Darya Mykhaylova – Training (32:27 10km, 71:36 Half Marathon, 2:28 Marathon)
Darya is a Ukrainian long-distance runner, who had especially this year great results, starting with a 24th place at the world cross country in Aarhus, where she was 5th European overall. Later this year she ran personal bests in 10.000m on the track at the Europa cup in London in 32:27, a 32:31 for 10 kilometres on the road in Prague and a half marathon personal best time of 71min36sec just recently in Usti nad Labem (CZE). Currently she is preparing for the Ukrainian marathon championships on 6th of October, which is held in Bila Tserkva marathon, where her goal is to qualify for the Olympic games next year in Tokyo. She has now a marathon Pb of 2:35:55 from 2017, but with the recent results, its very likely she can break the 2hours 30min barrier this time. 2017 she also qualified for the world championships in marathon and finished on 44th place in 2:41:29 in London.
Darya is born in 1989 and started relatively late with professional running. In the year 2013 she started to train more seriously and was coached by the Ukrainian 2:07 marathon runner Olexandr Kuzin. Since last year she is coached by Romanchuk Sergey, also a former marathon runner (2:13). As well she made earlier this year a decisive decision to train several months in Kenya, Iten. Motivated by the east Africans she is competing against, she couldn’t resist to make this change in her training and add the benefits of high altitude to her training process and the recent progression shows it was a good move for her.
The training volume from Darya differs throughout the season. When she prepares for 10k or half marathons she trains around 130 to 150 kilometres per week. In race season from April to July she covers only 70 to 90 kilometres to be fresh for the competitions and recently she covered 180 to 200 kilometres to prepare for the upcoming marathon. After this high-volume block in Kenya, at 2400m altitude from 16.07 to 29.08 she ran her personal best in 10 kilometres (32.31) on the road and half marathon (71:36). Darya trains with a heart rate monitor and the intensities are controlled in different heart rate zones. For her example the different heart rate zones are: until 142 HR (L1), 144-156 (L2), 156 – 162 (L3), 162 – 172 (L4) in her case. These values are individual and are usually based on the maximum heart rate of the given athlete.
As it should be for a professional runner, the training program needs to be well balanced and that’s also the case for Darya. She usually doubles (two running sessions per day) 5 days per week and one day per week is only one short run, which is her recovery day. Her coach says, if you rest one day per week fully, you lose 52 days of training per year. The following described training log of a full week, was done in Iten, at high altitude and on a dirt track or hilly rough roads:
Monday AM: 15km at L1 (4:34min/km)
PM 15km at L1 (4:38min/km)
Tuesday AM: 4km warm up + 20 times 400m 84 to 80 sec with 200m in 76sec recovery between
PM: 12km L1 (4:57min/km)
Wednesday AM: 25km L1 + L2 (4:08 min/km)
PM: 8km L1 (4:54 min/km) + 8*200m in 40sec 200m jogging recovery
Thursday AM: 14km L1 (4:52 min/km) + running drills
Friday AM: 3km warm up + 1km+2km+3km+2km with 1km moderate between
3:30/7:10/10:30/7:04, kilometres between were 4:10min/km average
PM: 8km L1 (5:10min/km)
Saturday AM: 18km L1 (4:47min/km)
PM: 8km L1 4:48min/km plus 8 * 100m strides
Sunday AM: 30km L2 (4:15min/km)
Total volume of the week: 180km
The described training week was during her build up for the upcoming marathon. Other sessions she did in course of the preparation August were for example: 10 times 1000m in 3:25 with 300m active recovery in 90sec or a 15km tempo variation run with one kilometre in 3:25, followed by one in 4:00. Occasionally she does also shorter speed sessions like 6 times 1000m in 3:10 with longer recovery of around 3min to work on her anaerobic capacity. Her training has good overall volume and is well balanced. It will be exciting to see her racing the marathon on 6th October. The qualification for the Olympic games next year should be in the range of her capabilities.
Please note: this article was written by a European coach familiar with the training of Darya Mykhaylova. The article hasn’t been edited to correct grammar or brevity but rather published as submitted.
