Training of Vincent Rousseau, former world champion half marathon and 2:07 marathoner

Coming back to the party after it's done, do you know anything about Erik DeBeck?

Happened to stumble upon another sample training week; this time of Leon Schots, world champion XC in 1977.

10K PR - 27:41

Sample week in (early) track season

M: AM: 15K easy

PM: 15K easy

Tu: AM: 15K easy

PM: 10' warmup - intervals 300's, 400's or 600's (e.g. 10 x 300m R. 100m) - 10' cooldown

W: AM: 15K easy

PM: 15K Steady/Hard

Th: AM: 15K easy

PM: Interval workout, but either shorter or longer intervals than on tuesday

F: AM: 15K easy

PM: 15K easy + strides

Sa: AM: 10K easy

PM: 10K easy

Su: AM: 7K easy

PM: RACE

Weekly total: 170K (100 - 110 miles)

One thing that stands out when I look at training samples from before, say, 2,000, is that short intervals, 200s to 400s, maybe a bit longer, were much more common than they are today. I don't if that's better or worse. Thanks for this.

Greetings,

Thank you for this information. By the way, I have been in contact with the Hasselt and Borgloon Town halls as I’m doing research currently on Karel Lismont from the area, near Borgloon, and plan on traveling to Hasselt once the COVID-19 issue is resolved to a reasonable level. Just a couple of questions in my ongoing research. The first question I have is that I noticed most of the top Belgian distance runners tend to be of Flemish rather than Waloon (French) descent can you explain why? One thing I noticed from my conversations with Flemish speaking people in Belgium is that they tend to speak English very well compared with French speaking Walloons and by the way this is not a criticism. I have also noticed that the vast majority of elite Belgian runners like Koen Naert currently are Flemish. This guy made an interesting comment recently on YouTube stating that with his level in Holland he would be supporting 100% for his sport as an elite marathon runner but in Belgium this is not the case and he still has to work as a medical nurse professional. I think he sponsored by ASICS except this time and he even had to join the French speaking running team in a Belgian city but I cannot remember which one because he was not getting enough support in his own town.

The second question I have is, is there a big difference in culture between the Flemish/ Dutch speakers of Belgium and the French speakers of The Flemish Dutch speakers of Belgium and the French speakers of Belgium from Wallonie? This fundamental question is of interest to me because I also noticed that the Belgian team in football team is comprised mostly with players with Flemish sounding names. By the way I’m also learning Dutch with an APP called Duolingo in preparation for my visit to Flanders and Hasselt in particular. Any further information would be of great interest to me and if it might be possible to contact you by email I would be even more grateful, thank you.

Dank je wel. Kan je Nederlands spreken/praten?

Ghost in France

HRE wrote:

One thing that stands out when I look at training samples from before, say, 2,000, is that short intervals, 200s to 400s, maybe a bit longer, were much more common than they are today. I don't if that's better or worse. Thanks for this.

I've noticed the same thing about the intervals, but more importantly very few people seemed to do "cruise intervals" or threshold runs back in the 60's - 80's.

When I first started to delve deeply into training methodology, I noticed that in western Europe the main focus of intervals still lies with short (200m to 800m) intervals at 5K pace or faster, while cruise intervals and tempo/threshold runs appear to be much more prevalent in North America and the Anglo-Saxon part of the world...

You've picked quite a difficult and loaded subject and it's quite difficult to explain the entire history behind the Flemish and Waloon parts of Belgium, but I'll give it a shot. I'm from the Flemish/Dutch part of Belgium, so everything I say is from that viewpoint, but I live a mile from the "border" and got relatives in Wallonia. So I'm doing my best to be as neutral as possible.

No idea, just coincidence. There are plenty of great (sub-)elite Waloon runners: Florent Caelen (Marathon PB of 2:12:51) is probably the best at the moment.

Several factors here:

1. They speak French in Wallonia and they are very much geared towards France.

There is an expression over here: "If it storms in France, it rains in Wallonia".

