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Sally Kipyego on her way to victory at the 2006 NCAA Cross Country Championships.

Interview with Sally Kipyego

Posted on July 23, 2007, Interview conducted July 21, 2007

By Alison Wade

Though the 2006-2007 school year was Sally Kipyego's first year in the NCAA, the four NCAA titles and six Big 12 titles she won for Texas Tech already put her among the most accomplished distance runners ever to come through the NCAA system. Prior to this year, Kipyego spent three semesters at South Plains College, where she won seven NJCAA national titles. Kipyego now has two seasons of cross country, two seasons of indoor track, and one season of outdoor track eligibility remaining at Texas Tech, and she plans to use all of it as she works toward a nursing degree.

Kipyego's first NCAA title came at the 2006 NCAA Cross Country Championships, where she ran away from the field from the gun and won the 6k race by 26 seconds. Indoors, it was more of the same as Kipyego won the 5,000 at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships by 10 seconds (in an indoor PR of 15:27.42), and then came back the following day to win the 3,000 by less than a second in 9:02.05. Kipyego won her fourth NCAA title of the year at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in June, where she claimed the 10,000 in 32:55.71. Kipyego's only loss of the season came later in the meet, when she finished second in a great duel with Michelle Sikes in the 5,000, and ran 15:24.22 less than 24 hours after winning the 10,000. Kipyego also holds the collegiate 10,000 meter record of 31:56.72, which she set in April at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational.

Kipyego, now 21, was also very successful during her high school years, winning a Kenyan national cross country title in 2000 at age 14, and finishing eighth at the 2001 World Junior Cross Country Championships at age 15. Success runs in the family as two of her brothers, Christopher and Michael, are accomplished professional runners. Michael Kipyego is a frequent member of Kenya's World Championship squads, has run an 8:10.66 steeplechase, and was a World Junior champion. Christopher Kipyego won the 2006 Powerade Monterrey Marathon in 2:14:43.

Kipyego originally hails from Marakwet, Kenya, and recently made her first trip back to Kenya since coming to the U.S. 2-1/2 years ago.

We know that getting into nursing school was a big goal of yours. How long will it take you to finish your nursing degree at Texas Tech?
Right now, I think I will be graduating in May of 2009.

Can you tell us how you ended up at South Plains College?
I wanted to go to the U.S. for college, I didn't even care what school, I just wanted to come here. I had a couple of friends at Texas Tech at the time, and I used to talk with them, so that motivated me to go to South Plains. I wanted to go to a junior college first, before I went to a four-year college, and South Plains was just the nearest to Texas Tech.

Did South Plains College recruit you, or did you just come up with the idea on your own?
The coach over there recruited me…I didn't know him, but a couple of my friends told him about me.

How long have you been studying English?
Let's see, 14 or 15 years now.

Your English is so good, it's very impressive. Is it still hard for you to take classes in and have to communicate in English all the time?
It was kind of hard when I came here, just because of the different accent. In Kenya, we use British English, and when you come here, it's American English and it's a completely different accent.

Also, you're living in Texas, and even people from other parts of the U.S. sometimes have a hard time understanding a southern accent!
Yeah, it was so hard! In class, I couldn't even understand my instructors. After some time, I started getting used to it.

Do you speak any other languages?
Yes, I speak Swahili and the Kalenjin dialect. So if I talk to my mom today, I'll probably speak in my dialect, Kalenjin. But if I speak to someone from Kenya, we speak our national language, which is Swahili.

Speaking of talking to your mom, how often do you get to see your family, and how often do you get to communicate in other ways?
Actually, after I ran the NCAA nationals, I went home for two weeks. It was the first time I went home since I came [to the U.S.], so about 2-1/2 years. I try to call home every weekend, but sometimes I just call them every two weeks.

What was it like to go back to Kenya for the first time in so long? When kids in the U.S. go off to college for the first time, they often find that everything looks different when they go home for the first time, even if they're just two hours away from home. It must have been really different to go back to Kenya for the first time.
I couldn't wait. Seriously, I don't even know how to explain it. It was so amazing. I wanted so badly to go home and see my family. In 2-1/2 years, little things have changed, and just the fact that I miss home and don't have a family member here in the United States, that makes it really special. After I finished the two weeks [in Kenya], I didn't want to come back [laughs].

When do you think you'll get a chance to go back to Kenya again?
Right now, I don't know. I would love to go back next year and run the Olympic Trials. But with nursing school, I don't know if that will be possible, because I will have school in the summer, too. If I get enough time to go home and run the Trials, that will be amazing, but that would probably be the only time I would go home. After that, I will probably go home after I graduate.

