Wilson Kipsang's Training Schedule

He trains much harder than that and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

Ask Renato

---

fan of US distance running wrote:

He trains much harder than that and you're a fool if you think otherwise.

Ask Renato

---

This is pretty much in line with everything I've read and watched about his training. First of all Wilson follows the typical kenyan training schedule. But the main difference to former generations of kenyan marathon runners is the quality of the long run.
As Renato mentioned the long run has to be done at least 90% of marathon pace. Doing a weekly long run at 3:20- 3:10 min/km at altitude is highly specific marathon training. Probably the long run is between 30- 45 km so this is really hard running. Of course this only takes him about 2 hours. I think the former generations like Tergat (Rosa athletes)did a progressive long run. Starting maybe at 4 min/km an increasing every 5 km down to 3:00- 3:10 min/km. This is probably less specific because 10-15 km are done at slower than 3:30 min/km.
In this conditions this has to be like a weekly race.
So on sunday he needs a mental and physical break and spends time with family and community.
On Monday is kind of a moderate tempo run. It's not slow jogging and gives some training of aerobic endurance.
On Tuesday we have the traditional speed work. I don't think he does a lot of longer intervals. He mentioned in an interview 600s-800s-1000s. The track is sligthly longer and its allitude. I think Wilson runs his work very solid but intelligently and within his limits. 600s at 1:30-33, 800s at 2:06, 1000s at 2:40-50.
On wednesday he goes for a recovery day.
On Thursday we have the traditional fartlek day. And considering the videos and photos this also seems pretty legit.
On Friday again recovery.
He does some training in the gym. Probably some indoor cyling for warming up an then some exercises for flexiblity,reactivity, injury prevention.

Of course this is a symmetric training schedule. Renato mentioned that training needs more modulation.But I guess with his talent and intelligence Wilson is capable of doing the quality long run on a weekly basis and still getting all the benefit.
Maybe Renato give some further insights or corrections.

With a little warm-up/cool-down this looks like 90 - 100 miles. So it could very well be that even with this schedule he hits 100+ miles on some week. In 6 (!) days. With 4 quality sessions. The tempo on Mondays is pretty hilly. The track sessions intense. And the fartlek often drops almost everyone else (and they sometimes start with 100+ people). 35k in 1:54 at altitude is no jogging, too.

A schedule like this is pretty common in Iten. Been there. So that really could be.

Pikachu

I'll be another voice saying that's a plenty difficult schedule. (Silly to say. It does clearly work for him.) It's certainly possible that he could add more easy volume... but why? To (perhaps poorly) paraphrase Canova, the aerobic house is built. The emphasis should be on quality. (And, as others have noted, he's running on hilly dirt roads at altitude.)

Athletes like Wilson, Geoffrey, Abel Kirui, Emmanuel Mutai or (for women) Mary Keitany, Edna and Florence Kiplagat, Rita and Prisca Jeptoo, rarely run more than 200 km in one week (also who, and when, train 7 days without resting).

They built their "aerobic house" in many years, and at the moment they don't need anymore a lot of volume at low intensity. This type of training has the only effect to accelerate the consumption of the body structures, not giving any advantage under the metabolic and bioenergetic side.

What runners have to understand is that the development of volume can last 4-5 years (till a maximum of 200-220 km per week for a top class marathoner), but inside this volume the intensity has to grow together. When the construction of the "aerobic house" is finished, the only goal for further improvements is to increase the volume of specific training, and this can happen cancelling a big part of useless volume at low intensity.

Don't do the mistake to think that all the volume of top Marathon runners is fast : this' not true, because about 50% of this volume is very slow, but the reason is REGENERATION. So, in other words, at the mature stadium of their career, top runners have a high percentage of SPECIFIC VOLUME, and high percentage of REGENERATION.

What practically disappears is the volume of medium speed, useless as training because cannot give any stimulus to the body, but damageous for the body structures because slow kms increase the consumption of tendons, jointures and muscles, and reduce the ability in mental concentration for the specific training at high intensity.

