How did Kenenisa Bekele become this good?

wanna be the best wrote:

You gotta wonder, how does someone build up to cranking out 62's for a 10k, like that is just so freaking insane, how? How did train to get to such a level? I'm flabbergasted!

Um, ever heard of talent??

He didn't have to "build up" that far, when he was running an 8:07 equivalent 2 mile at age 17, and was winning world cross jr's by an enormous amount after a very short period of training prior to that.

Yes, talent.

^

Okay, this is true, but he didn't wake up one morning and decide to run a 4:04 mile two times in a row, he had to build up to that as well.

But for the most part, KB has an insane amount of talent. He responds much better to mileage than anyone else does. What he gets out of 25 miles a week might be what a normal person gets out at 75 miles per week.

There is a misconception in running that as long as you train harder than everyone else, you always beat them. No. You will eventually reach a point where your body cannot take anymore training, and your PR's will (certainly) be far away from the WR in any event.

There was an interview with him in T&FN a few years ago (January 2005 I think is the one I'm thinking of). He said he did about 90 MPW over the winter, ran twice most days and did a long run of 1:45, and sometimes took Sunday off. It didn't mention in-season stuff or particular workouts.

But yeah dude, the man was just born to run to some extent. I mean, I'm sure Eliud Kipchoge or Sileshi Sihine would do any sort of training in the world if they thought they could beat him.

It has absolutely nothing to do with responding to mileage or getting more out of that mileage than other people.

Bekele is superbly talented and that is just that.

No Vivian Cheruiyot is better. She won 2 gold medals in 5000 and 10000 meters in 2011. Kenenisa won no medals in 2011.

Genetic supremacy.

good grief wrote:

maybe. but that's just your opinion, not a fact. you have no real idea if he's "talented" or not.

No, it's definitely a fact. Here, have a candy cane.

Bekele is doped. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. The guy drops out of a 10k at daegu at a low pace, then comes back 3 weeks later and busts out a world leader 10k, faster than Mo Farah ran, the guy who won gold at 5k and silver at 10k. What a joke, I thought me may actually have been clean before that.

Reality check223 wrote:

That world leading time used to be about his tempo run pace. Not that wild that he regained enough fitness to his old tempo times.

Kenenisa NEVER did tempo runs at 4:17 per 1600 pace. NEVER. Don't be ridiculous.

Man KB is so fast its like surreal but I think he trains smarter then everybody in the world. I read somewhere that he does like 3 hour long runs, that alone is more then anybody professional 10k runner in the world.

Reality check223 wrote:

Jesse was indeed a friend wrote:

Kenenisa NEVER did tempo runs at 4:17 per 1600 pace. NEVER. Don't be ridiculous.

McMillan running calculator says otherwise

WTF are you talking about? Kenenisa did NEVER did tempo runs at 4:17 per 1600m.

I remember reading a guy who interviewed Bekele to ask him what he did differently from the other guys. He just shook his head and said he just didn't know, he did everything the same as everyone else and just ran faster.

Jesse was indeed a friend wrote:

Reality check223 wrote:

McMillan running calculator says otherwise

WTF are you talking about? Kenenisa did NEVER did tempo runs at 4:17 per 1600m.

"did NEVER did". Do people with "superior intellect" write like that?

eh. wrote:

Jesse was indeed a friend wrote:

WTF are you talking about? Kenenisa did NEVER did tempo runs at 4:17 per 1600m.

"did NEVER did". Do people with "superior intellect" write like that?

They may indeed when they are being rather cavalier about responding to mental midgets almost as if they are wiping dust off a desk as they settle their thoughts on matters more worthy of their formidable intellects. When one is solving the problems of humanity and one is publishing for posterity (although indeed it troubled Freud that the dinosaurs became instinct, and therefore WTF is posterity), a trivial exchange regarding Bekele will not demand the requisite proofreading which would have extinguished an error such as you point out. A brilliant mind (which you ostensibly lack), would recognize that carelessness is no barometer with which to measure genius, and does not correlate with such.

wanna be the best wrote:

You gotta wonder, how does someone build up to cranking out 62's for a 10k, like that is just so freaking insane, how? How did train to get to such a level? I'm flabbergasted!

You don't. You take a runner who can run in the 27s, pump him full of drugs, and VOILA, WRs.

lol lol lol lol wrote:

wanna be the best wrote:

You gotta wonder, how does someone build up to cranking out 62's for a 10k, like that is just so freaking insane, how? How did train to get to such a level? I'm flabbergasted!

You don't. You take a runner who can run in the 27s, pump him full of drugs, and VOILA, WRs.

That explains Galen Rupp and Mo Farah's success, but we are talking about Keninisa here. He never did drugs and he trains himself which means he would have to be extremely scientific to outwit the drug testers. Furthermore, he never ran 27s.

Vivian Cheruiyot makes 10000 meters looks so effortless. She wasn't tired at 10000 meter championships. I think she can race up to 7 miles 12k, 15k and 10 miles. In London 2012 and 2013 she'll win gold medals at 5000 and 10000 meters. Vivian will be more dominant than Kenenisa winning 4 Berlin, Daegu,London,Moscow.

dude ran 12:37 and 26:1x. Those times are soooooooo out there I can't even imagine it.

good grief wrote:

maybe. but that's just your opinion, not a fact. you have no real idea if he's "talented" or not.

kenenisa bekele trains very hard from what i can recall. what in particular he does, i cannot recall at the moment.

I'm willing to bet $1 million that if you randomly selected 1,000 15 year-old males from the world population and gave them the exact same training Bekele did from that age that none of them would ever run 12:37.