Do you think you'll move back to Kenya after you graduate?
I'd love to go back to Kenya, it just depends what opportunities I get, whether I run professionally, or whether I get a job here or in Kenya. I have no idea what opportunities I will have after I graduate.

Do you plan to pursue careers as both a professional runner and a nurse?
Yeah, definitely. I know it's going to be really hard to do. Right now I just want to graduate first—that's my number one priority. After that, I will try to run professionally, I will go to Europe and get my feet wet, and then maybe I will come back and work.

You've already started your nursing school classes, and it sounds like you are very busy this summer.
Oh yes [laughs]. It's a lot of work compared to what I thought. I have to go to school every day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. It's nothing like [the rest of] my undergrad experience. It's really kind of overwhelming right now. It's definitely going to be really hard on me. I just hope that I survive nursing school, basically [laughs].

When are you finding time to run this summer?
Well right now, I do most of my running after my classes, because I have class until 6:00 in the evening. Since it's summer, it's still light out at 9:00 at night. In Lubbock, Texas, at 6:00 p.m., it's still really, really hot, so I wait until about 8:30 at night to run. I have some time in the morning as well, but since it's summer, I'm just running once a day and getting my base in.

Does your schedule mean that you'll have to miss your team's practices during the school year?
I don't believe I'll miss the practice times, because during cross country, we do our hard workouts in the morning. That will be so good for me because I'll get to work out with the team on our hard days. I think I'll be in class until 5:00 p.m. in the fall, which means I will be a little late for [the afternoon] practice, but if they are doing a normal recovery run, that will not affect me a lot.

Do you have people on the team who can keep up with you enough to challenge you on your hard days?
Yeah, definitely! I have Irene Kimaiyo, and she's been running really well. She's a good competitor and good athlete. She helps me a lot. We do all of our workouts together. When we do things like 200, 300, and 400 meter repeats, we have a good 800 runner, Asia Diaz, who helps me a lot during that type of workout. When it comes to distance, I have Irene, and some of the other distance runners, who push me a lot. We also work out with the guys, who push me, so I get to chase after them during workouts.

You have quite a few Kenyan athletes on your team. Does that help a little bit in fighting off homesickness?
Yeah, definitely. Coming from Kenya, everything is so different than what you're used to. It's kind of difficult to cope with, but since there are a lot of Kenyans on the team here, that just makes it so easy because you feel like you are home. Before you get used to the new people, it just helps you cope with the homesickness and all of that.

Do all of you ever get together and cook traditional Kenyan meals or anything like that?
Yes [laughs], we've done that several times. Last year, after nationals in cross country, we had a small Kenyan party and we invited the rest of our team members. We cooked Kenyan food and it was good.

Did your non-Kenyan teammates like it?
Yes, they did!

You've improved a lot since you first came to the U.S. to run at South Plains College. What do you attribute that improvement to? Was that just a bit of a transition period for you?
I ran really well my first and second years in high school, but then I got injured—I got a stress fracture in my left leg. I had to stop running for all of 2003 and 2004. My body just shut down. I started coming back late in 2004, but I wasn't fully recovered. When I started running at South Plains, my leg was okay, but my body was not yet back in shape. I was still coming back.

Also, I am a competitor, so I think it was just the level of competition that changed everything. When I was running at South Plains, I was winning, just as I'm doing in the NCAA. It was just a different level because I was competing at a lower level, and I guess I just didn't get the challenge I needed to go a little harder.

When I came to Texas Tech, the workouts were harder, everything was just more competitive, and the coach [Jon Murray] is definitely amazing. I think he has played a big role in helping me make the transition from running at a junior college. It just worked out well for me—my body started to respond, and I started running better.

Can you compare the training you did in high school with the training you do now?
In high school, it was more random training, but here it's more organized and structured. We know what we are doing this week, next week, and the whole month. Coach Murray is really experienced and he takes us through the whole year. I don't know how he does it, but he just knows what to do.

Do you run a lot more now than you used to?
Oh yeah, definitely. I tend to run a lot more here, and the quality of the running is so different. I think the quality is better here, that's why I'm running so much better.

Did you keep track of your mileage in high school? Do you know what it was?
In high school, no. I would estimate it to be probably 45-60 miles a week. Sixty is probably the highest I would go. But here, I would do 75-80 sometimes at Texas Tech. In the beginning of the season I would do that much, and then we would reduce that [as the season progresses].

Have you had any injuries since you came to the U.S.?
No, I've never had any injuries since I came here, which is amazing.

Can you give us an example of a typical workout that you might do during cross country season?
Let's see…On Wednesdays we might do a normal morning run, three or four miles, and then come back in the evening and do maybe five mile repeats and two 400 repeats.