All the big Kenyan groups use the classic system that Wilson uses. This is not due to a real technical choice, but to a choice of organization. These groups include sometimes 60-100 runners, not stayting together, and they meet in one defined place (we can call this place the MEETING POINT for every Group) coming from different houses and different part of the town (this in Iten as in Eldoret, in Kapsabet as in Keicho, only Kaptagat has a different situation because practically a real village doesn't exist, but the athletes live in the camp of their management).

For that reason, for example, all the athletes in Iten know that the appointment on Tuesday is at 7am on the track, or on Sunday is at 6:00 o'clock for going for long run, starting from the same point.

I use a different system, based on individual plans. With Wilson, after one month of this training, we had a talk, and he clearly told me : "Renato, I can't continue with this individual training. I have my house in Iten, I built a Church in Iten, I build a hotel in Iten, all my future life will be in Iten, and I have in my Group more than 80 athletes depending on me. If I go for my selected training only, they feel abandoned, and I don't want this, because Iten is my future, and I need to continue to help people and to be a referement for themselves. We need to have a more easy and detectable training schedule".

So, what did we organized was the modulation I think is the real key of improvement, inside the classic system.

The base of yhis phylosophy is clear and easy to understand :

1. Approaching the Marathon, we need to increase the percentage of Marathon Speed of long run, may be including long variations with more easy recovery, in order to have a consistant part of the session run at the same speed of the competition.

2. Since this type of training has a higher cost, we need to open the recovery, so it's not possible to follow the "classic" kenyan schedule, with one hard session every two days.

3. The solution. threfore, is to modulate the intensity, maintaining the same type of schedule.

Example :

Tuesday : Track for 12-14 km at high intensity

Thursday : Fartlek at LOW intensity (it's possible to run 30 times 1' fast at 3' per km pace alternating with 1' easy, finishing 1 hour with 17 km, but also with 19 km, and the "schedule" is Always 1 hour fartlek with 30 x 1' / 1')

Saturday : 35 km long run fast (95-97% of MP)

Next week :

Tuesday : Track for 9 kms at medium intensity

Thursday : Tough fartlek with 20 x 1'/1' + 20 x 30"/30", with fast recovery (in this case, for an athlete as Wilson, about 19 km)

Saturday : Long run 35-40 km at 85% MP (for example, if the preious Sat they run 35 km in 1:52, next Sat they run 40 km in 2:14)

In this way, we can give the right recovery to the body, using the classic 3 days (this was the plan created by Brother Colm more than 25 years ago for Young runners, then developed looking at Marathon by dr. Rosa).

I use something different because my training is based on individual situations, non on a Group. For that reason, I change the plan every two weeks, looking at the necessities of the athletes at the moment. This is with my best kenyans, but also with Ethiopians I follow with my programs through other coaches (Tsegaye Mekonnen, Tamirat Tola, Dino Sefir, Abdullah Shami and other through Gemedu Degefo, Tsegaye Kebede, Ayele Abshero, Abera Kuma through Tessema Abshero, Brother of Ayele).

Your posts are the reason I keep coming back to LR.

I wish we had this sort of insight into Kenenisa's training.

Thank you Renato for giving further insight into Wilson's training. Your advice and knowledge is as always highly appreciated.

I understand that a lot of athletes/coaches at altitude counter the detriment of altitude on long efforts by breaking them into smaller pieces. Is that the philosophy behind 30x1'1' fartleks?

If your athletes trained at sea-level (or for those of us at sea-level) would you modify the time of the repetitions? For example, 2' On-1' off fartlek for an athlete at sea level?

Thanks, Renato, you're the man!

---

stinky pinky wrote:

Your posts are the reason I keep coming back to LR.

I wish we had this sort of insight into Kenenisa's training.

---

Thank you.

How do you apply your training philosophy to the chineese runners who have not the same 'aerobic basis'?

Thank you.

The problem I found in China is not athletes not having aerobic bases, it's the opposite : they ONLY have aerobic bases, but don't use the right intensity with continuity.

