ITEN, Kenya – At 6 each morning, the runners appear in groups, three here, five there, dressed in jackets and tights against the chill at 8,000 feet, as many as 500 of them training along red dirt roads that undulate through the farms of this rural village.

Here in the western highlands, the Great Rift Valley spreads out below, smoky with cloud cover, a breathtaking cleave of the earth. When Brother Colm O’Connell, an Irish priest, arrived here in 1976 to teach geography at St. Patrick’s High School, he intended to stay only two or three years.

“I’ve added a zero to that three,” he said with a laugh.

He knew nothing about distance running when he arrived. Three decades later, at age 59, the ruddy-faced O’Connell is a highly regarded coach in one of the world’s great running capitals.