Eliud Kipchoge’s Preparation For The INEOS 159 Challenge
[Article by Tait Hearps of Sweat Elite]
October 12-20 is the window in which Eliud Kipchoge will yet again attempt to create history. This time, the Kenyan legend will launch an attack at the sub-two hour marathon on the streets of the Austrian capital of Vienna, in the INEOS 159 Challenge. The British chemical company are trying to propel Eliud and his team over the mammoth hurdle, one which they refer to as the last great barrier in modern athletics.
INEOS have been releasing content over the past months of Eliud’s training in the Global Sports camp in Kapatagat, Kenya. As well as footage from their practice run-through of the event, with the pacemakers all in place. The three-part documentary they have released gives insight into Eliud’s life and training, and how he has gone about preparing for the challenge. There are extensive interviews of Eliud and all of the people who work most closely with him, interlaced with stunning shots of the group training in the Kenyan highlands.
The documentary starts with one such shot, with the group loping along at sunrise. Overlayed is Eliud’s commentary: “I think a good career is whereby you give yourself a challenge every now and then, and so I think it’s high time for me to try another challenge, by challenging the two-hour mark.” He later says “INEOS159 challenge is a noble challenge, it’s an historical challenge whereby I’m doing it to make history.” “I think I have rich experience from Monza and I am confident that I will beat the mark.” The INEOS 159 Challenge is the second time Eliud is completing a project aimed solely at breaking the two-hour barrier, with the first being the Breaking2 Project staged by Nike at Monza, Italy in 2017.
The Sweat Elite team is currently in Kenya and has on good authority that very little has changed in Eliud’s training over the last five years or so, during his dominance of the marathon discipline. INEOS are keeping many of the specifics of the training under wraps, however the documentary reveals quite a lot about what is going on behind the scenes. Little has changed since we spent a month with the group in 2017. Eliud is still living a frugal existence that belies his multimillionaire status, participating in all the domestic duties around the camp in Kaptagat. However, there are some new additions to his training cycle in the lead-up to Vienna.
Eliud says that the group’s training is quite different from that of other groups. He discusses the cycle of preparing for, racing, and recovering from a marathon. “When we finish the marathon then we need to have four days of just running slowly to recover and make sure our bodies are really cured well. Then we have three weeks of really total rest and then we start again.” In May Eliud recommenced training following his massive win in London, the “build up” period consisted of roughly one month focussing on gym work – three 2.5 hour sessions per week, each consisting of a combination of weights, drills, aerobic work and flexibility, as well as three or four runs per week.
Following this build up period the group shifted back into their normal training cycle, which we explore in more detail in Eliud Kipchoge – a typical week of training preparing for sub 2 hour marathon but is summarised by Patrick Sang, Eliud’s coach, in the second part of the documentary. The training week can be summarised as: Tuesday – track or fartlek, Thursday – long run, Saturday – fartlek, other days – easy. A notable addition to this training is the core work that can be seen in the videos. It is also interesting that it appears that Eliud is now using nutrition during some of the sessions, handed to him from the team van… this was not something that we observed during our time with him in 2017 in the lead-up to Berlin.
Sang is interviewed at great length throughout the three parts of the documentary, discussing his relationship with Eliud and how it has transformed over the years, admitting that much of the time he now feels that he is a student of Eliud himself. The reverence that all involved with the project have for Eliud is clearly discernible, his self-belief is inspiring and a major focus of the videos.
When discussing Eliud’s nervousness regarding his performance and the pressure he is under, Eliud’s manager Valentijn Trouw says that “He wants to do it for himself, but at the same time he wants to do it for everyone that is involved in the event and everybody who believes in him.” His teammates clearly believe the barrier is within his grasp, when asked to predict his time, assuming all goes perfectly on the day, some respond that he could even go 1:58-low.
Come October it will be absolutely captivating to watch what will transpire and see the culmination of years of work leading up to this moment. Eliud speaks of how consumed his thoughts are by the challenge. He views it as an opportunity to inspire the world (yet again) and hopes that the global nature of the project (pacers and a team from all over the world) will help to create a success that is celebrated in all corners of the world. Eliud rounds out the series with a typically philosophical refrain: “I don’t know where the limit is, but I hope to go there.”
