Examples of Cheptegei's speed work

Many East African coaches/runners seem to often have a different definition of “speed work.” Personally I don’t like the term at all because it is so vague. But they often refer to anything faster than tempo as speed, i.e. pretty much any interval workout.

I thing I've learned from the Africans is running ALL-OUT on a regular basis. We never do that here in America. I remember my first few training sessions and these guys would all-out SPRINT.. hills, strides, fooling around. I would never have thought to go all out, like a kid, but that's what they did.

There are some great examples on YouTube of African training and you'll see the max speed running in the Wanders, Cheptegei and Mo Farah videos.

That's speed.

Don’t trust anything sweat elite publishes. A lot of it is made up or copied from other sources without giving any credit.

Make sure you cross reference any workout/details they publish using google, if no results pop up, it’s not true.

I saw somewhere 3x1000. I guess it is mile pace or slightly slower.

That's all I know.

Impala31 wrote:

I saw somewhere 3x1000. I guess it is mile pace or slightly slower.

That's all I know.

that is a solid workout after months of mileage and longer workouts

I've seen this

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3ehkDrnUMC/

Starno wrote:

I've seen this

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3ehkDrnUMC/

Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, but he did

8x400m

1-59 seconds

2-59

3-59

4-59.5

5-57.45

6-57.3

7-54.45

8-52.5

Nice track! Thanks for sharing the workout.

Starno wrote:

Starno wrote:

I've seen this

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3ehkDrnUMC/

Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, but he did

8x400m

1-59 seconds

2-59

3-59

4-59.5

5-57.45

6-57.3

7-54.45

8-52.5

I believe the track is slightly longer than 400m, so these times are slightly faster than at first glance unless he did really run a proper 400m

If you consider his VO2 max pace is 59-60 seconds per lap, then a workout of 400s at that pace would not be real speed work by other runners' definition.

Factor in the surface and 2000m altitude please.

Altitudee wrote:

Factor in the surface and 2000m altitude please.

Yeah, I know. But you probably missed my point anyway?

A couple of years ago I chat with Joshua and he asked me what I thought he could run at the 5000m that track season. I think I told him around 12:55 and of course with my great prediction skill out from training sessions and races I predicted exactly what he did that season.I asked him if he sometimes had tested my speciality 20 x 400m and he told he used to do it progressive . 4 sets of 5 x 400m and first set about 64-65 sec, second set 62-63 sec , third set 60-61 sec and last set 57-59 sec . 1½ min jog + 1 min walking easy between sets and about 1 min easy walking between reps .

Maybe this is the wrong thread but that guy does not look 18.

Starno wrote:

Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, but he did

8x400m

1-59 seconds

2-59

3-59

4-59.5

5-57.45

6-57.3

7-54.45

8-52.5

Thanks very much for this! I do love that track.

As another poster remarked, this does not actually seem super taxing or super fast (though of course we do not know the rest), albeit the surface means that it is worth a little more than on an ordinary track. The first four are roughly 5km pace, and are only 400m repeats. Even the last one is probably about 1500m/mile pace, so not super anaerobic given that there is only one of them, and there are only 8 reps in total.

cheptegei speed work wrote:

Starno wrote:

Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, but he did

8x400m

1-59 seconds

2-59

3-59

4-59.5

5-57.45

6-57.3

7-54.45

8-52.5

Thanks very much for this! I do love that track.

As another poster remarked, this does not actually seem super taxing or super fast (though of course we do not know the rest), albeit the surface means that it is worth a little more than on an ordinary track. The first four are roughly 5km pace, and are only 400m repeats. Even the last one is probably about 1500m/mile pace, so not super anaerobic given that there is only one of them, and there are only 8 reps in total.

52 is faster than his 800 pace.

54 is faster than his 1500 pace.

First 4 are a 3k pace but at altitude, on dirt without spikes it's more like 1500 effort.

So that's a strong workout.

cheptegei speed work wrote:

Apparently Cheptegei had been focusing on 'speed' for a while in preparation for his 5000m world record. Does anybody have any specific examples of this speed training? It obviously worked well!

In the interview which LetsRun did, Cheptegei touches on this, between 9-10 minutes. Comparing his training to that before Doha, when referring to speed, he seems to suggest that the difference is just that he was focusing on 2:30 / 2:35 pace now rather than 2:45 pace (per km) then. Not that much to go off, but perhaps it suggests that he was mostly focused goal race pace.

Starno wrote:

Starno wrote:

I've seen this

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3ehkDrnUMC/

Sorry it doesn't show in the picture, but he did

8x400m

1-59 seconds

2-59

3-59

4-59.5

5-57.45

6-57.3

7-54.45

8-52.5

It's so mind boggling to think 59's are basically his 5k pace. 57 would be around his 3k pace. So he was basically hovering around 3k-5k pace almost all of the workout and is only really moving until the last 2 reps.

Let it Rupp wrote:

It's so mind boggling to think 59's are basically his 5k pace. 57 would be around his 3k pace. So he was basically hovering around 3k-5k pace almost all of the workout and is only really moving until the last 2 reps.

Yes, I think I agree with you. I certainly agree with Impala that the altitude and surface make this a harder effort than it otherwise would be, but I think Impala was over-estimating the paces (i.e. I think they are not as quick as Impala was suggesting): if we look at pace alone, over 400m, one second quicker than 5km track pace is about 5km effort, not 3km effort. And whilst Impala may be right that the last one is a touch harder than 1500m/mile pace effort as I suggested before, I don't think it is 800m effort or harder.