It's Kenya's national sport, the passion of the masses. Little boys dream that one day, they might soak up the cheers of the adoring fans that regularly crowd National Stadium in Nairobi.
Coaches comb the countryside to find the next generation of potential stars.
The most promising are sponsored at special schools. It's not an exaggeration to call Kenya's national sport a kind of national religion. According to conventional wisdom, this is the sure cultural explanation for the phenomenal success of Kenyan distance runners. Kenya, with but 28 million people, holds more than one third of top times in distance races. Including top performances by other East Africans, that domination swells to 50 percent.