How much rest would you get?
For mile repeats, we get two minutes or three minutes.

And what kind of times would you aim for?
Last year I would do somewhere around 5:01 to 5:04 for my mile repeats.

Two of your brothers are professional runners. Did they start running before you did?
Yes, they did. They were training before I did, and Mike started going to Europe before I did. That was kind of motivation for me, and for the family.

What age were you when you started running, and how did you get started?
Well, I would go for an hour—probably seven miles—to school every day. I was not taking a bus. And then we would run home in the evening. But what made me start running was that I was always admiring professional athletes who were running well. They were living a good lifestyle, so it was something that I admired. I wanted to come to the United States for a scholarship and the only way I could come here was for me to run. I decided I had to run if I wanted to get a scholarship, but I started falling in love with the sport.

How old were you when you started running 14 miles a day, as transportation to and from school?
I started when I was eight [laughs] until when I was 15. Everyone does it, so you don't realize [how much it is]. But once you are away from that environment, you realize how far that was.

And you didn't have any injuries when you were doing that?
No, no injuries. The only injury I've had was that stress fracture when I was in high school.

Did you do your running barefoot, or did you have shoes to wear?
You have shoes, but you wouldn't wear them every day. Sometimes you would run barefoot.

One popular theory is that you get fewer injuries when you run barefoot because your feet get a lot stronger.
Yeah, I think that is true because it's just a normal thing, you're just running barefoot for probably 3/4 of the time. You just wear shoes once in a while.

Do you think that running has changed the lives of your family members?
Yes, definitely. My father passed away when I was four years old, and my mom raised all [seven] of us by herself. She did not go to high school, so she's less educated. It was kind of stressful for our family, but we survived it. When my brothers started running and making money, we were able to live a better lifestyle.

You had mentioned the possibility of competing at the Kenyan National Championships on your visit back to Kenya. Did you do that?
Yes, I did, but things just didn't work my way. I had just finished the NCAA Championships and I traveled like two days after that. I was totally exhausted, and then when I got there, I lost my luggage [laughs]. My luggage was delayed for three days, but I did have my running gear with me, just in my backpack. When I got there, the events had already started, so I missed the 5,000. I decided to run the 10,000 when I got there, but it didn't go very well. I think I was just tired. I got there that day after traveling for two days. I was just exhausted. I ran pretty well, but not the way I would expect to run. I got eighth in 34:39, which was definitely off my plans, but I think it was just because I was so tired going into the race. [Note: The race was also in Nairobi, at 5,500 feet above sea level.]

The winning time was 33, so it wasn't fast. I felt really good for 18 laps, but when I got to the 18th lap, I didn't feel good. I told myself, 'Just finish it since you've traveled all this way.'

Can you also talk a little about doing the 5,000/10,000 double at NCAAs? You seemed pretty pleased after the 5,000, even though that was your one non-victory of the year.
Yeah, NCAAs was definitely my highlight. It was just amazing because I won the 10k, and that was the plan. I wanted to come back and win the 5k and it didn't go the way I planned, but I was pleased. There was a part of me that said, 'You did not win; you lost the race.' But at the same time, the fact that I had just run really well overrode that. I thought about how I almost ran my PR—I ran five seconds off my PR in the 5k after running 15,000. [Note: Kipyego had to run a preliminary race in the 5,000 on Wednesday, the 10,000 final on Thursday, and the 5,000 final on Friday.]

I ran an amazing race. I didn't win, but still, just the effort that I dedicated to that race was so much. I knew how hard I worked for that race, so it was kind of pleasing. I did not feel bad about it at all; I just realized how well I had run. I wish I had won, but Michelle Sikes ran a great race. She won because she ran a hard race.

It was pretty amazing to watch the two of you go back and forth. Neither of you seemed to want to give up the lead, and you just kept fighting back.
Yeah! I think she is a competitor, and that's what I am, too. It was so funny because neither of us was willing to let it go. I wasn't ready to let go, and I didn't want to lose that race. That was why I gave all my effort until the point where I couldn't do it anymore. In the last part of the race, I couldn't do it anymore, I couldn't keep up with her. I just realized that I didn't have enough to take me to the finish line.

Do you think you'll try that double again in the future?
Yes, definitely. Right now, I'm kind of scared because of nursing school, and there is so much going on.

It'll add a new element of challenge to your running.
Yeah, it'll be a big challenge to me, just to be working out at a different time than my fellow athletes. It'll be hard for me and my coaches, as well as my teammates sometimes. I just hope that everything goes well. If my body responds well, I hope to go back and try the double all over again.