What Is the Kenyan Running Method? The Ebooks vs the Real Thing

The Kenyan Running Method vs the Kenyan Runner Method: which book is which?

Two products use almost the same name. "The Kenyan Running Method" is a 130-page PDF with four 12-week plans, sold for $29 by The Running Week, a Spanish running media company with a large Facebook following. "The Kenyan Runner Method" is a shorter ebook and audiobook sold on Gumroad under the name Eric Kipto, whose TikTok account is @runwithkipto ("Eric Kiptoo"). It costs $17.99, with an "advanced" edition at $34.99. KenyanRunning.com is not connected to either book. Our own book is a third, separate one: free, 11 chapters by Martin Karoki Muriuki, a Kenyan pro with a 14:13 5K. We get emails every week from people looking for one of them, which is why this page exists.

Both books are about the same underlying idea, and the idea is real. Neither book has an author with a competitive record you can look up on World Athletics. That matters less for a book than it does for the person telling you what to do on Tuesday.

What the method actually is

Strip away the packaging and the Kenyan running method comes down to six habits shared by the serious runners we train with in the Rift Valley. None of them is complicated. All of them are hard to keep doing.

• Easy runs are slow. Slower than feels useful. "Polepole" is most of the week.
• One or two hard sessions a week, each with a clear purpose: a tempo, a fartlek, a track session. The rest of the week stays easy so you arrive at them fresh.
• The long run is the anchor of the week, built up gradually over months, never jumped to.
• Strength work is done on hills. Few Kenyan runners lift weights; many run the same climb every week.
• Rest is part of training. Sleep, simple food, a nap after the long run, and one full day off every week. Nothing exotic.
• Consistency over years beats intensity over weeks. The runner who repeats a modest week for three years beats the one who does a heroic month and gets injured.

Our coaches did not read this in a book. Martin and Peter train in the Rift Valley. Michael raced the 2026 LA Marathon this way and lost the win by one hundredth of a second.

A sample Kenyan week, and what a coach changes

Here is the shape of a week for a serious amateur following the method. The structure is the one the pros use in the Rift Valley: three quality sessions (track, fartlek, long run) spaced out by easy days. Plus one full day off, which in Kenya is Sunday. The pros run most of these days twice, morning and afternoon, on 180 to 200 km a week for marathoners. Do not copy the doubles or the mileage. Copy the shape. And read the second half of each line, because that is the part you won't find in the ebook.

• MondayEasy 40 to 60 minutes. A coach checks how Saturday's long run felt and, if you were wrecked, turns this into 30 minutes or moves the rest day.
• TuesdayTrack or intervals. A coach sets the effort by your last two weeks, not by a pace chart, and tells you when to stop.
• WednesdayEasy run. A coach watches whether your "easy" pace is creeping up, which is the most common mistake he sees.
• ThursdayFartlek or hill repeats. Thursday is the traditional group fartlek day in Iten. A coach decides whether you are ready for it this week or whether it becomes another easy day.
• FridayEasy or rest. A coach moves this around your work and family, because a plan that fits your life is a plan you keep.
• SaturdayLong run, progressive, finishing controlled. A coach caps it when you are fatigued and extends it when you are ready, weeks earlier than the book's schedule.
• SundayRest. Kenyan pros take one full day off, almost always Sunday. Some jog 40 easy minutes before church; nobody trains hard. A coach makes sure you actually take it. The runner who "just jogs" on the rest day is the one who breaks in week nine.

The decisions between the days are the method.

What you can't get from a PDF

The plan is the easy part. The method is the judgment applied to it. In a Kenyan camp the coach watches the group run, sees who is tired, and changes tomorrow. He holds back the runner who wants to push and pushes the one who is coasting. He decides pace by how you look, not by a table.

With a 12-week PDF you run the same Tuesday whether you slept four hours or nine. Nobody reading it knows your hamstring is tight, or that you ran the long run too fast last Sunday. That judgment is the part of the Kenyan method that can't be put in a book, and it is how you stay healthy long enough for the rest to pay off.

Who coaches here

Three professional runners. Their names, faces and personal bests are on this site, and Michael Kimani Kamau's coach page links to his World Athletics profile.

• Michael Kimani KamauMarathon 2:08:19 (Shenzhen 2023, course record), half marathon 1:00:14. Second at the 2026 LA Marathon by 0.01 seconds, the closest finish in the race's history, second again at Lima 42K in May 2026, then won the Maybank Marathon in Bali in August 2026.
• Martin Karoki Muriuki5K 14:13, 10K 29:43. Middle distance and marathon. Trains in the Rift Valley.
• Peter Kimani Ndichu5000m 14:09, 10,000m 29:33. Middle distance and road running. Trains in the Rift Valley.

Each one builds your week, reads your feedback, and adjusts. Plans start at $79 a month and you can cancel any time. For $29 you get 130 pages. For $79 you get a Kenyan professional looking at your actual training and telling you what to change.

How coaching works here

You pick a coach and a plan, tell him your goal and your current week, and he builds your first week within days. From then on you run, report back over WhatsApp, and he adjusts. On the Performance and Elite plans you have a direct line to him during the week, with same-day replies, so the Tuesday session gets changed on Tuesday, not next Monday.

You deal with a person in Kenya who runs at a level most of us will never touch, reading what you did and deciding what you do next. That is the Kenyan running method as it is practised.

If you already bought one of the ebooks

Keep it. The principles are sound and the plans are a usable template. Then add what no book has: someone who runs this way, looking at how you're applying it. Send your last two weeks of training to a coach here and you will find out within a day which of the six habits you are getting wrong. Start with the first one: easy runs that are actually slow.

Is there a free version?

Yes. Martin's Kenyan Running Method book is free: 11 chapters, with the full book and a PDF sent by email. Our breakdown of how Kenyan runners train, the base-building, taper and race-week guides, and the marathon readiness tool are free too, and together they cover the same ground as the paid ebooks. What has never been free is a coach.