Injury says otherwise wrote:
Given how often and severely Bekele was injured, i'd say it's likely he trained hard, or stupidly.
He's not a Ryan Hall who ran himself into the ground hormone wise, and he seems to have good mechanics (smooth!), so i'd conclude he just trained too hard at times.
He may not have timed his hard training for the WR attempts, but am sure he trained hard.
There was an article online a few years back, around the time he ran 2:03 in London. It said that Bekele was so superstitious about evil spirits being transferred from one person to the next, that he wouldn't even let a physical or massage therapist, who had previously worked on someone else, work on his body to fix certain issues. Instead, he just ran and trained with a giant knot in his calf. That kind of mentality (the unwillingness to seek PT help) can lead to all sorts of issues. So, no wonder he has been inconsistent. I believe he finally got over that way of thinking last year before his buildup to Berlin.