Technical Analysis of 30km and 10000m in Eugene

You say that for the marathoner there is 3 months of Specific. No Special for marathoner?

How does the length of Specific change as you move down in distance. e.g. 800m, 1500, 5K, etc?

BESIDES HARD TRAINING. ARE YOU GIVING ANY "SPECIAL VITAMINS" FOR YOUR TOP RUNNERS?

Dos Santos, I'd worry more about Carwin pounding your face in then whether coach Canova is cheating.

Yes. I give them the following special vitamins :

a) Water from Keringet

b) 4 mangos during the day

c) Milk from their cows and goats

d) Ugali from their mais

e) Meat (nyama choma) from their veils and sheeps

f) 1 hour every day of "mental drug" speaking with them for creating their self confidence and not fearing hard workouts.

And, at the end of these processes, they can run with levels of haematocryt of 42 and of haemoglobin of less than 15, and you see the results.

Renato, thank you for sharing so much.

Renato Canova wrote:

at the end of these processes, they can run with levels of haematocryt of 42 and of haemoglobin of less than 15, and you see the results.

This is why the epo hysteria doesn't make any sense, because such methods go away from good health, not making it better. The same with most other medical interventions. If they worked, then people would at least be getting better in hospitals not worse. As far as I'm concerned it's all a marketing scam, and people are always much better off staying far away from the scammers. Such things have nothing to do with training or improving the health and condition of the body.

Coach Canova,

Very interesting economic, as well as technical analysis of modern racing. As always, very informative.

And, I'd like to thank you for your "special vitamins": your IAAF marathon training manual, along with some your Letsrun posts, helped me run a 6 minute PR over a harder course (NYC v. Chicago) a few years ago.

Thanks!

Renato Canova wrote:

f) 1 hour every day of "mental drug" speaking with them for creating their self confidence and not fearing hard workouts.

OK, now this is interesting and corroborates much of what I have gleaned already. You have to convince yourself of the possibilities and then you try to convince your athletes. However, you must admit that your "mental drug" does not appear to be as efficacious with the non-African runners, or at least not enough to get them to be world-beaters. Sometimes when you post, it is clear you have taken your "mental drug" and it is impacting your reasoning. Nonetheless, you are to be given credit for working on the mental side of your athletes. What convinced you that this was an important aspect to cultivate?

The question is : Which results in Marathon Gebre and Tergat should had reach, if moving to the distance 5-6 years before ? And this type of preparation, how much could had affected their performances on track ?

Coach Canova... You posed an interesting question.... What times do you think Tergat and Geb could have run (for marathon) in their prime??

Renato Canova wrote:

Gebre maintained his speed a little more than Tergat (he ran 26'50" without specific preparation, only 28" slower than his PB, also many years later), but Paul lost between 50" and 1', so the Tergat marathon runner was not the real Tergat, but his elder brother.

The question is : Which results in Marathon Gebre and Tergat should had reach, if moving to the distance 5-6 years before ? And this type of preparation, how much could had affected their performances on track ?

Only based on times done, the relationship can be:

26:22 / 26:50 x 2:03:59 = 2:01:50

Only 28 seconds in the 10k shows more than 2 minutes potential for the marathon.

Weren't you the guy saying that the 15 mph tailwind had no effect at Boston? Do you genuinely think you have any credibility after that bull?

Of course when one makes comparisons with Geb regarding your athletes, Renato, one must remember that although some of your athletes may be moving to the marathon at a younger age, they were INFERIOR to Geb at the top of his game on the track, so even if they are moving up earlier they are not necessarily better at 26,(on the track), than Geb was at 34, for example. As you well know, Moses Mosop ran 27:13 eight years ago, officially age 18, and so he is in some ways not a young runner (although I understand he has had injuries). I do think in theory you may be correct about this experiment, but you do not appear to have a 26 year old Geb to work with (at least not yet).

Renato Canova wrote:

Yes. I give them the following special vitamins :

a) Water from Keringet

b) 4 mangos during the day

c) Milk from their cows and goats

d) Ugali from their mais

e) Meat (nyama choma) from their veils and sheeps

f) 1 hour every day of "mental drug" speaking with them for creating their self confidence and not fearing hard workouts.

