David Rudisha: Typical Friday (Transition/Racing Period)
David was there for parts of the month. He had 2 races during the month, including Shanghai Diamond League.
Nevertheless, we got down to the specifics of their training philosophies and despite David attending for only about half of the training sessions, we learnt everything about his group’s training, including base training weekly structure, strength training, speed training, race preparation workouts, and speed of recovery day runs.
Typical Friday – Race/Transition Period
Friday
6:30AM: Easy Jog
6-9km very easy jog.
The 800m runners will do 6km and the longer distance runners will do 9km. They do this run individually. We joined in with 2 of them in 2 occasions and both times the pace of the run was around 5:00-5:15/km.
10:00AM: Main Run
9.2km on “The Loop”
They do the same loop every Friday, as well as Monday, at more or less the same intensity for the 800m guys (see Monday for paces). The longer distance runners will usually do 14-16km on Fridays, at a slightly slower pace, closer to 4min/km.
** From time to time, athletes are very tired by Friday and if they are, they will bring the pace right back and run at closer to 4:45-5:00/km but for the same distance. Most Fridays there are at least 2 or 3 athletes choosing to do this.
4:00PM: Flexibility and Drills
4km Warm up + 1hour of stretching and speed drills. There is nothing unusual about this workout, in terms of specific exercises. Stretching will normally last 30mins (standard stretches but with lap focus on the hip flexors) and drills will be standard speed drills, like fast turn overs and scissor kicks