We all know that the French are pretty chauvinistic and prefer to speak French all the time; same thing in Wallonia.

2. Flanders (which basically relates to Dutch the same way as "American English" relates to "Scottish English": some words are different or same words have a different meaning, but in general it's the same language) is very much geared towards the Anglo-Saxon world.

One very simple difference: in Wallonia all films are dubbed into French.

In Flanders, ALL FILMS, no matter what language they're in, are all subtitled, so we hear the original language.

3. Education is different in Flanders VS Wallonia. Education in Flanders is top of the world, Wallonia is relatively bad. Education belongs to the regional government and so each region can choose their policies.

One difference: I had to follow French class (obliged in Flanders) in school from when I was 10 , English from when I was 13 and German when I was 16, all till I graduated. English and German are not obliged, but pretty ubiquitous.

In Wallonia, learning Flemish/Dutch is an optional class and almost no one does it.

Actually Koen Naert has been a pro for a couple of years now. Originally he was sponsored (very small wage) by Flanders (Sports are also part of the Regional Government), but because he didn't meet the criteria, he lost his sponsorship.

He worked a couple a years as a nurse and got a small sponsorship from Wallonia if he'd join an athletics club in Wallonia, which he did. After his breakthrough he went pro.

See several comments I made above. This is too difficult to explain in 1 post. Frankly, you could talk for a week about this and still not be finished.

Basically, Belgium is a forced marriage between a part of northern France and a part of the south of The Netherlands. Both Wallonia and Flanders have got their own customs, their own culture, their own media, but at the same time there is some kind of unique Belgian culture and history.

For quite some time there have been a lot of people/politicians who want to break Belgium up into 2 parts, and part of me agrees and part of me doesn't. It's just too damn complicated.

I'd be happy to give you my email, but I don't want to put it here on this message board for all the trolls to see, so I don't know if there is another way for us to communicate?

Fascinating stuff and thank you for your speedy response.

I’m very motivated to travel to Belgium to research the Belgian running tradition which in the past was almost at the top of the world despite being a small country only 10 million people and we could always say that it was from the 5 million part of Flanders that all these world champions and world-class level runners were coming from so that is absolutely phenomenal. However I feel that now is not the right time to travel to Belgium because of the COVID-19 situation. I find it strange the Belgian has the highest rate on paper of COVID-19 deaths but personally I think that is down to a statistical detail which contributes to this very high number. Not sure what you think about that? How else could you explain this bizarre situation?

Easiest way to contact me is to add me on WeChat which is a Chinese platform because I work in China normally but not now because of COVID-19.

1. Download WeChat

2. Add me

3. My WeChat I.D. = Ghost_in_China (make sure all the details were correct)

4. This is a safe and convenient way to contact people and remains anonymous.

It is safe and convenient to use WeChat because you can accept or deny the person who is adding you, so you are in control of the situation and not subject to trolls.

WeChat is superior to what’s up because of all the features on it including translation, video calling, etc.

Ghost

The same thing has been noted by Belgian sports journalists as well, but there was no real explanation. Basically a bunch of talented guys around the same era decided to run instead of playing football, there was plenty of rivalry and they pushed each other to the top.

I wouldn't worry too much, The reason Belgium scored so high was because our method of counting was far more inclusive than any other country in the world.

If someone died with/of Covid in an old folks' home, and 10 other people died within the next few weeks while having a cough, all 11 were counted as covid deaths even though only the first one was tested.

Though if you look at the rate of excess deaths in comparison to a normal year, this method of counting turned out to be one of the most accurate.

Depending on how you look at it, Belgium was either exaggerating their numbers, or was the only country that was reporting as close to the actual number as possible...

About using WeChat, I'm sorry, but I'm not so trusting of Chinese apps because of the rather big influence of the Chinese government... is there no other way?

To BelgianBloke

Verhuel training were used a lot in Holland. Did he coached some belgian runners ?

