David Rudisha: Mileage
I asked Colm O’Connell (Coach of David Rudisha and many sub 1:45 800m runners) the old question that first comes to mind for many: “How much mileage does David Rudisha do?” and he answered with “It’s hard to count, as we train very much on how he feels rather than having a specific program set focused on volume.” He thought a bit more and said “Around 90km a week in the base period and perhaps 60-70km in the racing period.”
As people in the middle distance world know, this is on the low end of the spectrum for an elite 800m runner.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2014, Rudisha claimed that the longest run he’s ever done is 13km and when I asked Colm this question, the same old relaxed response agreed that it was “around 50mins or 13km.”
One day in the middle of Tuesday morning interval hill workout (10x200m with a slow walk back recovery) Willy stopped. He’d completed rep 6 of 10 and fell back from the group, only just towards the end of the repetition.
“What’s the matter, Willy?” said Colm.
“I’m cooked.”
Willy walked 3km back to his house and took the following 3 days off. Whilst most athletes would be stressing about hitting their 100 miles for the week, being just a month out from their racing season kicking off, Willy took 3 days off and played video games.
He returned to training on Saturday and unleashed an incredibly fast interval workout of 4x500m in 1.10s + 4x200m in 24-25 on a dirt track (probably worth 1.07-1.08s / 23-24s). He was back!
A couple of weeks later he beat David Rudisha at the Racers Grand Prix in Jamaica in 1:44:86 (52/52).
