To borrow the often used cliché, superlatives are running out of stock to describe the recent successes of Kenyan distance runners.
Already, they have ushered in the Olympics year of 2012 by making history at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul as well as holding on to the overall title at the second edition of the revamped Africa Cross Country Championships in South Africa.

With bullish talk from the administrators of the sport to the effect that the country will settle for nothing less than the best medal haul from the forthcoming London Summer Games, the starting gun has already been fired.
Short distance runners and field event exponents are preparing for the biggest carnival in sport in Nairobi while the mid distance runners have been booked at the IOC High Performance Training Centre in Eldoret.
Athletics Kenya (AK) has shortlisted 12 of the country’s cream of marathon running to vie for six tickets-three male and three female-at the spring marathons of Rotterdam, Boston and London.
In this first offering of your favourite authoritative athletics magazine this year, the embryonic path to Olympics glory is well charted by our award winning writers including riveting profiles of the front runners for London tickets.
Straying from London, The Kenyan Runner (TKR) was an integral part of the IAAF ‘A Day in Life’ Programme that sees a select cast of renowned international athletics journalists get to spend quality time with the sport’s biggest stars at their natural habitat.
Away from the trappings of the world’s finest sporting cathedrals and jet set lifestyles TKR had the rare opportunity of engaging some of the country’s most decorated runners at their humble abode as they plot their assault for top honours this season and their inspiring features are well documented.
With Kenya owning the men 3000m steeplechase, to decide whoamong the lavishly talented water and barrier race past and current champions from this land is the best among the lot is a task akin to cracking the human genome.
However, double world champion, Ezekiel Kemboi, can press a strong case for the greatest of all time tag as BBC and CNN award winning writer, James Wokabi, endeavours to argue in the cover piece.

The renaissance of Pamela Jelimo at the Istanbul World Indoors and the surprising triumph of Helen Obiri over four-time gold winner Meseret Defar of Ethiopia shortly after provided the biggest talking point of the infant season.
Having made history by becoming the pioneering female World Indoor champions in a span of 25 minutes, TKR traces the contrasting journeys of the pair who overcame varying degrees of adversity to sit on top of the pile.
Our legends column has taken a slight twist from the norm in this edition as former world 10000m gold medallist and twice Boston Marathon champion; Moses Tanui takes the centre stage.
Speaking of Boston, TKR will be present in the streets of the world’s oldest marathon as a partner in yet another significant milestone for the publication that is on the established path of being an international staple.
On behalf of the TKR team that put this gripping issue together, I wish you all a prosperous belated
2012!
Mutwiri Mutuota
Editor

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