Eliud Kipchoge's workout this morning, 9 weeks before London Marathon. Stronger than prior to Berlin?

First a comment about the workout. Its a simple so called Canova ladder , without the first 6 km and the 4 km . What strikes me is the simplicity of Sang s system without a lot of talk about percent of racing speed here and there, as when Canova presents his system as if it were some form of rocket science. Here we see that the worlds best marathoner trains

with the same kind of repeated training week after week, month after month and year after year. Very simple but also very effective!

Your intentions with your intended group sound admirable but will most likely encounter a lot of problems based on greed, rivalry ,jealousy, etc. Anyway , GOOD LUCK !

He will do some mini 'speed sessions' in the last days. Usually the day before his flight to the race, he does some 8-12 400m repetitions around 10k pace, nothing mind boggling.

When in London, he just does some easy running, with strides and a short test with the pacemakers. Things like 10x30" / 5x1' / 2x1k, a very easy and casual approach. In the race week after he gets to London, nothing more than 5'-6' at race pace or higher/day.

It's time to get some predictions in in the following days. I'll have my say 3 days out, once the forecast is 90% sure. Currently calling for +13-14C, partly cloudy, 10-15 km/h wind.

As usual it will be a carnage on the streets of London. They will go out at sub2 pace for the downhill first 5k, then hit halfway in 60:30-40. Kipchoge prevails with a 2:02:3x CR, nobody else runs under 2:04, Farah blows up to run 2:06, maximum 6-7 guys under 2:10 from the first group.

Anticlimax wrote:

As usual it will be a carnage on the streets of London. They will go out at sub2 pace for the downhill first 5k, then hit halfway in 60:30-40. Kipchoge prevails with a 2:02:3x CR, nobody else runs under 2:04, Farah blows up to run 2:06, maximum 6-7 guys under 2:10 from the first group.

I think your prediction will be wrong . I think Mo is prepared to run sub 2:03 after his quite easy kick-win in Chicago. At least he and his coach knows that this kind of shape must be there if the chance to beat Kipchoge will be there. We are expecting "a hell of a race" !

Mzungu coach wrote:

Anticlimax wrote:

As usual it will be a carnage on the streets of London. They will go out at sub2 pace for the downhill first 5k, then hit halfway in 60:30-40. Kipchoge prevails with a 2:02:3x CR, nobody else runs under 2:04, Farah blows up to run 2:06, maximum 6-7 guys under 2:10 from the first group.

I think your prediction will be wrong . I think Mo is prepared to run sub 2:03 after his quite easy kick-win in Chicago. At least he and his coach knows that this kind of shape must be there if the chance to beat Kipchoge will be there. We are expecting "a hell of a race" !

I also believe Mo Farah is able to run around 2:03 mid in a perfectly paced marathon with great weather. If they go out in 60:30-60:45, Farah simply blows up. If he goes out the first half in the first group with Kipchoge, there is now chance Farah will run faster than 2:05 flat. He is a great marathoner, but it's simply not made for the marathon, and a class below Kipchoge. Whoever goes out with Eliud will pay a heavy price in the second half.

Anticlimax wrote:

Mzungu coach wrote:

I think your prediction will be wrong . I think Mo is prepared to run sub 2:03 after his quite easy kick-win in Chicago. At least he and his coach knows that this kind of shape must be there if the chance to beat Kipchoge will be there. We are expecting "a hell of a race" !

I also believe Mo Farah is able to run around 2:03 mid in a perfectly paced marathon with great weather. If they go out in 60:30-60:45, Farah simply blows up. If he goes out the first half in the first group with Kipchoge, there is now chance Farah will run faster than 2:05 flat. He is a great marathoner, but it's simply not made for the marathon, and a class below Kipchoge. Whoever goes out with Eliud will pay a heavy price in the second half.

Then we maybe should not write off the world record holder at half, Abraham Kiptum. With his 58.18 at half he should be able to run sub 2:02. As I say it will be a very thrilling race I think.

It will be an incredible race for sure. I'm skeptic regarding Kiptum as he lost to Kipserem in Abu Dhabi and was sub par in Bahrain Half this year. He's a dark horse, but if he didn't improve since Bahrain and goes out in 60:30, then he'll not finish under 2:10.

As these last few days were quite motivating, i want to share with you i made some real progress with the inception of my team.

I'm sure now of some decent sponsorship and almost found a base in Iten to start the camp. Also i am in talks or advanced talks with a few runners. I won't share too many details because there can be some people who always try to impede others work.

