With his 39th birthday approaching, Dr Boniface Oyugi is leaving nothing to chance. He has intensified his preparations. For the last two months, he has been working six days a week.
This morning (Thursday), he left the house at 5 am for a 10-kilometre run, after which he went to the gym for two hours of strength and core training. His face is pale and ashy from drying salty sweat and his training bibs are thoroughly soaked and dripping with sweat like a leaking pipe.
“I will do a much longer run in the evening, something like 20 kilometres. I am preparing for the Berlin Marathon, which is on September 21; my birthday is on September 23. I want to be in the best shape for this trip. I am going to run the 42km, but it's also a vacation trip; my wife and daughter are coming with me to Berlin,” he says.
This intense routine seems to be paying off vividly; his well-defined, ripped muscles are hard to miss, a testament to his shredded body fat.
Thursdays are his only rest days, which he spends in a sauna with temperatures usually reaching 85°C (185°F). He then plunges into a bucket of ice, but his attempts to stay immersed in the ice water for a minute always end in failure.
“That's how I recover after six excruciating days of intense training. Plunging into the excruciating ice bucket immediately after the sauna always feels like a million needles striking my skin. The piercing is extremely painful, and with my bigger muscles, it doesn't make it any less. But this routine of hot and cold reaches deep into my skin and muscles, melting away any tension. It's what’s called contrast therapy in sports medicine,” explains Dr Oyugi, a health economist.
With only three months left to the Berlin Marathon, Dr Oyugi has switched his focus to strength training. He spends at least two hours at the gym, sandwiching the session between a morning and evening runs.
“I am more locked into strength training at this particular point to have my muscles properly conditioned ahead of the race. The actual road work training is very draining, with a lot of speed work, a lot of tactical fieldwork, and endurance training, which involves a lot of long runs. Over time, I have learned that if you do all these without taking into account the strength training bit, a lot of the time, when you go into the race, many are the times your body always crashes after 30km; it happens so often even to elite runners, not just recreational runners like myself,” he says.
His daily runs depend on the day.
“On Mondays, I do between 10-15km; Tuesday is always an easy run, 9-10 km maximum. Wednesdays are speed work, where you don't put in the miles but rather short, intensive, fast runs, repeating them into cycles of about 8-15 times. It can also be a tempo run where you sustain a certain consistent speed (marathon speed) over a long time, running at a consistent pace for 60 minutes. On average in a week, I do 80 to 100 km,” he says.
Dr Boniface Oyugi uses a T-bar machine for a back workout at Warehouse Gym in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Pool
Runner’s face
Save for his leg joints, which take a beating from the constant running, Dr Oyugi dismisses the widely held belief that such intense, long runs speed up skin ageing, especially in terms of facial appearance — popularly known as 'runner's face'.
“It’s more of a fallacy; running is like any other exercise. It all depends on how you recover, what you eat and how well you rest. For those with a runner's face, to some, it could be that they focus so much on training that they forget to get enough sleep, others have a poor diet.
“This perception could be because your muscles tend to break down more with running because of the tears, compared to other forms of exercise. That is why you need quick recovery to save them, and you do that by eating more protein. Swimming and sitting in sauna help because of the steam inhalation, and the ice plunge shocks the body and triggers quick recovery,” explains Dr Oyugi.
Putting on weight after marrying
So how did he fall in love with intense training? Dr Oyugi won scholarships twice to study his master's and doctorate degrees in the UK, and both times he put on significant amounts of weight.
When he first returned after completing his master’s degree, he landed a well-paying job, which led him to develop bad eating habits.
“I was a bachelor, and I had some good income, so I ate anything. I put on a significant amount of weight, which led me to hit the gym in 2015 when I tested for my blood pressure and was found to be fairly high. That had me take up aerobics, which helped me shed some weight quite significantly.
“In 2017, when I got married, I dropped the ball. I got too comfortable because I was being fed, and so I ballooned to 90 kg. When I won my second scholarship, I was already on the heavier side, and with homesickness and schoolwork frustrations, it only got worse. I was newly married, had quit my well-paying job to study, and was on a student's stipend. I was broke and frustrated to the extent that I developed anxiety and panic attacks,” he says.
Running was the only solace that turned out to be his haven for clearing his mind.
“That’s how I discovered running while I was at the University of Kent. It’s one of the best universities in the UK, known for three things: actuarial science, law and sports science. It has a state-of-the-art sports complex. The gym there is the size of a mall and well-equipped. The track field is up to international standards, with students competing to go to the Olympics. The stress I was dealing with created a pressure valve for me to go back to the gym to try to clear my mind. Then I discovered every month there were organised runs. I signed up, and that kind of saved me. The first day, I did 10km and slept better; I felt calmer than ever, something I hadn't been able to achieve going to the gym. A few months later, I had shed so much that it was so noticeable. Since then, I have never stopped running,” he says.
Running vacation
But for Dr Oyugi, recreational running is no longer a just about fitness; it has also become an opportunity to explore the world.
“When running, I have my peace of mind, my space to solve all the problems. But again, it also presents an opportunity for me and my family to see the world. How often would you go to Berlin? These types of events present those opportunities. By the way, I wish people knew that, when you visit a country with a Schengen visa, it's cost-effective because with the same visa, you could visit as many countries as you want within Schengen. You also get by faster because of the elaborate transport system, with trains being very affordable, and they are fast. That's how I have gotten to visit most of these European countries,” he adds.
Although the marathons can be capital-intensive, Dr Oyugi says they are worth every penny.
“These types of adventures are worth every penny. Resource-wise, it's extensive, but I don't mind. Perhaps to give you context, for the Manchester Marathon, the registration fee was £200 (Sh34,000). Visa costs to the UK are very prohibitive not less than £500 (Sh86,000). A return ticket is between Sh80,000 and Sh100,000; that is if you book early, most people book late because of visa uncertainties. Then there is the issue of accommodation if you don’t have friends to host you,” he says.
There is also the added cost of training gear. “Good running shoes are not cheap; a Nike Invisible 3 costs £180 (Sh31,000). You will need two pairs for training and the run. Other options are like Asics; you can get a pair for between Sh7,000 and Sh30,000. Any runner needs a Garmin watch to track progress, and you can get that for anything between Sh10,000 and Sh100,000. Then there is food and other training kits,” he says.
