Therefore, there is an urgent need for novel data that can be obtained from some of the

best athletes in the world. Ever since Abebe Bekele became the first black African gold medalist in winning the marathon at the Rome Olympics in 1960, scientists have tried to explain the phenomenal success selleck of east African distance runners in international athletics [8–11]. Notably, middle- and long-distance runners from Ethiopia and Kenya hold over 90% of both all-time world records as well as the current top-10 positions in world event rankings [12]. Possible explanations have been proposed including genetic factors [13, 14], environmental conditions [9, 15] and near optimal dietary practices [9, 16, 17]. However, the east African running phenomenon still

remains largely unexplained. While a significant number of studies have investigated putative factors influencing the east African running phenomenon, only five studies have assessed the dietary practices of elite east African runners and all have involved Kenyan athletes [8, 9, 16–18]. The first of these studies, Mukeshi and Thairu [17] estimated the energy intake (EI) of male, long distance Kenyan runners through a combination of questionnaires and direct observation. Remarkably low EI (9790 kJ/d on Selleck NCT-501 average) was reported, while the average CHO intake was 441 g (8.1 g/kg of BM per day) or 75% of total EI (TEI). However, in the subsequent studies [8, 9, 16, 18], substantially higher estimates of EI were noted in comparison to the initial PD184352 (CI-1040) data. For example, Christensen et al. [16] reported an average EI of 13210

kJ/d, while the consumption of CHO was 476 g (8.7 g/kg BM, 71% of TEI). Similarly, Onywera et al. [9] reported an average EI of 12486 kJ/d (CHO 607 g, 10.4 g/kg BM and 76.5% TEI), while estimated EI in two studies by Fudge and colleagues were 13241 kJ/d (CHO 552 g, 9.8 g/kg BM and 71% TEI) [18] and 12300 kJ/d (CHO 580 g, 9.8 g/kg BM, 79% TEI) [8], respectively. These dietary studies focused primarily on athletes from the Kalenjin tribe of Kenya; a fairly distinct Kenyan ethnic group living at high altitudes, noted for producing athletes of great endurance. For example, the Kalenjin tribe has less than 0.1% of the world’s population, yet members of this tribe have achieved nearly 50 athletic Olympic medals. Ethiopian athletes boast a recent success record in international distance running second only to Kenya. As is the case in Kenya, successful Ethiopian athletes come predominantly from one localized ethnic group in the Ethiopian region of Arsi [14]. The Arsi region of Ethiopia is situated at high altitude and contains roughly 5% of the Ethiopian mTOR inhibitor population whilst accounting for 14 of the 23 distance runners selected for the country’s 2008 Olympic team.