I wanted to sign Titus Ekiru as you already knew, however, he is under contract with Rosa&Associati and it would require a lot of money for him to break out of his contract, so it will be tough to sign him. On the other hand, i am in advanced talks with a lot of promising youngsters (aged 19-23) with minimum occidental experience. One of them i really think he's got it, is under 20 years old and runs 28:xx at altitude constantly with inconsistent training and minimum facilities.

Thank you, Mzungu, and all the best with your project!

I gathered your posts (workouts and notes) here for anyone to see it as a whole:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ut21byJ4QUMe_ICZ0mCBvlBFhi0Xj_1FtATLy13OGM/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks, henrik! Look pretty nice.

I looked across several weather websites and most of them are forecasting a huge front coming from Atlantic on wed/thursday, so the weather will cool off, however it's very possible we'll have rain coming down during the race with pretty strong winds. If it stays like this, we can forget the world record.

Let us hope that the weather will be fine. Nevertheless, what is going on in the mind of a runner who might be in the best shape of his life or close to it and then the weather is a royal pain?

Much better with rain and some wind than with heat. Ran yesterday 10 miles at around 10am and it was miserable, sunny and nearing 70F. The race is scheduled to go off at 10:10, if it took place a week early it would have been the hottest London marathon on record!

Thanks Muzungu for this amazing thread!

Let's watch Dark Sky https://darksky.net/forecast/51.5073,-0.1276/us12/en - cold front may slow and not leave till Monday. It doesn't matter, it's going to be an exciting race. Tougher the weather more unpredictable things we will see. To that, perfect weather will favor Kipchoge for sure.

Wow. Will be interesting if Farah is indeed in sub-2:03 shape. May be good enough to beat Eliud, which is bound to happen sooner or later. I’m ready for anything to happen and won’t be surprised if that’s the result. Adola almost broke his streak two years ago.

I have compiled what Mzungu has posted in a more condensed form so it can be compared more easily to the Berlin 2017 buildup posted by Sweat Elite.

I have some suspicions about the validity of this recent schedule as there are some big differences that don't seem consistent with what we've seen in the past...

- 2 track sessions per week this time as opposed to a track session and a Fartlek each week before

- A few workouts that seemed key are missing

- A reliance on K repeats as a staple that wasn't there before

- Varied rests and kinds of rest (moderate running or jogging during track sessions that were consistently 200 meter walk/jogs in Sweat Elite's account).

Just a lot of things that don't feel quite right. I'm sorry to be suspicious Mzungu. If you're being honest we all appreciate it but a lot of things just don't feel right here. There are enough similarities though that I'm hesitant to throw out your whole account. I'm just not quite sure.

All the same, it's interesting to compare the two so if you're interested, follow the link and you'll see both side by side.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JBb6w5rlZhKby36VTrcYDttKrLhtPpDzZeRa2Tn5R4I/edit?usp=sharing

El Keniano wrote:

Wow. Will be interesting if Farah is indeed in sub-2:03 shape. May be good enough to beat Eliud, which is bound to happen sooner or later. I’m ready for anything to happen and won’t be surprised if that’s the result. Adola almost broke his streak two years ago.

As i said, i don't know what kind of training Farah has done for sure but i doubt he can run sub-2:03. His form is not as efficient as Kipchoge's. He was really good in Chicago, however i don't think he is in Eliud's league, probably he can go sub-2:04 but sub 2:03, i would be really surprised.

I know Mo still kept his very fast track workouts and increased his fast long runs at 35,40 and even 45k, unfortunately i don't know anything more about them. It will be very interesting, probably someone else will have a breakthrough. I'd wager and say Farah will get 3rd again after Eliud and a surprise package.

If you read through the thread attentive you'll see i mentioded these few changes exactly.

2 track workouts instead of one because they incorporated more hills in the long run due to the XC world champs. And also i pointed out they also changed the recovery in this build-up, making it a bit more formal and quicker.

I also want to say in case there will be a rainy edition of the London Marathon it will be interesting, as in this build-up Eliud didn't have a single run which was held under rain. He usually performs well in adverse conditiong but it's worth mentioning his biggest scare came under such conditions in Berlin 2017.

Don't forget the Ethiopians. They have 4 really strong runner. Geremew showed us allready in lisbon in half he is on a good way. Kitata is clear one of the top threads. For me he would be the main competitor to kipchoge. But also Gebreselassi how show us with first and second marathon finishes he is really strong(2 times sub 2:04) and Mule Waishun maybe a bit the Dark horse run in rak half a new pb this year and last year in a fast Amsterdam marathon he only was beaten by an really strong Cherono.