Episode 15 | Aliphine Tuliamuk

the morning shakeout podcast

Coaching, Marathons, Sports, Olympics, Running, Ultrarunning

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2018

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“When I’m dealing with pressure from racing and stuff, I just tell myself, 'This is an opportunity of a lifetime.' When I was growing up, or I started running, I never thought that I would be the person that I am today. I never thought that I would be living in America, that I would be an independent woman doing my own thing. I have an opportunity that not a lot of people have—like not even my role models when I was in Kenya, they don’t have the opportunities that I have here. And so when I have that pressure, I just tell myself that I am in a better place and I don’t want to complain because this is not going to last forever and so I try to just enjoy the process.” All she does is win, win, win, no matter what. Super excited to welcome nine-time U.S. national champion Aliphine Tuliamuk to the podcast. Tuliamuk went wire-to-wire to win the U.S. half-marathon championship in Pittsburgh on May 6 and followed that up less than a week later with her third-straight U.S. 25K title in Grand Rapids on May 12. The 29-year-old Tuliamuk, a native of Kenya who became a U.S. citizen in 2016, lives in Flagstaff, Arizona and trains with coach Ben Rosario’s HOKA Northern Arizona Elite squad. She’s a graduate of Wichita State University, where she was 14-time All-American and earned a degree in public health.“Without running, I would never have these opportunities,” Tuliamuk told me. “I have met some really, really incredible people in my life. And things have changed for me through running. It’s just amazing and running has changed so much for me. I think I get that drive from there. The things I’m able to do for my family—to be able to help my siblings pay their tuition—and if I wasn’t running, if I wasn’t here in America, I wouldn’t be able to do that. So I get that drive just because I am in a position where I can do things, and if I stop being self-motivated, then I’m not going to be able to do anything. And I feel like I still have so much in me. And people see me and they’re like, “Wow, you’re so accomplished.” But when I think about it, I just feel like I haven’t done much. I feel like I haven’t hit the jackpot that I need to. And so I still have to have self-drive in order to get to that point.”In this episode, we dive into Tuliamuk’s story and what it was like to grow up in a small village in Kenya with 31 siblings. We also discuss her origins in running, her earliest recollections of racing and competition, and what led her to attend college in the U.S. Finally, we talk about what it was like assimilating to life in a new country, the differences she sees between Kenyan runners and American runners, why she’s excited to train alongside Stephanie Bruce and Kellyn Taylor in the lead-up to the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon, how she deals with pressure in competitive situations, the importance of national championship races to her as a new U.S. citizen, where she hopes to invest her time and energy when her running career is over, and much, much more.This episode of the morning shakeout podcast was edited by John Isaac at BaresRecords.com.Complete show notes here: https://www.themorningshakeout.com/podcast-episode-15-with-aliphine-tuliamuk/Sign up here to get the morning shakeout email newsletter delivered to your inbox every Tuesday morning: www.themorningshakeout.com/subscribe/Support the morning shakeout on Patreon: www.patreon.com/themorningshakeout

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Alphine Tulliumuk, welcome to the morning shakeout podcast.
0:04.0	Thank you, Mary.
0:06.0	Now I'm going to start by referencing a popular song lyric that makes me think of you.
0:10.1	And it goes, all I do is win, win no matter what and at least when it comes to
0:15.5	US national championship races including your two most recent ones at the half
0:20.6	marathon and 25 K distances. That has held very true. Why are these
0:25.6	national championship events so important to you? Well I mean I am a new citizen
0:32.0	I'm on the I've been only a citizen for the last couple of years.
0:35.6	And for me, I kind of feel like doing national championships is my way of showing gratitude in
0:43.4	as to this beautiful nation that gave me opportunities that I never
0:47.0	I never will have got them anywhere else and so doing the national championships
0:51.2	is just a way of just showing my thank you.
0:56.7	And I mean it's a great way to really compete against you know like some of the top
1:00.9	you guys women without like having to worry about the international
1:04.2	field and you know a lot of times those races are really tactical you know so
1:09.7	it's like it's a good way to learn how to just compete.
1:14.0	A lot of times I don't have to worry about time, just go out there and have a good race and hopefully
1:20.4	get away with the win.
1:26.0	And how would you rate your competitiveness? Is that one of your strongest attributes as a runner?
1:29.0	I think so, yes. I mean I haven't really run like really, really fast times compared to a lot of the
1:34.9	athletes we have around the world.
1:37.2	And so I think I'm a much better competitor, you know, done like a racer, then saying going out there and trying to get a
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