Self- Coached Geoffrey Mutai a training week

it needs some context. When in the cycle? Its a lot of miles but absurdly slow for his level.

That is what I thought, a lot of miles, but not what you would guess as far as the intensity goes for someone of that level. Seems to prioritize ample recovery and rest, not during the workouts themselves, but in the broader sense.

another canuck wrote:

it needs some context. When in the cycle? Its a lot of miles but absurdly slow for his level.

I deduce that this is his "bread & butter" routine.

quote:

" Where we run is very hilly, up and down, up and down. We don't really do a hill workout. Most of the time it's hilly, even where we do speed work. Once I finish the long run, I know that the hard part of the week is done."

He trains at Kapng'etuny Kenya 8,200 feet altitude.

Absurdly slow? hahaha. You try it.

Remember the altitude factor- much of that may be above 7000 ft.

It looks Whitlockian.

This looks to come out at 110-130 mpw depending on what pace you take. That is pretty crazy for 6 days.

Hodgie-san wrote:

another canuck wrote:

it needs some context. When in the cycle? Its a lot of miles but absurdly slow for his level.

I deduce that this is his "bread & butter" routine.

quote:

" Where we run is very hilly, up and down, up and down. We don't really do a hill workout. Most of the time it's hilly, even where we do speed work. Once I finish the long run, I know that the hard part of the week is done."

He trains at Kapng'etuny Kenya 8,200 feet altitude.

Absurdly slow? hahaha. You try it.

Absurd? No. But for Mutai, that is really slow. Hills and altitude maybe at 15-30 sec per mi for someone like Mutai. So, at sea level on the flat he would still be running 7:30ish. I have run with pros before whose prs are 6-10 min slower than Mutai's. They would go bonkers if they had to run 7:30s for 2 hours straight as a recovery run.

But it is very interesting stuff from Mutai. It is almost like the old LSD has been retooled to be a recovery run. I wonder how this compares to the other speedster marathoners like Mosop and E Mutai.

Precious Roy wrote:

But it is very interesting stuff from Mutai. It is almost like the old LSD has been retooled to be a recovery run. I wonder how this compares to the other speedster marathoners like Mosop and E Mutai.

Yes where is the "turbo diesal"?

@Renato Canova; Physiologically explanation of 'new' turbo diesels like Mutai, Mosop, Radcliffe...

Well I certainly feel like a wimp now, haha.

15-30 sec/mile at 7000+ ft with hills? You have proven you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I don't imagine that he is locked in at 8min pace the whole time. I bet there is a fair amount of 10min miles progressing to faster at the end.

I'm a 2:35 marathoner and I often run 9:00min pace recovery runs. I also only recently started wearing a Garmin. I used to look at my watch at the end of a run and I would note that I averaged 7:47 pace or whatever. Now that I wear a Garmin, I realize that I run 9:00 to begin with and 6:30 at the end but the effort is similar. Not saying this is what Mutai does, but I imagine it's similar.

Final thought, it's much easier to run slow if you run 145miles in 6 days.

Really interesting. Thanks Bob. Almost makes we wish I hadn't let my subscription to the Globe lapse. Are you going to be in the standard place tomorrow?

HRE wrote:

Really interesting. Thanks Bob. Almost makes we wish I hadn't let my subscription to the Globe lapse. Are you going to be in the standard place tomorrow?

Yes Crossroads 2-ish.

If he's doing all those 8 min miles maybe I should be running loads of 11 min miles.

fiftypence wrote:

I don't imagine that he is locked in at 8min pace the whole time. I bet there is a fair amount of 10min miles progressing to faster at the end.

I'm a 2:35 marathoner and I often run 9:00min pace recovery runs. I also only recently started wearing a Garmin. I used to look at my watch at the end of a run and I would note that I averaged 7:47 pace or whatever. Now that I wear a Garmin, I realize that I run 9:00 to begin with and 6:30 at the end but the effort is similar. Not saying this is what Mutai does, but I imagine it's similar.

Final thought, it's much easier to run slow if you run 145miles in 6 days.

I noticed the same thing since wearing a garmin. I may average 7:40 but at the end I'm going much faster with the same effort.

I figure he's running about 140-150 per week. A lot of "easy" miles- that's a good thing.

during the summer I average around 7:30-8 minute pace for hilly runs at 6500 ft. when I come down to sea level for a weekend during that time I find myself doing 10 milers at 5:50 pace just because I find myself unable to slow down on flat surfaces.

Then when I start workouts at sea level the recovery days slow down to whatever, 6:30-7:30 pace.

I dont find it hard to believe hes running 3 hours a day at 8-6:30 pace on hills at 8000 feet.

To state the obvious, this works for him. But, it does fly in the face of the more recent theory and practice of very fast tempos as long as 30k, and that was the point of my official comment. Did everyone see Canova's comment that Mossop is aiming at 29:10 for each 10k?

Hard to imagine you dont need some 29 min 10kms in practice if you are going to do 4 of them in a race.

This is most likely the fundamental period of his training, not specific prep for the marathon.