And, at the end of these processes, they can run with levels of haematocryt of 42 and of haemoglobin of less than 15, and you see the results.

Coach Canova,

thank you for this insight. would you mind letting us know other supplementary things your runners do? diet-wise perhaps? this is quite interesting stuff, thank you kindly for sharing.

He said that it did have an effect: about 2:20 of assistance on a course that is 1:40 slower than Berlin. So Mosop could possibly have run 2:03:40's on a course such as Berlin.

Ace Hood wrote:

Weren't you the guy saying that the 15 mph tailwind had no effect at Boston? Do you genuinely think you have any credibility after that bull?

Renato,

What do you beleive is the best way of making a successful transition to the roads/marathon for young athletes rather than them spending 10 years getting ok but not the best results in 5000m/10000m only to move to the marathon later when they are not at their best?

Thanks

Renato Canova wrote:

Your calculator, and probably yourself, are living in a fantastic world that too many times nothing has to do with the reality.

Like claiming that EPO does not work on East Africans?

Not exactly. Canova said the benefit was less than the 3-4 minutes that other experts were tossing around.The guys at "arrs.net" agreed, calculating about 1:50 benefit.

Ace Hood wrote:

Weren't you the guy saying that the 15 mph tailwind had no effect at Boston? Do you genuinely think you have any credibility after that bull?

EPO not working means no new red blood cells, means you die. All healthy humans, even East Africans, produce it naturally.You have to rephrase your sentence completely to bring it from the fantasy world to reality.

Boom, roasted wrote:

Like claiming that EPO does not work on East Africans?

Chet. the point is not some my athlete can be better of Gebre on the track. The point is that some my athlete goes to marathon when is able to reach his top performance in 10000m, too, and this is different from what Gebre did.

If I want the best results in Marathon, I need to move to that distance, and especially I NEED TO TRAIN FOR THAT DISTANCE, when body and mind have still room of improvement, not when already the athlete understands his career on track is over.

I want choices "for" running your best, not choices "because ypou are no more able running your best".

I want that the motivation is "in marathon I can reach better results than on track", not "I go to marathon because I'm no more able to run fast as before on track".

How I explained, to become old, and no more able to have the same speed, is not a good quality for becoming a marathon runner. And we can see from the beginning of one career if the athlete can have specific attitude for marathon or not.

With Moses, for example, already in 2003, when I planned to run 10 times 300m in 41" (not very fast for an athlete next year in Olympic), he did, but told me "I prefer running 1 hr 30' fast". And many other athletes have this mentality when young. In this case, we have to push them in using speed training, but we must not fear to use already long and fast distances in training, because the right way is to exalt the main qualities of an athlete, working at the same time for reducing the gaps.

The normal index of specific endurance between HM and Marathon is about 5%.

This means, for example, that 60' can produce 2:06, and 59' in HM can produce 2:03:54, and I think was the index of Haile when bettered the record in Berlin.

With athletes younger, I strongly think possible to reduce the index at 4%. This means that an athlete able running HM in 1 hour can run a marathon in 2:04:48, and an athlete of 59' can run in 2:02:43.

I think this is possible only with athlete at the top of their career, because their body is more fresh and they can recover the very hard workouts they need, in direction of extended fast run.

I don't want to move everybody to the marathon. My analysis is : In which event, according with your physiological and mental qualities, can you obtain your best results ? If I see the basic strong qualities needed for a top marathon runner, I start to prepare this event from the beginning of the career, of course developing speed and speed endurance, too. This means the athlete can run many 3000 / 5000 / 10000m when young, HAVING ALREADY IN HIS TRAINING THE ELEMENT OF LONG RUN FAST, because to become able to reduce the index of specific marathon speed endurance is something requesting long time, continuity, graduality and big attention to the problem of the body.

My phylosophy is : preparing long distances, but maintaining at the same time workouts for speed, you can easily prepare, in short time, a shorter distance (for example, 10000m last year for Wilson Kiprop and Geoffrey Mutai AFTER their Spring marathon). Preparing short distances, on the contrary, you need to spend a lot of time for becoming able to run at the same level something longer, at probably NEVER you can reach your theorical best performance.

Very interesting, thank you!