If you want to avoid a faux pas the next time you're in Iten, Kenya, don't talk to runners while they're eating. It's also not the best idea during a group run to comment on the beauty of a Rift Valley sunrise. In both cases, the ensuing silence will communicate better than words that you've goofed. "Training and meals-that's serious business," notes Brother Colm O'Connell, athletics coach at St. Patrick's High School in Iten.

O'Connell imparts this wisdom a few days into the Iten Athletics Training Camp, held for three weeks every December and April at St. Patrick's. The camp is for the top juniors from the districts surrounding Iten, which is to say the top juniors in Kenya. When O'Connell held the first camp in 1989, only girls were invited; the initial eight included Lydia Cheromei, who recently ran the second-fastest 15K ever, and Susan Chepkemei, second at November's New York City Marathon. Other products of the camp include Wilson Kipketer, world record holder at 800 meters; Sally Barsosio, the 10K world champion in 1997; and Christopher Kosgei, world steeplechase champion in 1999. The camp I attend hosts 31 boys and 28 girls, plus 15 "day scholars" (locals who train with the invitees but sleep and eat at home). Nineteen of the runners have won national titles, and ten have represented Kenya in international competition.

Camp life has a way of focusing one's attention. As darkness breaks just after 6:00 a.m., there's a run of 35 to 50 minutes, followed by tea and plain bread. The second workout starts a little after 10:00. This run is usually the hardest of the day, such as a hill workout, fartlek session or continuous (read: fast) 35 minutes. As after all runs, the athletes perform mobility and flexibility drills. There's more tea at 11:30, then lunch at 1:00, either rice and beans or githeri (a mixture of corn, beans, cabbage and whatnot). Afternoon training starts at 4:00. It's often very light jogging, but can be a half hour of diagonals (mixing quick striding and jogging across a field) or circuit training. (If you want to feel good about yourself vis a vis future Olympians, watch young Kenyans try to do a third push-up.) Dinner is at 7:00, and alternates between ugali (cornmeal porridge) and milk, and ugali and meat. Before and after dinner, O'Connell shows videos of the Olympics or other world-class races. The athletes are asleep, understandably enough, by 9:30. The only break in the schedule comes on Sunday, when the middle workout is omitted so that the runners can attend church.

Training here is enlightening. There is, as you now know, almost no conversation during a run. Every session starts at a near stumble. Almost inevitably, though, pride, competitiveness and a simple faith in the efficacy of hard work take over, and we go faster and faster despite the uneven roads, ubiquitous hills and 8,000 feet of altitude. When things really start to get out of hand, I point to myself and offer some combination of three key Swahili phrases-"pole pole" (slow), "nimachoka sana" (very tired) and "mzee" (old man)-and watch them surge ahead.

There are a few oddities on display. The no-talking-while-training thing would seem to lessen one's enjoyment, especially for so sociable a people. Even weirder, everyone in camp trains in a ridiculous amount of gear. On one run I did in t-shirt and shorts, my companion had on a t-shirt, rain jacket and wind pants over tights. "It is good to sweat to lose the weight so that you can run fast," explains steeplechaser Jackie Chirchir. "If you are heavy, you will not be able to keep up with someone who is slim." Yeah, but...oh, never mind.

To be fair, I'm a bit of an enigma to them. "What are you training for?" I'm repeatedly asked. I don't know Swahili for "so I don't go on shooting sprees," so I'm left hemming and hawing and not explaining to their satisfaction why someone with no real competitive goals runs twice a day. Especially an mzee.

Still, some things are universal. One morning I join 1500-meter runner Joseph Cherpka for the first run of the day. Along the way, we pass a day scholar who is barely jogging. He latches onto us; soon, his in extremis breathing is louder than our footsteps. Nonetheless, he pushes the pace over the last 15 minutes. After we turn for the final few hundred yards to the St. Patrick's gate, he keeps motioning with his left hand, urging us to continue upping the pace, and we end in a sprint. Bent over, looking at his watch, Cherpka says between recovery gasps, "It is wonderful."

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