I don't know every single runner in Belgium, but I'd never heard of Verheul before his name popped up on this site a couple months ago. Nor have I ever heard of anyone in Belgium (elite or recreational runner) that was coached by him or has used his method.

Apart from that, the Verheul method does seem pretty interesting for someone who wants to try something different...

BelgianBloke wrote:

When I first started to delve deeply into training methodology, I noticed that in western Europe the main focus of intervals still lies with short (200m to 800m) intervals at 5K pace or faster, while cruise intervals and tempo/threshold runs appear to be much more prevalent in North America and the Anglo-Saxon part of the world...

That is true. In France many coaches dont care about tempo, mileage, threshold and long runs but they mainly focus on VO2Max workouts done at fast paces (often 2k/3k pace, sometimes 5k), specific race pace and, sprints, plyometrics, drills, hills for speed and running form.

That is why we suck at 5k-Marathon. But we have decent middle distance runners.

I think north american training is way better for distance running but I often see lack of speed work and drills/plyometrics.

BelgianBloke wrote:

HRE wrote:

One thing that stands out when I look at training samples from before, say, 2,000, is that short intervals, 200s to 400s, maybe a bit longer, were much more common than they are today. I don't if that's better or worse. Thanks for this.

I've noticed the same thing about the intervals, but more importantly very few people seemed to do "cruise intervals" or threshold runs back in the 60's - 80's.

When I first started to delve deeply into training methodology, I noticed that in western Europe the main focus of intervals still lies with short (200m to 800m) intervals at 5K pace or faster, while cruise intervals and tempo/threshold runs appear to be much more prevalent in North America and the Anglo-Saxon part of the world...

In the Seventies some of the terminology that is used today did not exist and maybe the best example of that I can think of is tempo/threshold running. We probably did at least as many if not more of that sort of run as people do now but we had no particular term for it and it was done spontaneously rather than planned. Picking up the pace for a while , usually in the second half of a run was very common. You just said that you were running faster. I think that eventually got to be called an "up tempo run."

Lydiard always used to talk about how US runners and coaches were so attached to 400/440 repeats. He used to say if there was an Olympic medal for running 400 repeats the US would win all the medals all the time. But he noticed how much that had changed in his later years., I sort of recall him saying that no one ran fast in training anymore and maybe it was time to bring back 400 reps.

PS

The one place where 400 reps seem a very important part of training is in Australia.

HRE wrote:

PS

The one place where 400 reps seem a very important part of training is in Australia.

Or in the Dancan system by coach JS. 20 by 400s almost every week.

Australian JS wrote:

HRE wrote:

PS

The one place where 400 reps seem a very important part of training is in Australia.

Or in the Dancan system by coach JS. 20 by 400s almost every week.

How could I have forgotten that?

To contact me please contact the following person in Borgloon who has my application letter to do research on Karel Lismont and she will pass on my email to you and then we can start to communicate effectively.

In your communication with this person in Flemish you should mentionthat you are contacting me to help me with my research on Karel Lismont and other elite and former elite Belgian runners.

She already has my dossier and I was in contact with her in the past when I first contacted the Borgloon town Department office. Unfortunately, since I contacted her about a month ago nothing has happened and so the case has gone a little bit cold so hopefully this research can be revitalized. Step by step.

Jacqueline Willems

Administratief medewerker

E

jacqueline.willems@borgloon.be

T 012 67 36 57

Toeristisch onthaal ‘Stroopfabriek’

Stationsplein 8, 3840 Borgloon

www.borgloon.be

Wow, I wasn’t expecting to come away from this thread with so much cultural information on Belgium. Letsrun. What a place.

It’s a fascinating country, Belgium with a very vibrant sports culture. But almost no one talks about Belgium and most people do not know anything about the country which is somewhat sad. For a country of only 10 million people from which basically 5 million people of Flemish descent produce such outstanding distance runners and cyclists not to mention great soccer players is very impressive. Belgium has even been ranked number one in FIFA soccer at least once.