What did Farah under Salazar to become so fast in the final lap?

Caterpillar fungus

if you think that you are a lesser mortal, then that might be part of your problem

Maybe the under water treadmill to shake the legs lose combined with lots of 200s.

But you won't get an underwater treadmill... :-(

Thyroid (cough!) meds

playaaaaaaaaa,

I am definitely lesser in the running domain, while I was not implying the intellectual or moral or any other domain. If you belong to the small group of world-class runners, then you deserve kudos. However, your reply would still miss the main point, as I (and likely other people who read this thread) am interested in what training Farah has done to improve his speed so dramatically, rather than in my supposed problems.

52.43,

Thanks, this is an interesting topic. If the secret really lies in the underwater treadmill, maybe in the near future we will see this equipment spreading to many other training facilities. If I understood your point, the effect of this special treadmill is mediated by the higher running volume it enables. That is, it allows the athlete to run more miles and increase endurance so the athlete is fresher at the end of the race and can kick like a beast? If it were so, Farah would not have become literally 'faster', but simply 'fresher' at the end.

A lot of times, the key to training is how the workouts are organized rather than any one workout itself.

Often recovery is the problem. Not enough recovery after key workouts. Other times, quality is the problem, as distance runners do not properly work on speed. I know Salazar does a lot more than many distance coaches.

Probably a combination of things.

Look, you either believe that the only people on earth who can run sub 13 cleanly are East Africans and white English speakers (most of which are situated in Oregon)or they (the white English speakers)are simply finding a way to cheat the present system.

Of course, this goes against our pre-conceived notions of what is moraly possible from our white athletes. I mean, Solinky has never done anything dishonest like pretend to get tossed to the infield even though no one was even close to him.

200s is the answer you are looking for

Critical Zone, Critical Zone, Critical Zone!!!

Farah was so fast that he grabbed the can of Spinach he had concealed in his shorts and consumed it with 2 laps to go. The only reason nobody realized it was because he was moving at a speed that the human eye could not perceive.

They started playing Tom Sawyer at the bell lap and he moved as fast as Neil Pearts drums.

kmaclam wrote:

Critical Zone, Critical Zone, Critical Zone!!!

Straight out of the Brooks Johnson training manual...haha

Farah was always close to top notch world class. What gets me was how Dathan Ritzenhien switched from Hudson as a marathoner and runs like 4 track races and runs 12:56. What did they do- a bunch of 200s?

There is more than the coaching genious of Salazar behind this. Whether it's in the rules, yeah, well, Salazar likes to examine the "grey area".

He didn't get more speed, he just got strong enough to use his speed late in the race. Look at Rupp now, he's very similar to Farah of a year ago.

Let's get beyond the "drugs!" argument. It might be a valid point, but just for once I'd like to have some honest talk about the training that Salazar's group does, working under the assumption there is no nefarious pharmaceutical plot.

Salazar has developed finishing speed in at least three runners who lacked it before: Rupp, Ritz, and now Farah. In the latter two cases, they were only Salazar's charges for a few months before their big breakthroughs. And we know that Ritz had been doing prodigious endurance work under his former coaches. So I think that safely rules out an increase in raw endurance. Every runner knows that true endurance takes many months and years to develop. While I don't doubt that improving endurance improves finishing speed (indeed, this is what Rupp needs right now. It's why he can close hard against guys in the NCAA but not internationally), I do not think this is what's at play in Salazar's group.

We unfortunately don't have the luxury of Salazar posting the last few weeks of Rupp and Farah on the LetsRun Message Boards. His group operates in relative secrecy. It's interesting to contrast this with Canova, who (after the WCs) willingly posted the schedules of all his top runners for the whole world to see! So we have to extrapolate on what limited information we DO have, and rely on rumors, etc. I'm sure the LRC Rumor Mill (TM) will come through for us.

There have been several references to "lots of 200s." This probably stems from an interview with Rupp a while back (after NCAA indoors maybe?) about how he developed his finishing speed. He said something like "Alberto's had me doing lots and lots of 200s all winter." Then there was the episode where Rupp and someone else (Ritz?) caught a lot of flack for doing some 200s inside in a long, straight hallway at Nike HQ when it was rainy outside. Finally, Flotrack has a video of Rupp doing 3 sets of 600-400-300-200 quite fast (goal marks of 1:27, 58, 42, 26) during his European tour. You can watch it here:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/235660-workout-wednesday-season-4/video/352586-galen-rupp-workout-wednesday

Based on all the stuff Salazar says about running form, plus Rupp's extensive warmup in that workout, I imagine he also has his runners work sprint form, hip mobility and range of motion, etc.

I'd love to hear some other thoughts and if anyone has any more "sources" on what Salazar's group does in the ~3-4 months before the competitive season.

I think Solinsky responded to a question about getting beat on the last lap saying "it has nothing to do with speed."

A big group comes though 11.5 laps of the 5000 together and people assume that the race is decided by who has the most speed. That might be true if they all got to 11.5 laps the same way. But some have been barely hanging on for a few laps and all the speed in the world isn't going to help. The guy that drops the 53 still has something left. Take a look at Rupp and Farah coming down the homestretch before the bell lap. It seems pretty obvious that Rupp is struggling with the pace more than Farah.

So maybe the difference in Farah's last lap has more to do with how the first 11.5 laps plays out for him this year than any changes in his speed.

Note also Farah hasn't been pulling off Lagat like kicks in the last 200. It's been a sustained push from usually more than 400 out.

Kara Goucher too developed a pretty big kick. Same with Amy Yoder-Begley.

Ismael wrote:

As far as I understood, Mohamed Farah, who is currently regarded by most observers as a track star, was 'only' an excellent runner until a few months ago when he moved to Oregon to be trained by Alberto Salazar. He was fast but did not possess the incredible ability to change gear and the blazing speed he displayed in the final laps of his most recent races. Does someone has any information about what type of training he did to increase his speed so much? Is this something that lesser mortals could do, too, in order to improve this aspect?

Training is SPECIFIC.

Also, did you not read Mo's interviews where he talked about the difference between his old program and Salazars?

Fricken, google before you post an inane thread.

Thanks for educating me on using the Google search engine. I had read a couple of interviews with Farah where he said something about this issue:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/8627789/London-2012-Olympics-Mo-Farah-told-he-will-be-even-stronger-and-faster-by-next-years-Games.html

http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/interview/rw-interviews-mo-farah/7081.html

)

I found them not particularly revealing as the reported changes in training include weights sessions, better workout structure, an increase in the pace of training runs, sessions with a sports psychologist, and extra training with an underwater treadmill.

Apart from the underwater treadmill, which may be the secret weapon (though it is far from certain), are we to believe that Farah did not previously use weights, that his workouts were badly structured, or that he was training at jogging pace? Possibly he had some psychological difficulties, we are not in a position to judge this point.

Maybe I did not find the right interviews where all things are clearly revealed and explained. You did not provide a link to it, either. When opening this thread, I was hoping to get some feedback from knowledgeable people who may be able to go beyond what is written on ordinary press interviews. Fortunately, some fellow runners did try to provide interesting answers. I would be glad to learn other things on this matter if some further information were available.