{"id":144,"date":"2013-04-08T17:45:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T17:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/?p=144"},"modified":"2013-04-08T19:03:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T19:03:28","slug":"great-comeback-for-ochichi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/news\/great-comeback-for-ochichi.htm","title":{"rendered":"Great comeback for Ochichi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Isabella<\/a>

Isabella Ochichi on Podium<\/p><\/div>\n

The streets of the Czech capital on Saturday provided the setting for what was one of the most impressive\u00a0 comebacks of recent times in long distance running.\u00a0 Kenya\u2019s Isabella Ochichi took third place in the Hervis Prague Half Marathon<\/a> with a time of 69:21 in\u00a0 her first major international race for more than six years.<\/p>\n

The fact that the 33 year-old last competed outside Kenya in 2006 and that she achieved such a good performance on her return made this an outstanding\u00a0 performance, perhaps unprecedented in women\u2019s distance running at this level.<\/p>\n

Isabella Ochichi\u2019s biggest success came in the Olympic Games in 2004 when she\u00a0\u00a0 won the silver medal in the 5,000 m behind Meseret Defar and ahead of Defar\u2019s Ethiopian compatriot f Tirunesh Dibaba\u00a0 in Athens. In 2006 she had a fine track season that ended with a third place in the 5,000 m of the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart. This appearance was her last\u00a0 outside Kenya until Saturday, April 6, 2013. In the interim she\u00a0 suffered of an injury to her left Achilles tendon. \u201cI had surgery on it in 2006 and then tried to come back in 2007. But it didn\u2019t work. So I had to have a second operation in Kenya in 2008. After that it took a long time to heal,\u201d recalls Isabella Ochichi.<\/p>\n

She had a baby in 2010 (Bernard is now two and a half) and after that started running again. \u201cBut when I started I didn\u2019t think of a comeback. It was just about keeping fit.\u201d Because of the pregnancy she had naturally put on some weight. \u201cI had 17 kilos more than before. I didn\u2019t use any special diet to get rid of the extra kilos. Instead I worked very hard in training First I started slowly and then\u00a0 added distance to my training runs. Step by step I moved forward and it was going better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was at the beginning of last year when she started thinking of a comeback. In February 2012 Isabella Ochichi participated in a cross country race in Kenya. Nine months later she felt ready for a test at the half marathon distance: at\u00a0 high altitude she competed in Nakuru and ran 74:26. After that Isabella Ochichi decided to go for her first international race since 2006 and selected the Hervis Prague Half Marathon. \u201cI knew she was serious because Isabella is a very professional athlete,\u201d said Zane Branson, her manager. He also revealed that she trains in the Ngong hills with the group of marathon world record holder Patrick Makau (2:03:38).<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to come to Prague to see what I can achieve with my training. I wasn\u2019t\u00a0 sure what would be possible here,\u201d she said. After finishing third in 69:21 in very cold conditions she was overwhelmed: \u201cAfter all these years I am very happy now. I expected to run well, but I didn\u2019tt think about achieving a third place.\u201d It was the third fastest time of her career. And she was not that far away from her twelve year-old personal best of 68:38.<\/p>\n

At the age of 33 she might well have some excellent years ahead of her in\u00a0 distance running. \u201cI am not as fast as I used to be, but\u00a0 still have good speed,\u201d said Isabella Ochichi, who lives with her family in Ngong near Nairobi. \u201cMy next goal is to make\u00a0 my marathon debut. I plan to do this in May.\u201d Isabella Ochichi may well head back to Prague since the Volkswagen Prague Marathon will be staged on 12th May. What might sound a bit overambitous at first becomes very realistic once she talks in more detail about her training: \u201cI have already done training races of 38 kilometres!\u201d Isabella Ochichi is ready for the next step. And the Czech capital may provide the stage once more for the next phase of return to the top flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The streets of the Czech capital on Saturday provided the setting for what was one of the most impressive\u00a0 comebacks of recent times in long distance running.\u00a0 Kenya\u2019s Isabella Ochichi took third place in the Hervis Prague Half Marathon with a time of 69:21 in\u00a0 her first major international race for more than six years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,1],"tags":[157,166,163,164,165,80],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes","category-featured","category-news","tag-157","tag-comeback","tag-czech","tag-half-marathon","tag-isabella-ochichi","tag-prague"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/kenya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}