I know he did a lot of interval training. But what kind of training prepared him to win the gold medal in the marathon after winning the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters? As far as I know the farthest he ever ran in training was 20km. Another thing. I'm looking at a picture of him and the shoes he wore. They don't look like racing flats. They look more like track shoes without spikes. His winning time (2:23) wasn't that fast by today's standards, but it was still an impressive feat.
You're right, he was the man. It was all those 10K's that he ran.
He wore the same type of shoes that every runner of that era wore. They didn't need cushioning because they didn't land on their heels.
From what I've read he mainly did intervals, although a lot of them weren't as fast as what we think of as intervals. He also didn't go hard/easy or long/short like we do today, so his longest was about 20k but that was just about every day. So if you realize he ran up to 140k a week, winning a marathon makes a bit more sense.
Besides, he was capable of beating evryone else in that race by 2-3 minutes for 10k. It would be like lining up Dan Browne next to Keninese Bikele for a marathon -- Browne is trained for it, but I'll still put my money on Bekele.
If memory serves me right he was doing the following prior to his triple gold Games:
10-20x200m 40x400m 10-20x200m
Apparently he varied the pace, supposedly slowing down as his workout progressed. He was one of, if not THE, mentally TOUGHEST runners of all time.
A friend of mine met him in Prague in the 80's and called him earthy, genuine, extremely modest and very lively.
He won by showing up and having everyone else say to themselves, "There's the greatest runner in the world."
"Everyone" was right.
he ran 26.2 miles faster than everyone else.
he was the toughest son of a itch ever.
I seem to remember reading an interview with him where the host mentioned his running while in the military, something about up to 20 miles a day through the snow when he wasn't on duty. Don't remember the specifics. Maybe you can Google it, but I'm too lazy.
He most certainly had run farther than 20k in training before his marathon win.
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