In my opinion, to be the coach of an athlete means to follow the athlete ALWAYS in his training. Under this point of view, I'm not the coach of Mo Farah, but his advisor for training.
I met Mo the first time 2 years ago. In Kenya, he lives in Iten, and we are in the same hotel, so naturally we started talking about training : methodology, altitude, diet, recovery, etc.
After the last winter (when Mo had some problem of Iron), he asked me to give him a detailed program for preparing as main target European Championships, with some goal during the approach (10 km on road in England, 10000m in the European Challenge 5 days later, the European Cup, one 5000m in Gateshead).
I prepared detailed programs only for the periods he was not in Kenya.
He maintained the workouts used before, adding something new, for me very significative :
a) short sprint uphill -
b) long and fast run (the global increase in volume was about 20%) -
c) mixed intervals on track (for example, sets of (2000 + 300) + (1600 + 300) + (1200 + 300) + (800 + 300) + (400 + 300), with 2' recovery between tests inside the same set, and 5' between sets, at pace in altitude of 5'25" - 4'12" -3'06" - 1'58" - 54", with all the 300m between 40" and 41")
We spoke about how to use the altitude, for example competing inside the first 48 hours after going to sea level (he moved from Kenya to England for the 10 km only 36 hours before the race, to Gateshead one day before, to Barcelona 48 hours before), how to modify recovery when in altitude, when to start intensity after going to altitude and when after going down.
Mo is a very nice and precise athlete. He writes everything on his laptop, so it's very easy to control what he really did, and to modify something, according to the feeling of the moment. I like athletes with very high feeling with their body, and my final goal is to teach to everybody to understand what happens in his body. So, I consider myself a teacher, before a coach.
I can have this type of relation with athletes having high sensibility, and mentally very clean. I'm in the condition not to be interested in strong athletes that I don't trust, under personal point of view. For me, the MORAL QUALITIES are the first point : their behavior with themselves and with other people, the respect for who works in right way, the "straightness" in their choices, not looking too much for the best opportunity of the moment, but for building a long future with strong fundation.
When I'm the coach of somebody, I decide everything about him : his strategy, his competitions, his training, and many times I'm also involved in their family, because they want to share with me also personal problems.
In the case of Mo, he decides with UK Federation his plan for institutional events, with Ricky his plan for private competitions, and I'm not involved in any decision in direct way. I speak with Mo about what I think the best way, but the final choice is from himself. He knows the terms of his contracts with his Company, with UK Federation and with his manager, I'm not interested in knowing these particulars. Our collaboration is a fact of friendship and of mutual respect.
B) About 800m, to have some idea after the heats is too early. I was not very much impressed from the first round. In any case, I waited something better (generally) from Spanish runners, but may be the pressure for competing at home blocked them during the first day.
c)The current problem of Shaheen is that his focus is not completely on athletics, like before. He decided that never wants to compete in the future for Qatar again. This means to decide that, in your future plan, there are no WCh 2011 in Daegu and OG 2012 in London. So, for the n. 1 in the World, an activity without the most important targets cannot produce fully motivation. If something can change in the future about his decision, I bet Shaheen can be able to come back n. 1, since his fitness at the moment is completely ok.