Chinese coaches are full followers of Lydiard, using 8-10 months of basic aerobic training only, and gym for body efficiency.

Chinese coaches are, in some case, good coaches, able to peak at the right time with their athletes. The problem is that Chinese domestic activity practically doesn't exist at high level, with the exception of one real big target every 4 years (National Games), and of one target of minor interest every year (National Championships).

This means lack of motivation for coaches for using the same interest to coach athletes during all the season, consequentely little interest (from the athletes) to have a high level training with continuity, since they don't have real seasonal goals.

For example, last year there were during National Games good results (nothing special, but basic level good for trying to reach international level with more continuity in training).

National Games were in the first half of September, we started the official preparation in China at the beginning of November with the selected athletes, all included in the new National Team (with the goal to go Kenya, in Iten, during Jan and Feb).

When I met the athletes for the first time, I discovered everybody had yet to start training, coming from one and half month of TOTAL rest. Some of them was not motivated at all (especially the winners in National Games), and in Kenya were not able to train (NEVER it's possible to start training in altitude, we need to go altitude already with a good level of shape).

They continued to be in touch with their Provincial coaches, who told them "you are at the beginning of the season, take it easy, go jogging only, and so and so...", and I found, in several cases, difficulty to change their mentality.

When I went Italy for two months after Kenya (March and April), I started to "clean" the team, sending to their Province again all the athletes not motivated.

Now the Group starts to learn what training means. But we have to solve a problem with the organization of Chinese activity : we need to give occasions to run fast in domestic competitions, and opportunities to run in European or American meetings in order to improve their PB, and especially to give them continuity in motivation.

What normally happens, is that, after reaching their best level at the moment (giving a value of 100, for instance), they go back at a level of 30, so every time they destroy what already were able to build, and in this way NEVER it's possible to have any improvement.

If we go to follow the career of all Chinese athletes, we can see how they reach their best after 3 years only of selected activity, when are still very Young, but after are no more able to improve.

So, my real job is not to train the best Chinese athletes, but is to change completely Chinese organization about middle and long distances, because we can change the general mentlity only if we offer occasions, to athletes and coaches, of interest for running fast.

I try to teach Chinese athletes that their first goal must be the PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT. Till now, they are really not interested to improve their PB, ma only in the position during domestic competitions, that for that reason become every year slower (at the moment, for example, the best seasonal times for 800 / 1500m Women are 2'06" / 4'19", frankly ridiculous for a Country that 20 years ago produced an incredible Group of runners). And don't speak about doping in the past : supposing they took something (and about the Group of 1993 this is not sure, while about the second Group 1997-2000 this is something Chinese confirmed), if you run 8'06" with every kind of doping, you run not slower than 8'15" completely clean (but today the best run 9'06"...).

So, this is a long way, because changing the mentality of a full Country is more difficult that coaching some athletes, with whom I can speak directly about his training, and I'm free to use competitions as stimulus for growing, for Learning international athletics and for earning money.

Is Wilson Kipsang the same as Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich who got the bronze in the marathon at the 2012 Olympics in London?

Yes sir

---

-_- wrote:

Is Wilson Kipsang the same as Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich who got the bronze in the marathon at the 2012 Olympics in London?

---

Thanks so much Renato. You're great. I'm currently getting in shape for xc ski training.

I'm excited to apply some of your training philosophy to training for xc ski marathons. Traditionally, xc skiing has always done the 'long' workout at an easy pace. It'll be interesting to see what happens when my 'long' workout is done at a hard pace.

I also really admire the simplicity in your training plan. Oftentimes coaches can get way too complicated. Running is a simple sport and we should always strive for simplicity in training.

Renato's advice would be, if you established the aerobic house, to increase the volume of intensity. More volume at race pace.

---

xcskier66 wrote:

I also really admire the simplicity in your training plan. Oftentimes coaches can get way too complicated. Running is a simple sport and we should always strive for simplicity in training.

---