It turns out the secret behind many of Kenya's great runners is an unassuming Irish priest, Brother Colm O'Connell. Outside magazine profiles the man and his method:
[The] greatest hurdles [Kenyan runners] overcome are not on the training ground. "Mostly, athletes come from rural peasant backgrounds," [O'Connell] said. "And once money enters the equation, it can become an issue." Sammy Wanjiru, for instance, was a Kenyan prodigy who won the marathon at the Beijing Olympics and by his early twenties had made several million dollars. In May 2011, after a night of drinking—one of many, according to those who knew him—and an argument with his wife, he fell to his death from the balcony of his house. Wanjiru was 24 when he died, and his story is not uncommon. The principal advantage of what O’Connell calls his "holistic" system is that he can spot danger signs before trouble sets in.
The Dish 