TRAINING

Could you describe a typical fast progressive run (area

above 4mmol/l) for various Kenyan runners , ie. 2:06

marathoner, 26:30 10 runner.

hmm, under 80% MP for regeneration, thats really slow

That's about 6:50 m/m pace for a 2:30 marathoner. Doesn't seem all that slow to me.

There are many types of FAST PROGRESSIVE RUN, depending on the event and the period.

For ex., during the FUNDAMENTAL PERIOD, for a marathon runner is a run lasting 30-40 min, starting with a speed a little faster then MP (for a runner of 2:06 = 2'59" per km, about 2'57" soon) increasing continuously the speed with a max. speed of about 8% faster than MP (if MP is 3' per km, 18" are 10%, and 14"4 is 8%, so the final speed can be around 2'45"). For example, athletes like Frederick Cherono, winner in Rome with 2:08:47, used running 52 min starting from 3'10" about and finishing about 3' (at 2300m of altitude), while Makori, winner last year in venice with 2:08:49 and preparing at sea-level in Torino, run 12 km in 35'16" with 4 fractions of 3 km run in 9'06" + 8'57" + 8'45" + 8'28".

Also 10000m runners use this system, but with less long distance and faster speed.

Nicholas Kemboi and Moses Mosop, at the end of July, run on the track 10000m in 27'59"6 and 28'06" respectively using this progression per km (Davos, 1600m of altitude) :

2'58" - 2'54"8 (5'52"8) - 2'52"8 (8'45"6) - 2'52" (11'37"6) - 2'50"4 (14'28") - 2'47"2 (17'15"2) - 2'47" (20'02"2) - 2'44"8 (22'47") - 2'40"6 (25'27"6) - 2'32" Kemboi (27'59"6) / 2'38"4 Mosop (28'06")

Regeneration, as the name says, it means an activity that can help your body in quickly recovering the effects of fatigue.

For ex., after a session of SPECIFIC MARATHON ENDURANCE (like 4 x 5000m in 15' for an athlete able running 2:08, with 1000m recovery run in 3'20"), the level of lactate can be about 6 mmol.

The day after, in the early morning, of sure is not lower than 1.5 / 1.8 mmol.

If you go running for 1 hr very slow (is not important if is 6 or 7 min per mile), when you arrive your level of lactate decreased under 1 mmol (may be also 0.6), a value not available naturally.

So, the mean of regeneration IS NOT TO BUILD SOMETHING IN YOUR BODY, but is to permit a more fast recovery in order to prepare in a better way the next workout.

It's not true that running very slow it's not use. Resting a full day is not so good, in order to recover, as running slowly.

The problem is not running at medium pace every day, but modulating intensity and quantity, in order to improve in your endurance at high intensity.

For training high quality, we need complete recovery.

To "crush" the speed of training is always a mistake, because your body cannot develop its SUPERCOMPENSATION.

Mikeswift,

if you are too busy making cheap shirts to read this thats your business. But dont bore us with you remarks.

Mr. Canova,

Concerning total volume of training, how much did you have your elite women running compared to your elite men? Also, how about males in the 2:17-2:24 range, what total volume would you be comfortable and demand as well as breaking that down for a week. Thank you.

I don't mean to bore this thread with another compliment but ... this is brilliant. Please, keep it coming. I wonder if letrun would compile Renato's contributions into a single article for us all to 'cut, paste and read'.

Marathon is 42 km long also for women, so, if is possible, the volume in training for a woman is the same of a man. It's wrong to consider the quantity of training in relation of the used time.

If we prepare 1 hour race, may be correct to speak about the total time of training, because the event lasts the same time, and the difference is in distance ; on the contrary, if we are speaking about a distance, we have to put in relation the volume in km run during the preparation, as for men like for women.

For ex., I often use a type of training called "SPECIFIC or SPECIAL BLOCK", consisting in one tough training in the morning and in the afternoon, in order to put in crisis your body for exhalting the SUPERCOMPENSATION. If the managment of this training is correct (is very important to recovery well after, and to be fresh before), normally the athletes have a good improvement in their shape, in short time.

