Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Friday 11/2/2012

Yaya village is a new complex built over the last year through the efforts of Haile Gebrselassie and Joseph Kibur. With a 1000 meter dirt track, a brand new synthetic 400 meter track, endless trails, a modern gym, sauna, massage, it is well on its way to becoming the premiere training facility in Ethiopia.

(Yaya Village main campus)

I was invited to hold clinics there over the course of the 4 days I would be in Addis Ababa. The first clinic was for athletes and coaches with the agenda focused on 'Corrective Actions for Repetitive Motion Injuries'. Here is a write-up from the folks at Yaya about the clinics I led there:Yaya write-up on Joe's clincs There was a translator on hand but it was determined the audience spoke English well enough. This was confirmed as after the presentation the questions during the Q&A showed little was being lost. The coaches in particular were very inquisitive and right on target with their questions. This was not a surpise, I suppose, given they were the national coaches of the Ethiopian Athletic Federation, including:

• Dr Yilma Berta: Ethiopian Olympic Head Coach
• Melaku Deresa: EAF Head Marathon Coach
• Huden Shabo: National Coach
• Bizunoh Yai: National Coach
• and many others

Lunch at Yaya included some interesting conversations, including one with Becky Wade. Becky is a Penn State grad student who is on a year long fellowship to travel the globe, creating her itinerary as she goes, to study running in different cultures. Here is her blog, beckyrunsaway.wordpress.com - note the 'running tally' on the right column, these numbers will grow as she is only just now completing the first quarter of her journey.

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