Samuel Wajiru training article

An interview here with Sammy Wanjiru. Training seems quite light compared to some.

I love the part about him taking a day off when it rains. If he lived here in England he would never train at all!

http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/samuel-wanjiru-shares-secret-of.html

Training

(1) July 9: 38 km cross-country at a slow pace around 4:30 per km

July 10: easy day

July 11: speedwork (400 m x 10)

(2) July 20: 30 km pace run on flat ground in around 1 hour 34 min.

July 21: easy day

July 22: easy day

July 23: speedwork (3000 m x 3)

(3) July 30: 38 km cross-country at a slow pace around 4:30 km

July 31: easy day

August 1: speedwork (400 m x 10)

(4) August 10: 30 km pace run on flat ground in around 1 hour 34 min.

August 11: easy day

August 12: easy day

August 13: speedwork (3000 m x 3)

Numbers 1-4 are just examples of the 10-day cycle I use which mixes long distance and speedwork. Long runs are for getting rid of fear of the distance and for building your legs, so I do them slow. In Japan people usually do 40 km long runs, but 38 km is enough. It's no problem to keep going another 4 km in the real race. The really important point in doing this run is to do it at around 2400 m altitude somewhere like Goan in Kenya. Your body gets used to altitude without you noticing it. When I'm in Japan my hemoglobin count is around 13, but when I'm at altitude it goes up to 15. This was all what I did before I ran 2:05:24 at the London Marathon, so I wanted to do the same thing in the same place before Beijing.

Other than that, I run about 15 km at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning before I have breakfast. I'd say it's like jogging, or a buildup to something like a pace run. I start around 4 minutes per km drop it down to 3:30 in the middle, then end up down at about 3 minutes 5 seconds. I always want to finish thinking, "Aaaaah, that felt great. I had a good run." I never do any strength training. You can get enough strength from running on cross-country-type courses. Sundays are off, and if it rains I also take the day off from training. If you train too hard in the summer it's bad for your body.

One reason why the Japanese training(Sammy training is largely based off of the Japanese, being he ran for a Japanese high school and ran for a corporate team) is superior to American training for the marathon, is that they follow a 10 day cycle or two easy days between hard workouts, as opposed to a 7 day cycle. This allows them to properly recover from hard workouts. As it takes at least 2 days to properly recover from a hard workout. So instead of a mindset that it is Sun or Sat they have to do a long run, or because it is a Tues they have to do a speed workout, they look at what they have previously done the last few days and plan it from that. Main take a ways: More emphasis on recovery(minimum of two days between hard workouts), more emphasis on easy days, more emphasis on workouts and recovering properly from them. I know Meb Keflezighi later on in his career switched to a 9-10 day cycle. This probably allowed him to extend his career, and pull off his two biggest wins in his career(2009 NYC marathon and 2014 Boston marathon).

Samuel Wajiru training article

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