An example of this type of training (that can have different typologies, and different targets), made with ORNELLA FERRARA (bronze medal in '95 WCH), is the following (16th of July 1995) :

Morning : 15 min easy run + 24 km at 3'36"6 average per km

Afternoon : 15 min easy run + 24 km at 3'34"2 p/km

In that day, Ornella ran about 54 km, among them 48 about 95-98% of Marathon Pace.

So, there is no difference between training of men and women. An athlete is an athlete, also if there are physiological and psychological differences. Of sure, Paula Radcliffe and Naoko Takahashi run as much as the best male runners.

Thankyou, Renato. Does the Ethiopian training develope

along the same lines as the Kenyans?

"So, the mean of regeneration IS NOT TO BUILD SOMETHING IN YOUR BODY, but is to permit a more fast recovery in order to prepare in a better way the next workout.

It's not true that running very slow it's not use(ful). Resting a full day is not so good, in order to recover, as running slowly."

There, ladies and gents, is a KEY lesson that JK/Wejo/Lydiard etc (and I assume Hodgie & Malmo) all have stressed. It explains WHY...they can recommend/run such high mileage, and consider it not ?too much.? They all believe ?slow running? both improves aerobic capacity, and can ACTUALLY HELP ONE RECOVER. If that second part is true, then, there is a huge argument for always having some slow jogging in your week, and keeping your mileage up high.

Renato?s scientific explanation is:

?For ex., after a session of SPECIFIC MARATHON ENDURANCE (like 4 x 5000m in 15' for an athlete able running 2:08, with 1000m recovery run in 3'20"), the level of lactate can be about 6 mmol. The day after, in the early morning, of sure is not lower than 1.5 / 1.8 mmol. If you go running for 1 hr very slow (is not important if is 6 or 7 min per mile), when you arrive your level of lactate decreased under 1 mmol (may be also 0.6), A VALUE NOT AVAILABLE NATURALLY. ?

Renato, do you have any actual studies done on this? Where you found lactate levels the morning after a hard run quite a bit higher in an athlete before his morning easy run than after that run? It of course sounds like you have. And you are saying that complete rest would not lower the lactate levels as quickly or as low as easy running?

Thank you Renato. I printed out the website and plan on reviewing it tonight when I get home. Very informative stuff.

Of course, we have a lot of tests, because in the period from 1987 to 1996, when I was responsable of Italian Marathon and Luciano Gigliotti (former coach of Bordin and of Baldini now) of Italian Middle-distance, we had the opportunity to work with the italian doctor Pierluigi Fiorella, having in our National Center the possibility to do continuously blood and lactate tests, with our best runners. This happened expecially for marathon runners, and you understand that, when we are speaking about Bordin Olympic Champion, Baldini bronze medal and former World HM Champion, Ornella Ferrara bronze in WCH, Maria Guida European Ch., Maria Curatolo silver in ECh, Maura Viceconte bronze in ECh, we are speaking about top athletes fully investigated during all the periods of preparation. In 1990, 6 spanish coaches came to Tirrenia for meeting me, and I could explain them our methodology in training. They had together also a doctor, Xavier Lebiarte, that, having Spanish Federation money in view of OG in Barcelona, started from our experiences, but later developed our tests and created a new mentality in Spanish marathon runners.

So, Spanish school began from our experiences, and later was able to overtake Italian school, having athletes like Martin Fiz and Abel Anton that won different editions of European and World Championships.

Thank you so much for posting more information on this board. The information you are writing is the best I have ever read here. It is very helpful for those of us who coach or train alone. Thanks again!

Renato,

You may not know the answer to this, but don't also the Spaniards do a little bit less volume and more work like plyometrics, or is this only with their track athletes and not their marathoners?

Thank you, again.

The Spanish have to very different schools regarding short distance and marathon. For short distance, many coaches (for ex. Pascua, coach of 800m runners and 1500m), use plyometric exercises, technique of running, and generally many workouts for increasing strenght.

