What does this quote by Renato Canova mean?

Gplusa wrote:

Westerners chase the win, sacrificing fast times for prestige. Kenyans chase the time and hope that the result will follow by default. You don’t see many Kenyans play Sit & Kick.

lol... Kenyans are running to win faster than westerners. Did you just decide to flap your mouth this morning sunshine..?!

Kenyans typically go for 2:45-2:55 in 1k's, at altitude, on dirt tracks, not 3:00. You can extend the notion that Kenyans go for the win by looking at the weekly Iten mass runs. All kinds of guys come from out of nowhere to the run, hundreds there, including many Olympians and World champs. They try to stick as long as they can. They stick until they fail. Then they come back, some of them at least, week and after until they can stick the whole way. Same thing in races. You go out with the lead group until you're dropped and reduced to a jog. Then train more. But don't train at slow speeds. Recover at slow speeds and gradually work up the pace on other runs, like they all do. But do your key training work with very fast guys at very fast paces and gradually extend the distance you can hold it.

Jzs wrote:

lol... Kenyans are running to win faster than westerners. Did you just decide to flap your mouth this morning sunshine..?!

Glad to see you agreeing with me. Kipchoge is a 3:50 miler. He could cruise along in the pack and win every marathon in the last half mile in 2:06. Yet he doesn’t. Westerners, for the most part, will do the bare minimum to win. Different priorities, different perspectives on the meaning of success.

After running for years switched to mostly cycling a couple years ago. With indoor trainers they have an ergonomic mode that forces you to do the prescribed effort for the workout as the trainer connects to your device. If you slow the RPM, the resistance goes up and visa versa. Without the ability to cheat, I'm fascinated to see how my approach changes versus running workouts. I'll do these workouts until complete or point of failure. Sometimes I make it only 60% through and then have to pack it in. Since cycling power can be measured in watts it makes your progression very clear. Sounds like Kenyans were way ahead of us.

It's another one of Renato's smokescreens for the truth behind why he moved from Italy to Kenya and a major portion of the Kenyan's success on the world stage. Because Kenya is a country with crap doping controls and you can dope the hell out of yourself and not get busted. I'm not saying Renato is not a great coach, he is one of the best in the world. But if you want to be a world-beater in distance running you have to dope. There is no way around it. It's a reality that the talent differences between the elites is much smaller than doping gains. Everyone who is at least at the sub-elite level knows this, it's the worst kept secret in the sport.

Renato continues to peddle nonsense like this or that EPO does not work on Kenyan's and the more naive eat it up. It's the same as the scientific gains from Salazar or team sky's marginal gains. These people all have a reason why they are innovative or smarter than the competition when the real truth is that they are all dopers.

I've raced plenty of Kenyan's. Their mentality is nothing special compared to other top runners. Do I think Kipchoge probably has a special mentality that few have, sure he probably does. But I'm sure there are other top athletes from Japan or top Americans and Europeans like Rupp that also have a similar mentality.

Actually it seems the Kenyan mentality is to run too fast to try and guarantee prize money, and if you can’t handle it then you jog it in or don’t finish. The western mentality is to run the pace that will give you the best probable outcome, whether that means a lot of money or no money

What’s not to get?

Its not the right speed if you only complete half the workout.

Just shows talent beats brains.

Don`t think so( about Renato`s move to Kenya). But you are of course right in that doping is a widespread problem at the world top scene, believe something else is to be naive.That Renato is wrong in his persistent view that EPO doesn`t work on world class runners in training up at high altitude in Kenya we have now finally got proved at the boards. Didn`t surprise me.

Well.....some of the top runners really runs free from doping, that I`m covinced of since I see myself what really smart magical training can do when it comes to individual fast improvement.

Merry Christmas to you all from the Magic Santa! :)

Cycling workouts: I made the same transition a few years ago. You have to hold the intensity level or “get dropped”. My cycling road improvements have born out this manner of training. Also, in my youth I trained in Boulder, CO, focusing on road races, Even though I was a former middle distance track guy, I followed my long distance running groups to learn how to train and race effectively on the roads; I certainly got stronger running those long miles but did not improve much for a few years, Then I decided to go back to my track training philosophy of high quality race pace or faster training, and my times improved a lot, And I found myself placing in the top 5 and even winning some races, PR’d at all my road distances too: Training at race pace or better does work if built around a proper training structure. Race mentality over a training mentality...

Yes, training just below the "puke" zone is the magic zone. Pretty soon what use to be the puke zone becomes easy. That seems to be the only way I could improve.

The edge has to be pushed all the time- however slow or fast we run, and those who can do it without injury will get the best results. If you never get injured, you probably never found your limits.

HR zones, LT zones, these just do not cut it, these are limiters. The clock ticks the same for the slower and the faster runner. Time will never come to us, we must strive to catch it.

This is why I hate cycling lol

x days without injury wrote:

This is why I hate cycling lol

(In response to 889's point about the "puke zone")

Bunch of baloney from Canova but he is maybe the best coach there is. Remember that he supposedly conducted his own studies on EPO which is a major violation.

Gplusa wrote:

Westerners chase the win, sacrificing fast times for prestige. Kenyans chase the time and hope that the result will follow by default. You don’t see many Kenyans play Sit & Kick.

It means that even though Renato thinks EPO doesn't help Kenyans, most of them take it anyway.

Europeans and North Americans amateur runners tend to be the ones who obsess over the data too much. Heart rates, thresholds etc. The top pro guys and gals don’t seem overly concerned with such metrics.

In Kenya no one is a recreational runner so they don’t have the gear and stat junkies polluting Instagram like we do.

Runner10287 wrote:

Europeans and North Americans amateur runners tend to be the ones who obsess over the data too much. Heart rates, thresholds etc. The top pro guys and gals don’t seem overly concerned with such metrics.

In Kenya no one is a recreational runner so they don’t have the gear and stat junkies polluting Instagram like we do.

Pro runners have coaches to care about that stuff for them.

I think it simply means that Kenyans start with a pace that they need to run and want to run and then gradually increase the distance in which this can be run at. This is done by doing work slower than and faster than "goal pace" to make the pace feel easier but also to increase the duration at which one can run at a certainly of intensity (not speed)

Western Runners build a certain volume, whether weekly mileage or an individual workout. They then do faster work to edge the pace of that workout down.

Too different philosophies. The Kenyan method requires more of an aerobic base IMO.

As I have told before , the Kenyan style creates more casualties.