David Rudisha Training: Typical Monday (Transition/Racing Period)
We spent May 2017 training with St Patrick’s athletics group in Iten, Kenya – David Rudisha’s training group.
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 Monday
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 Monday at more or less the same intensity. The group will run together for the first 3-4km and then split up based on fitness levels and how they are feeling on the day. They’ll start at around 5min/km for the first 1km to warm up and by the 2km mark, they’ll be at 4min/km. Athletes will finish between 34mins and 37mins. The 5k-Marathon runners will typically run closer to 34mins (around 3:40/km average) and the 800m runners, 36-37min (around 3:55/km average). Keep in mind, this loop is very hilly. The effort factoring in the altitude and hills is around 25sec/km slower than running flat at sea level.
4:00PM: Flexibility and Core
4km Warm up + 1hour of stretching and core stability. 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 core stability will be mostly different variations of planking.
