TENDA WEMA NENDO ZAKO[1]
A review of Sarah Gearhart’s We Share the Sun
by Scott F. Parker
[1] Do what is right and go your way.
As long as I’ve been writing about running, I have been extolling the virtues of running for the sake of running. If you’ve come across my writing before, you’ve likely seen me discouraging the focus on results, miles, training plans, and watches; you’ve maybe known me to encourage you to attend, instead, to the quality of your experience as you move your body through space and when you detect joy in the process allow yourself to freely move toward it.
Well, We Share the Sun: The Incredible Journey of Kenya’s Legendary Running Coach Patrick Sang and the Fastest Runners on Earth is not that. Sarah Gearhart introduces readers to runners who have dedicated their lives to succeeding at the far reaches of human possibility. Running in this world is very much about winning, with self-actualization falling much farther down the list of one’s priorities. Sang’s runners “‘come into the sport to make a living,’ he says. That is the driving force: to fight poverty.”
And yet Sang is hardly a typical winning-is-the-only-thing coach. Far from it, he comes across in Gearhart’s portrayal as a modern-day Stoic more concerned with character than success. His gnomic utterances could easily place him in the company of Marcus Aurelius. Consider that, for Sang, “character is everything,” where character means, in part, controlling what you can control. “What I’ve learned in life, and it started way back when I was young, is do your best. There’s nothing else.” If you do your best, after all, the results are just the results, nothing to feel overly good or overly bad about. And if you can’t something cannot be controlled, what sense is there in worrying about it? “If there’s no answer to anything that’s complicated, just leave it. Why should I struggle?”
As one of Sang’s athletes, Eliud Kipchoge, the consensus greatest runner of all time, said in explaining to a journalist how Sang gets the best out of his runners, “And above all, how to make that athlete a human being. In our camp, we want the best athletes. At the same time, we want to be human beings.”
So while economic realities might account for the plethora of eager Kenyan runners, by the time they find themselves in Sang’s company, something like self-actualization begins to come to the fore. This is demonstrated by the fact that, “For years, Sang has permitted locals in Kaptagat to attend his trainings.” Can you imagine, in this country, being welcome to join Des Linden’s workout (as she once joined Sang’s group)?
Running isn’t just about international results and prize money, for Sang. It’s about finding out who we are deep in ourselves. “‘Whenever I run, I always pray. I always confess. I correct myself. Whatever I’d done wrong. I get the right answers. I find myself apologizing,’ he says. Sang doesn’t let on any specifics, just that running affords a space for him to ‘get all sorts of solutions.’” There’s something ephemeral to Sang in We Share the Sun. Maybe it’s the language barrier, maybe it’s the limited access Gearhart had to him, or maybe it’s his propensity to ask questions rather than answer them: “‘Who are you?’ is the root question he wants each person he coaches to consider. ‘If you take athletics out of a human being, what is left?’ he says.” Whatever it is, the elusiveness makes for a compelling figure. I come away from Gearhart’s book curious to know more about Sang yet somehow also grateful not to know more but to be left with the curiosity itself.
Prior to coaching, Sang competed for Kenya in the steeplechase, winning silver at the Barcelona Olympics. For much of his professional career, he coached himself. “Self-coaching is just being aware of yourself. If you do too much, listen to your body. If you do less, listen to your body. Evaluate yourself after competition. You tend to sort of mold your way into the business of coaching.”
He comes by coaching naturally, then, and is seemingly an ideal fit for the job. The only hitch seems to be that Kenya has been hit with a spate of doping violations in recent years, including some for Sang’s athletes. Most disturbingly, one of Kipchoge’s training partners, Philemon Kacheran Lokedi, received a three-year ban for testing positive for exogenous testosterone. Gearhart’s book would have gone to press before the Lokedi suspension, but she might have dug into this difficult reality instead of simply celebrating Sang, easy as he is to celebrate. Even assuming Sang isn’t implicated in Lodeki’s case, it reveals the limits of his influence. Character, Sang would be the first to say, cannot be granted, it can only be earned.
Scott F. Parker is the author of Run for Your Life: A Manifesto and The Joy of Running qua Running, among other books. His writing has appeared in Runner’s World, Running Times, Tin House, Philosophy Now, the Believer, and other publications. He teaches at Montana State University and is the nonfiction editor for Kelson Books.