A young man I coach trained in Ethiopia for a month or so and was able to run
with and observe Haile's training patterns (not too long after Haile ran a
decent marathon debut of 2 hours 6 minutes).
His reflections were:
HAILE AND THE ETHIOPIAN TRAINING APPROACH
Hard workouts three times per week and maybe a long run as well. They run
13 times per week. No 3 x per day training.
For example, the hard days for Haile and the National Squad guys were
Monday, Wednesday and Friday. As he is now in a marathon programme, he would
typically run a 20km hard tempo run one day, a track workout another day, and
then
hills or another long hard run (he did 2hrs10mins one workout) for the third
workout of the week.
All their hard running is done in the morning, usually very early, starting at
6.30am, and all the hard work is done with a group.
The second run of the day is solo training, i.e unstructured and
whatever they feel like. Even then, guys will often meet up together and run
informally.
It seems the Ethiopians are generally very relaxed about their training.
When they do a hard workout they run very, very hard. On their other recovery
days, if they feel good/are having a nice chat theyll run further. If they
feel
tired theyll run short. The easy runs in the afternoons and the recovery days
can
bevery, very easy, especially the afternoon runs on workout days. Once we did
a 32 minute pm run which I doubt was even 4miles long. Haile said beforehand.
Today, we are walking. He was not wrong!
Joe Rubio wrote:
> John,
>
> From his 5k, 10k and marathon times I'd guess he's running at 5:20 pace
> for an easier recovery run, 5:00-5:20 for your everyday - garden variety
> long run, maybe even dropping it down to 4:48 pace near the end.
>
> Something I read from Dellinger a number of years back sticks out in my
> mind. Now I'm paraphrasing here using a badly damaged brain this AM of
> too much coffee but I believe he said something to the effect that the
> next generation of dominant distance runner will not focus on the weekly
> mileage so much as they will be running a moderate volume of weekly
> mileage at much faster paces all around. In his estimation, almost
> everything such as long runs and "recovery" days would be done at approx
> 5 minute pace, while still maintaining an appropriate (for them) volume
> of work at 1500, 5k and 10k paces. I can dig up the actual quote from
> his book in the early 80's called "Training for Competitive Distance
> Runners" or something close, published by Runner's World Press in 1984 (?).
>
> Looks like Bill saw the writing on the wall back 20 years ago. Seems
> similar to the wall Coe saw in the early 80's as well.
>
> Joe
>
> John Schiefer wrote:
> > The real question is how does Geb define "easy" on his
> > training runs.
> >
> > I'm sure easy for Geb is about 5:45 pace.
> >
> > Schiefer
> > --- malmo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >>Yup Mike, the Letsrun mentality has infected you.
> >>Find one
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>-Original Message-
> >>From: Michael Contopoulos
> >>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 7:02 PM
> >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
> >>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>Subject: RE: t-and-f: 12:57 last 5000
> >>
> >>
> >>Malmo, on Letsrun you noted that what Geb does is
> >>pretty standard
> >>training.
> >>I disagree. The guy does 4 days of workouts in a
> >>row (not including the
> >>in
> >>betwen easy hour runs) ON TOP of his 3 hour long run
> >>followed by a 1
> >>hour
> >>run.
> >>
> >>hard 15-30km run
> >>1 hour easy
> >>
> >>sprint workout
> >>1 hour easy
> >>
> >>hills
> >>1 hours easy
> >>
> >>3x1200 to 8x2000
> >>w hour easy
> >>
> >>You tell me that Meb, Pepper, Abdi, Browne, Johnson
> >>are doing 4 workouts
> >>in
> >>consecutive days (with a "sprint" session in
> >>there... which of those
> >>guys
> >>does a "sprint" session?)...on top of a 3 hour run
> >>followed by a one
> >>hour
> >>run once a week... well... round of drinks is on me.
> >> geb trains much
> >>harder
> >>than our guys. And he's supremely confident. And
> >>he's supremely
> >>talented.
> >>That's pretty darn near impossible to beat.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>From: "malmo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>>Reply-To: "malmo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>>To: "'edndana'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> >>
> >><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>
> >>>Subject: RE: t-and-f: 12:57 last 5000
> >>>Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 17:18:03 -0400
> >>>
> >>>I'm basing my wager on this crowd:
> >>>
> >>>My guess is that Culpepper is the only one who
> >>
> >>could run sub-25, with
> >>
> >>>Bickford and Kennedy close.
> >>>
> >>>27:13.98 . Meb Keflezighi (Nik) 01
> >>>27:20.56 . Mark Nenow (Pum) 86
> >>>27:25.61 . Alberto Salazar (AW) 82
> >>>27:29.16 .. Craig Virgin (FRRT) 80
> >>>27:31.34 .. Todd Williams (adi) 95
> >>>27:33.93 . Alan Culpepper (adi) 01
> >>>27:37.17 Bruce Bickford (NBal) 85
> >>>27:38.37 Bob Kennedy (Nik) 99
> >>>27:41.05 Ed Eyesto
