Kenyan marathon world record holder Kipchoge reveals training secrets
Kenyan Kipchoge reveals training secrets
JOHANNESBURG, June 14 (ANA) – Normally the training plans of current top athletes are guarded like military secrets, but luckily for running fans that is not the case with Kenya’s men’s marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge who revealed his favourite workouts over the weekend.
What is well-known, is that Kipchoge does most of his running in Kaptagat, Kenya, which is 2400m above sea level. Training at such a high altitude makes it much tougher, as the body becomes accustomed to much less oxygen and therefore becomes more efficient with repeated exercise in those conditions.
Kipchoge’s training a month before any races normally consist of any of the following on a given day:
20x400m in 64 to 65 seconds (50 seconds rest)
12x800m in 2:10s (90 seconds rest), then 10x400m in 62s (90 seconds rest)
15x1km (90 seconds rest between repetitions), – average pace of 2:50 per km
12x1200m (90 seconds rest) progressions – starts at around 2:55 per km, aiming to finish faster each repetition
5 sets (2km, 1km) (200m recovery jog between repetitions) – with the pace processing with each repetition
Kipchoge is the only man to have completed the 42.2km distance in under two hours in an unofficial special event called the Ineos 1:59 Challenge. Kipchoge is also the current world record holder with his time of 2:01:39 he ran at the Berlin Marathon in 2018.
Up until the 2020 London Marathon, Kipchoge had won 11 of the 12 marathons he had competed in – with the only blemish on his record being the second place he claimed at the 2013 Berlin Marathon.
With his latest win at the Hamburg Marathon in April, Kipchoge showed he will still be the man to beat at the Tokyo Olympics later this year. – African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Michael Sherman