Robert K Cheruiyot's Insane Mileage Leading Up To Frankfurt

Impressive if true. 16 sessions a week. Nothing shorter than 15K at at time. 30K and 40K long runs on days that are still doubles.

that's a good 20+ hrs a week of just the running...nevermind the showers, stretching, changing etc...

Hmm, dubious.

why dubious? His pace isn't outrageous, about 6:25's on most days. It's just a TON of easy (for him) running.

Uhh that's nothing. The Japanese female marathoners (Naoko Takahashi, etc.) as well as the Chinese female marathoners (Zhou Chunxia) have been known to run up to 42 km a day...

Could you provide this list in miles? Thanks.

miles are pointless... get with the times

it's 124 miles per week. that's not all that "insane"

i guarantee that many of those hour runs are more than 15km

That's 168 miles a week. (I counted 15k as 9 miles.)

fdaf wrote:

it's 124 miles per week. that's not all that "insane"

Seriously? Math isnt your thing is it?

actually 174mi/wk

go ahead run at second wrote:

That's 168 miles a week. (I counted 15k as 9 miles.)

Now add 4.2 miles. So, 172.2 miles.

280 kilometers = 173.983934 miles

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.

wejostriplet wrote:

Impressive if true. 16 sessions a week. Nothing shorter than 15K at at time. 30K and 40K long runs on days that are still doubles.

Gelindo Bordin´s highest weeks leading up to the 1988 OLY

were around 280 km/w.

I should be at about 87 miles this week, exactly half that...guess the easiest way to double my mileage would be to add a second run on my single days and a third run on my double days. I would actually love to be able to do that.

mizuno wrote:

I find the lack of tempo runs, progression runs and long intervals more surprising.

It may be that his typical 15Km run is a Kenyan-style progression run based on feel (starting very, very slow and picking up gradually to a fast finish). He's therefore covering all of these intensities daily.

Refer to Wanjiru's Beijing build-up as reported in his Asahi Shinbun interview for a similar example.

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.