Robert K Cheruiyot's Insane Mileage Leading Up To Frankfurt

Danny Komen wrote:

Yeah, his one hour morning run could well end up a progression/tempo thing. That's how the Kenyan's run, they all seem to do it naturally, first mile or so is jogging then they get quicker if the feel good. "let the pace come to you" they say. Or "run to the barn" as Malmo suggests.

How do Americans run?

hit your pace out the door and stay there

sdfgh wrote:

No, that´s 174.0211311 miles. One mile is 1609meters.

MORON! One mile is 1609.344 metres. Jeez. What the other guy said is correct. Okay, okay, you're a troll, I get it.

10 x 1000 meters AT 3'

Am i reading that correctly:

So doing kilometer reps in 2'40" to 2'50" while leaving on 3'?

Or is it just 10 x 1000 meters at target marathon pace?

Big difference in intensity there.

Tergat used to peak around 200mpw during his glory days. Imagine if someone like Ritz could bang out 200mpw?

If the total mileage that day is only 15k then he is doing these K repeats with just a 200 meter rest. If it's 1000 ON 3' then that is a killer workout- just 20 seconds rest for a 2:40 pace. Even if just at 3:00 pace that is still a pretty good workout although probably too easy for him.

mizuno wrote:

I find the lack of tempo runs, progression runs and long intervals more surprising. By the way running 250-300 kilometers a week was not uncommon among Scandinavians runners in the 80’s. Henrik Jorgensen, who won London Marathon in 1988, was a high mileage runner and is reported to have broken the 300 kilometers barrier a couple of times during his build up.

How do you know he's not doing tempo runs and progression runs?

Surely he picks it up during many if not most of his runs.

Tike wrote:

10 x 1000 meters AT 3'

Am i reading that correctly:

So doing kilometer reps in 2'40" to 2'50" while leaving on 3'?

Or is it just 10 x 1000 meters at target marathon pace?

Big difference in intensity there.

I must be missing something. Does it not clearly mean that he is running 1000 meter reps at around 3:00 per rep?

Is your friend German or American? Strong southern accent? There was CLEARLY something lost in the translation...

What are you talking about, the outline of his training makes perfect sense (especially if you ever trained with Kenyans runners preparing for longer distances).

It is not atypical for them to run 3 times a couple of days per week.

When they say a 1 hr morning run of 15km, of course it is approximate. Maybe sometimes it is 14km, others 16km.

And 3 min km repeats is also somewhat approximate. He probably finds a long stretch of fairly flat dirt road and runs back and forth. Most likely covering a km or more each 3 min repeat. And SHORT rest.

If it is on the track, why run faster than 3min/km if that is the goal pace for the marathon (2:06-2:07). Especially since 3min/km anywhere at altitude in Kenya is equal to 2:50-2:55/km in Frankfurt.

This is why they are the best. The just train as hard as the body lets them, and don't worry so much about the exact science. When they do accept a little science from foreign coaches, then they are even better for just listening and not questioning the program.

Given good weather, I would expect a bunch of 2:05-2:07 times in Frankfurt on Sunday. There is a 2:06 group with 3 paces, a 2:07-2:08 group with 3 pacers and a 2:09-2:10 group with paces.

lohalloran wrote:

Tergat used to peak around 200mpw during his glory days. Imagine if someone like Ritz could bang out 200mpw?

Tergat´s glory days was when he was a track/XC runner and then he did nowhere near that mileage. As a marathoner he has been (comparatively) inconsistent.

Those reports are incorrect.

two possibilities now:

1) Robert K runs great at Frankfurt. Letsrun pundits decide that this unequivocally proves all marathoners must run this kind of mileage and that only if the Americans weren't so lazy they'd be so much faster and this is why Kenyans are so fast and so on and so on.

2) Robert K has a less than perfect race. Letsrun pundits decide this unequivocally prove running so much "junk" mileage is a complete waste of time and that if only Robert K trained like the lower-volume Americans, who have so much less talent but get more out of it, he run marginally faster (oh, he only ran 2:08 today- if he cut the junk mileage and started training smart, I could see him running 2:07:57 in the perfect race if everything goes right- he just doesn't have the talent to go faster anymore").

3) I know I said only two, but inevitably, no matter how he runs, he will be accused of drug usage, which will degenerate into a debate about Kenyan depth and "why we're not keeping up with the East Africans."

Robert K is not a doper. Mark my words. He is hard working and talented. His mileage is exaggerated and he is not

running any tempos.

Hopefully he can go 2.10 or at least 2.12. He is a warm-weather runner. Thrives in the cold too, so he is the favorite tomorrow. Wind is the only problem. And perhaps the rabbits? I hope they can go out in 63. Otherwise he has lost too much time to run 2.09. Good luck.

yyy wrote:

Hopefully he can go 2.10 or at least 2.12

What? Last year in Frankfurt he ran 2:07:21 (and won) and this year ran 2:10:06 in Boston. Why would he run that slow now?

40km followed by 15km on the same day doesn't strike you as being atypical for a Kenyan?

To all of you so concerned about whether he is doing "progression runs" ... why are you so convinced that he "has to" be doing these things?

I have seen training logs for all of the great US marathoners from the 70s and 80s and the following don't do any "progression runs":

Shorter

Rodgers

Salazar

Virgin

Beardsley

Meyer

All of these ran 2:08-2:10.

I see the idea of the progression run as something that was invented in the 90s for people to weak to run hard for a full 10 miles.

Oh, and BTW, there is no way that this guy is running fast in any of those 1-hour runs if he is running 170 mpw. No way at all.