The heavy downpour pounding parts of the country has interrupted athletes’ track training programme in Nyahururu forcing coaches to use busy tarmack roads as alternative venues for the runners to do speed work.

Nyahururu stadium, which is their main speed work-training venue, has been unusable due to flooding every time it rains.

People Daily Sports tracked some of the athletes doing their speed work on roads full of traffic in the outskirts of Nyahururu town yesterday.

“We are training here (on the road) because the stadium where we normally do our speed work is unusable due to flooding occasioned by heavy rains,” Coach Lilian Wachuka as she took runners from Nala Athletics club through speed inter-vals at the eastern bypass.

Like the Nala athletes, many others were competing for space with vehicles on the road that is yet to be marked after its construction was completed early last year.

Nyahururu stadium where the runners do their speed training is currently water-logged due to the ongoing heavy rains.

The Laikipia County acting Executive for Youth and Sports, Stephen Kisorio prom-ised to have the stadium’s murram track improved when rains subside.

 Athletes who train at the stadium pleaded with the Executive to have the stadium fixed to save them from using roads for their training.

 Kisorio said further improvement of the stadium will be carried out “when the County partners with the national government to upgrade the facility to national standard.”

The athletes decried stalling of upgrading of Ol Kalou stadium in the neighbouring Nyandarua County, saying the facility would have been an alternative to the Nyahururu one.

The Ol Kalou stadium has been under construction for over 10 years ago but the work stalled last year.

Governor Moses Kiarie Badilisha appealed to the national government to help the County complete the facility, a request that was accepted by President William Ru-to during a tour of Wanjohi area early last year.