Mr. Renato Conova, can you please comment on El Guerrouj's training

well. wrote:

Any idiot can lie on a messageboard. I´d rather read articles written by people who has listened to lectures by his coach.

Why would Christian Hesch lie? Has he lied on here before?

Thanks for the response, Mr. Canova. I appreciate it.

Mr. Conova, I love reading your posts, but I find it very hard to believe that Shaheen could run a workout as you have discribed; 4x1600m with 4'30" recovery, in 3'56" / 3'59" / 3'58" / 3'57", and in the afternoon, 2 sets of 5x300m (50" recovery and 2'50" between the sets) with the average of 38"5 in the first set, and times as 39" - 37"2 - 37"3 - 37"1 - 37" in the second set. I can see him running the first part of the workout in the morning, but the afternoon session seems a little difficult, unless he was in 1:41/42 800m shape.

André Butcher (along with Longo and Sepeng) ran a session of 2x4x300 with 5/10 recovery in 1. 37.8/ 37.6/ 36.8/ 37.5 2. 37.6/ 37.7/ 37.1/ 36.9 in St Moritz in the year he ran 1:42, so I find it hard to believe that Shaheen could run a similar session with 4:10 less recovery between each repeat.

But as you said, take with a grain of salt what you read in short about a full training phylosophy of top athletes.

You would expect exceptional training from a man who ran 7.53 for the steeplechase, wouldn't you?

justin, don't you think bucher could have run even faster than that if he tapped everything? with his speed & strength, i wouldn't be surprised if he couldn't handle averaging 36.0 for that workout. also, remember how much speed shaheen has, if he can kick w/ el G, he has to have some serious wheels and 300 is right at that edge where you can just "make it" rather than 400's where it will really catch up to you.

cheers, dude-

I know he was an awesome athlete (I've seen him workout many times and have done a few workout with him back when he was Stephen Cherono), and you'll notice that I didn't even blink at the first part of the workout, which is very impressive on it's own. I thought Komen was in great shape when he ran his first repeat of 4/3/2/1 laps in 3:54, but he didn't come back with 3 more 4 lappers and this was in the year he ran 7:20!

I still find it hard to believe that he could come back in the afternoon and pump out a workout like that. I'd even question it is that was the only workout of the day. I've seen many 1:43 guys work out, so I know what is possible. I myself did 5x300 in 36.9 ave and I thought I was in 1:45 shape...but I had 4 min recovery and that still hurt like hell.

The recovery is less than 1:1, so it's on the very short end of a recovery time for an 800m pace session (which should be 1:2 when the volume is more than double that of race pace). His average pace is quicker than 1:41!

Anyway, if it is true, he clearly didn't get the best out of himself over 1500m, as to me, that indicates he was in 1500m WR shape.

PS; note that it's not the first time Conova has posted a session like this. From the year Shaheen ran 12:51

THURSDAY, 3/08 :

a) 25:00 warm-up + (Track Kasarani) 3 x 1600m (rec. 5:00) in 3:59.9 - 4:02.7 - 4:01.4 (10k)

b) 30:00 warm-up + (Track YMCA) 2 sets of 5 x 300m (rec. 50.0 among tests, 5:00 among sets) in :

38.8 - 39.0 - 39.0 - 38.5 - 38.6

39.0 - 37.3 - 37.0 - 37.6 - 37.2 (10k)

The training is true, I don't have any reason to lie.

But it's true also your statement : Shaheen NEVER reached his best, not only in 1500m, but in every event.

For example, when he beated EG with 12'48"81 in Ostrava 2003,he was of sure 20/25% weaker than in 2006. When he ran 5000m against Bekele in Rome (Golden Gala), he could run under 12'40". I remember that race : rabbit going at 3000m in 7'36"5 (good for the WR), 3 athletes together (Bekele, Shaheen and Kipchoge), and soon after a 4th km tactic in 2'51" with nobody pushing, so the other athletes (after 3 km were 100m far) had the opportunity to close the gap and at 500m from the finish the leading group was very big (may be 8 athletes). Bekele escaped in second lane, Shaheen remained closed inside and could move only in the last 300m, after having 20m of gap. The final 300m of Shaheen were 39"1 (for Bekele 40"8), but it was not enough for winning the race.

After that type of workouts, we went to Zurich. It was the only time I was almost sure about a new WR, because he was 20% stronger than in 2004 when ran 7'53"63. But athletics is strange : in Zurich there was rain, wind and the 3rd pacer (the best possible, Richard Mateelong) slowed down from 63" till 68"5, so Shaheen ran "only" 7'55".

