brutal as our Toyota Landcruisers rocked and rolled like Tina Turner’s backup dancers along the deeply rutted red-clay road corrupted by last year’s El Niño storms. Though we could only manage 20 km an hour – it would’ve been faster to run – just the same, it only took an hour 37 minutes to go the full 100 km from Eldoret to the camp, a near record, we are told. 

High atop the wind blown Cherangani Hills near the Pokot border at an altitude of 9300′, the tiny village of Kapsait sits like a scene set out of Robert Altman’s 1971 movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. You might easily think you’ve entered an 1870s-era Arizona mining camp. 

By the time we arrived, the morning’s speed/endurance training session was already over. At its heart were 4 X 3 km in 10:00 each, with 90-seconds’ rest between. The 15-20 men who inhabit the camp adjacent to the village are scattered about the narrow courtyard that separates their row of two-man rooms as breakfast is prepared in the kitchen, where the cooking fire’s smoke drifts through the streaming sunlight slanting through the slatted wooden walls. 

Over a cup of sweet, milky tea and chapati, we ask Joseph Chebet how far and how long will be the drive to your home from the camp? This way, Joseph can enter the Kenyan miscalculation contest, whose current leader is two-time Honolulu Marathon champion and Kapsait camp leader, Erik Kimaiyo. At one point, Eric thought it would take about “half an hour” to drive what turned out to be 2 1/2 hours away. That is a formidable miscalculation record.

“25 km?” Chebet says, but guessing. “Maybe one hour by car.”

As Joseph mused, I took note that only one of four cooking fires is burning to heat the large pot of water for the morning tea. A smaller kettle warms on a grate-covered fire in the middle of the room, the slanting rays of sun the only light in the hovering darkness. 

Across the courtyard in the storage room sit 90 to 100 kg bags of white maize milled for Ugali, the staple of the Kenyan diet. Smaller bags of sugar, wheat, salt stand alongside. 

The spartan, low-ceiling rooms hold two twin beds each. Training gear hangs on hooks above the beds and drapes over clotheslines strung across each square foot of space in their narrow darkened quarters. 

After breakfast, we’re back on the road heading to Joseph Chebet’s house in Kapyego. Remember, he said 25 km in one hour by estimation.

Along the drive, squared off potato fields lie in darkened contrast to the rolling green of the countryside. And lookee here! Over treacherous roads, which buck and swale like a bronco cinched up with a nettle plant tucked beneath its saddle, we arrive in Kapyego an hour after leaving Kapsait, with 22 km measured on the odometer. 

We are in the home of the wind, at an altitude even higher than Kapsait. Overhead, an eagle rides the currents with wings spread wide. 

Joseph Chebet developed his cardio-vascular system in this splendid isolation, beginning his marathon career with a victory at the 1996 Amsterdam Marathon  (2:10:57). He followed up with another win in Torino, Italy the following spring (2:08:23); before finishing second to fellow Kenyan John Kagwe in New York City in both 1997 & 1998. He also took second in Boston 1998 to Moses Tanui. Both runner up finishes in 1998 were by a scant three seconds, with his Boston time of 2:07:37 representing his personal best. 

“Joseph has the most talent,” said Dr. Rosa. “But he only trains two months before a marathon. After New York City 1998 he did no running until now, mid January when we begin the preparation for Boston. Last year, he finished second to Moses in Boston, because he only prepared for two months. He must train three months to complete all phases of training for the marathon.”

This wasn’t the first time Dr. Rosa had expressed his frustration with one of his top charges. 1998 San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon champion Phillip Tarus often took off for home during mid-week training, rather than remaining focused at the camp. And even Kenya’s original great marathoner, Ibrahim Hussein, the first Kenyan champion in NYC (1987) & Boston (1988), rarely, if ever, trained more than six weeks for one of his efforts.

The excellence we take for granted by Kenyan marathoners these days wasn’t always the accepted or expected rule. When they first began to race the marathon seriously in the 1980s, Kenyan runners used to attack the distance like a 10K or cross-country race. Often they would sail through the half marathon in 62, 63 minutes, only to fade late in the race. It took all-time great Paul Tergat six attempts to win his first marathon before eventually setting a world record.

There were actually some who thought the Kenyans didn’t have the requisite intelligence or savvy needed to run the long distance properly. Today, we look back and realize how foolish that supposition was. 

There’s no telling if Joseph Chebet heeded Dr. Rosa’s advice about extending his training season after we departed. But just three months later in Boston 1999, he began the best year of his career, rising to the top step of the podium in both Boston and New York City, becoming just the third man behind Bill Rodgers (1978 & ‘79) and Alberto Salazar (1982) to manage the double major in America in the same calendar year. 

“I thought I was going to win in 1998,” Joseph told the press the day after his Boston victory. “But psychologically, I wasn’t prepared. I thought, ‘maybe I can push the pace’. This year, I didn’t want to push in front.”

Because of his excellence, Track & Field News ranked Chebet number one in the world in the marathon for 1999, in front of Khalid Khannouchi, who broke the world record in Chicago (2:05:42) and in front of Abel Anton, who won the World Championships Marathon in Seville Spain.

Joseph Chebet never reached the same heights after 1999, finishing 8th in defense of his Boston title in 2000, then dropping out in 2001. He finished 8th again in NYC in 2001 (2:13:09), then 3rd in Prague 2002 (2:12:01). He completed his marathon career like he began it, winning his final marathon in Vienna in 2003 in 2:14:49. In retirement, Joseph became a mentor to many younger members of his Marakwet tribe, and remains one of the storied runners from what is now a legendary land.

Our condolences to Joseph’s family, friends, and many fans. You left us far too soon, dear soul, far too soon. 

END