Marathon training programme used by Kenyan distance runners

 

Just 21 when she won the New York Marathon (yes, she really was born on May 9,1973), Tegla Lorupe’s running career began at the age of seven, when she left home at 6 a.m. on a chilly January morning to run 10 kilometres to the nearest school. She returned along the same route at 5 that afternoon - the first 20k training day of her life, and the first of about 230 such days during her first year of running. Like most other successful Kenyan runners, her first workouts were conducted in bare feet while carrying an extra load - a backpack full of books which bounced against her thin shoulders as she ran.

With careful coaching from Silas Chesere and Patrick Kimayo, Tegla improved steadily in her late teens, competing at 10,000 metres at the ’92 Barcelona Olympics at the tender age of 19 and then finishing fourth at the lO,OOOm world championships in Stuttgart in 1993 - still only 20. She also finished third at the world half-marathon championships in ’93 and set the Kenyan IOK record in the same year (31:21), complemented by a brilliant 15:08 5K.

How she conquered New York

But by far the best performance of her life was at the 1994 New York Marathon, where she blazed across the finish line more than two minutes in front of her nearest competitor, ahead of all but 45 of the race’s 29,000 entrants. As she prepared for New York, Tegla often ran about 190km per week, broken down into the following schedule:

ONDAY 9 a.m.: 120 minutes of running at a pace of 4 minutes per kilometre (30K)
MONDAY 4 p.m.: 50 minutes of running at a tempo of 5 minutes per kilometre (lOK)
TUESDAY 9 a.m.: 90 minutes at 3:40 per kilometre (25K)
TUESDAY 4 p.m.: 60 minutes at 4 minutes per kilometre (15K)
WEDNESDAY 9 a.m.: speed workout, consisting of all of the following:
1. 2000m x 2 at 10K race pace, with a 40 second recovery between the two intervals
2. 1000m x 3, a little faster than 10K race pace, with just 30 second recoveries
4. 400m x 2 in 69 seconds each, with 30 second recoveries
5. 200m x 5 at close to top speed, also with 30 second rest intervals, and finally
6. A 30-minute cooldown.

WEDNESDAY p.m.: Recovery

THURSDAY 8 a.m.: hill work, comprising 90 minutes of continuous running over very hilly terrain at a pace of 4:30 per kilometre (20K)

THURSDAY 4 p.m.: 60 minutes of easy running at 5 minutes per kilometre (12K)
FRIDAY 9 a.m.: 90 minutes at 4 minutes per kilometre (22.5K)
FRIDAY 4 p.m.: 60 minutes of fartlek training (alternating - Kenyan style - 1 minute fast at 10K race pace with 1 minute of easy jogging) (17K)
SATURDAY 8 a.m.: 120 minutes at 4 minutes per kilometre (30K)

SATURDAY 4 p.m.: Recovery

SUNDAY: Recovery day

Notice that Tegla, with her trio of hard training days on Wednesday through Friday, in which she chalked up almost 90 total kilometres and ran 41 of those on hills or at 10K pace or faster (45 per cent of the total) was carrying out a variation of Jack Daniels’ famous ’Hard-Hard’ training scheme. Except in Tegla’s case, she added a third consecutive day of tough work, giving her a ’Hard-Hard-Hard’ regime.

Hills are the secret

Any person who gets to know the elite Kenyan runners quickly learns that each Kenyan has a unique hill - a special upslope on which heart rate is pushed up to near maximal and quadriceps muscles burn with intense fury as the hill is scaled at rapid speed. The incredible Sammy Lelei (59:24 half marathon) has his Sergoit Hill training sessions, a searing scramble up nearly sheer rock near his Eldoret shamba, which begins at 5000 feet and ends at over 8,000.

The fast-rising Godfrey Kiprotich prefers his Kerio Valley workout, 1 21K affair which extends from the foot of the valley to the very top of Tambach Hill, an effort which takes Kiprotich only 84 minutes, even though the change in elevation is exactly the same as Lelei ’ s 3000 ft ascent. Michael Kapkiai ( 1994 winner of the Turin Marathon in 2:10:03) fires his way up Kipkoikoi Mountain near Iten, Kenya, along an unbrearbly steep three-mile trail which - you guessed it - rises a little over 3,000 feet in all.And Tegla has a special hill session too. When she’ s training in Nakaru, one of her favourite spots in Kenya, she simply rambles up the side of a volcano for her Thursday ’hill’ workout. In her case, it’ s the famous Menengei volcano on the north edge of the city, and Tegla’ s workout covers 1 2K from bottom to top over very rough dirt roads and trails, takes her only 45 minutes and - surprise, surprise - involves a climb from about 4800 feet to 7800 feet above sea level during the course of the workout.

’We don’t have any special strength-training equipment in Kenya,’ says Tegla, ’so we Kenyan runners simply use our own body weight to supply the resistance as we run up hills. The toughness of our hill workouts is the key reason for our success.’
Like about 70 per cent of the internationally successful Kenyan runners, Tegla is a member of the Kalenjin tribe, but she hails from a rural area near Kapenguria, not far from Mount Elgon, and is therefore a ’Pokot’, a Kalenjin sub-group which has produced few great runners in the past.

Owen Anderson