And, from the next day in St. Moritz, full winter, with snow, cold and rain.

If I supposed something like this, I could chose to enter Stephen in 1500m in Zurich : now, the Asian record could be 3'28"...

I think conditions will be similar (or worse) this year with Zurich in early September, and I'll be surprised if it's anything other than cold and rainy for Brussels.

Canova,

I always found the style of Shaheen highly unorthodox, in that his back was arched way back, much, much more upright than most world class runners who all have slight forward lean. His style somewhat similar to the Ethiopian Gebremariam.

Were you happy with Shaheen's unorthodox style? Did you think it was economical, or did you try to change his technique? My feeling is that technique in running is very hard to change once established. Look what happened to Ritz when Salazar tried to change his style...

Ghost in Saudi,

www.kfupm.edu.sa

, apply today

I tried, but after few attempts I abandoned the idea.

The fact is that the running technique of Stephen depend on the stiffness of his back. Also his two brothers (Christopher Koskei, winner of WCH 1999, and Abraham Cherono, able running 8'08") have the same problem, may be not so evident. So, you can't do anything for modifying a genetic situation, you can only try to reduce the disadvantages and to work for exalting the most important qualities, that in this case were out of every range.

how did you train nicholas kemboi

Anyway, I continue speaking about NICHOLAS KEMBOI. He was already n. 4 and n. 7 in two different editions of World Cross Country Junior Ch. (2001 - 2002), so was not an unknown athlete. I'm his coach from september of 2001. Soon after WCCCH 2002, he was injured in a muscle, and lost 4 months of the past season. When came back, was not able to do any speed workouts, because yet felt pain in the leg. So, I decided to move him to longer distances, as he has the possibilities to become a very top marathon runner in the future (he's really born at the end of 1983). In march of this year, he was able running HM in Lisbon in 60:31, without any specific training, demonstrating his attitudes for long run. Then, was for about 40 days in Portugal for some road race, and went to Hengelo (10000m) without track preparation. His 28'19" was not so bad. After 2 weeks in Kenya, he came with me in Switzerland (Davos) from the beginning of July. I preferred to develop a good base of volume, running about 250 km per week during the first 2 weeks, with very slow training on track, but using short sprints uphill (60-80m about) for improving his capacity in recruiting the most part of his muscular fibres. He went running in Sotteville (13'42", 5th position) on 8/07, then in Algier (19/07), yet 13'42". Only after this race I decided to put some work of speed in his training. In short time, I discovered his speed, and was a surprise also for me. After a work with 4 sets of 600/500/400/300/200m (2 min rec. and 5 min among sets) in 1'33" / 1'16" / 60" / 44" / 28", he was able running the last 200m (free) in 23"7 ! So, speaking with him, I understood that he was not fast BECAUSE WAS SURE TO BE SLOW. He decided to try, changing his mentality. So, he went to Heusden (2/08) running in 13'14"43 after pacing (3rd position), then in San Sebastian (10/08) yet in 13'14"32 n. 2 with many mistakes during last lap, then in Zurich (15/8) almost won running in 13'01"14 with a good final. So, we decided to train hard 3 weeks for running 10000 in Bruxelles. I was sure about 26'45", but 26'30" surprised me also. In any case, during the last period his improvement was terrible, because every thing was really easy. For ex., on 23/8 he did a work with 3000m (2' rec) 6 x 60m sprint climbing (2' rec) x 4 times, more a final 1000 fast. His times were (in St. Moritz from 31/7, at 1800m of altitude) 8'23", 8'24", 8'17", 8'23" and 2'30"5 with last lap in 54"6 and last 200 in 24"8 (Kwalia took 5" during last lap). Kemboi may be the new Gebre, able running from 1500m to marathon. Not drug, but big talent and big motivation, and also big intelligence, because there are other athletes coming to Europe at the same level, but not able to improve because "too much kenyans" yet....

-Renato Canova from Some Information on Kenyan Athletes

This was written about Kemboi's training by Renato quite some time ago. I had to search this, but he has written a few times about Nicholas' preperations from 28:16-26:30.

Perhaps Renato would comment again, but you can search and find some of his older stuff again.

We must think about his genes. A person who dont need long runs are likely actn3 xx as those dont have to worry about converting muscle fibers. Those who dont need lots of milage is likely ACE ll or atleast ACE lb- meaning they have already got their capillaries in a good state for distance running without having to train for it.