About marathon, their system is based only on the run. But run means to use very different means. For ex., running very short sprints climbing is a mean for strenght, having the target to recruit the most part of fibres in muscles interested in the action. So, it's a typical WORK OF STRENGHT. But, if you run longer and slower, always climbing (for ex., repetitions of 600m-1000m at 95% of intensity, with 4'/6' min recovery), this is a work for STRENGHT ENDURANCE. In this case, you normally are not able to increase your max. strenght, but are able to use for longer time a good percentage of it. If you run continuously climbing for 6-10 km, of course with a gradient of 5-6% (not 15% like sprinting), you improve at the same time your strenght endurance but, physiologically speaking, you can imrpove the permeability of the membranes, so you can eliminate quickly lactate from fibres. Running at 3' per km, 3'05" or 3'10" is not the same. If you control, for ex., the level of AEROBIC THRESHOLD (using the conventional limit of 2 mmol), and the ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD (using 4 mmol), you can see, in a marathon runner well trained, that the difference is about 5%, that means, if 3' is Aer. T., that 2'51" in An. T.

So, when you run at 3' (that is for some athlete Marathon Pace) you are in a total aerobic area, if you go at 2'50" you run over the threshold, and is no more possible, running in a competition, going down under the threshold itself. THIS IS THE REASON BECAUSE IN THE MARATHON WE MUST USE EVEN PACE, OR NEGATIVE SPLIT.

About the mileage, depends on the age of the athletes. If Martin Fiz and Abel Anton never ran more than 230 km a week, because their background was different (many years in short races, Anton 3'37" in 1500m, and already old), for full marathon runners (for ex., Juzdado) the volume was very high (very close 300 km a week), of course during fundamental period.

Spanish, like Italians, use a very big modulation. The specificity is in extension, not in quality. If you run 4 times 5 km in 15' recovering 1 km at 3'20", you are in better shape for marathon when you run 5 tiems 5 km in 15', not when you run 4 times in 14'40" (if your goal is running 2:07').

Regarding the preparation of Ethiopians and Kenyans, their phylosophy are very different. This happens because their tradition is different.

Etiopians won their first medals in Marathon. Abebe Bikila, winning barefoot in Rome '60, and with shoes in Tokyo '64, was followed by Mamo Wolde winning in Mexico City in '68, by Fatuma Roba winning Atlanta '96, and by Abera winning Sydney 2000. We are speaking about 5 gold medals in Olympics, while never a kenyan won OG.

Also for Gebre, Abebe is yet a myth, and that's the reason because he wants to improve the World Marathon Record. Also if he was able to win everything, without marathon is not (in his own mind) the best ethiopian athlete all time, but yet Abebe is more important.

For Ethiopians (like for Japaneses), Marathon is a religion. For Kenyans, the tradition is for cross, steeple, 5000m, from Keino, Jipcho, Biwott winning steeple in Mexico City, and their natural type of training is good for HM more than for any other event.

BUT THEY HAVE NO A CORRECT MENTALITY FOR MARATHON.

The ridicolous result of Kenyan Team during last edition of World Ch. can confirm this fact. They were all together in a residential camp, trained by a kenyan coach. Final resul is a world record : 5 men and 1 woman in WCH training in the camp, 1 arrived (finishing fuel after 35 km), and 5 retired ! It was not a case that Catherine Ndereba, knowing Marathon in US, and Joyce Chepchumba, already expert, prteferred to prepare respectively in US and in Davos-St. Moritz.

It's not possible to improvise without knowledge.

The fact is that the phylosophy of Marathon is completely different from the phylosophy of other events.

From 800 to almost HM, the goal is to inmprove the power of the engin, non existing any problem regarding the quantity of fuel, so you have not to pay attention at the consumption of fuel.

In Marathon, the goal is TO REDUCE THE CONSUMPTION OF FUEL at the same speed, indicated for running the marathon in your goal (for ex, 2:20 for a woman in 3'20" a Km).

Kenyans are not able to think in this way. For them, mileage is running long and slow, and speed is running faster. Putting together this two works, of sure you cannot prepare a good marathon.

Thanks, please continue

Renato Wrote:

The physiological targets are listed below in order of importance :

- Develop AERIBIC POWER

- Develop ANAEROBIC ENDURANCE

- Develop AEROBIC ENDURANCE

- Maintain MUSCLE EFFICIENCY

Can someone please explain to me why the anaerobic endurance phase comes BEFORE the aerobic endurance phase! I've never understood this as it seems backwards..."put the icing on the cake" and all????