Germán Silva – Training Insights (27:46 10000m, 60:28 Half Marathon, 2:08:56 Marathon)
Article by Tait Hearps of Sweat Elite
The 1990s saw a generation of great Mexican runners who were dominant on the roads, taking out many of the major marathons. Delving into some research on the topic, I was fascinated. A beautiful article in the New York Times depicted a committed group of elite athletes living in austerity and tackling some alarmingly tough conditions, training at altitudes well above what most elite runners would deem productive as they ascended into the crater of the 4680m volcano, Nevado de Toluca .
One of the standout characters in this group of athletes was German Silva. German recently graced us with his wisdom on the Sweat Elite Podcast, discussing his life and some of the training he would do during his career. This training clearly served German well, seeing him compete in two Olympics, and take out the New York Marathon twice (1994,1995). With his first victory he really made a name for himself, especially due to the unorthodox manner in which he won the race.
With under a mile remaining, Silva was running stride for stride with co-leader and training partner Benjamin Paredes. Sharing drinks right through to the final stages of the race, the pair had worked together to develop quite a lead, now Silva was planning his attack. As the pair ran through Central Park, the camera car veered right, pulling off the course. Silva followed, Paredes pounced.
Silva calmly turned around when he realised his mistake, mustering the strength to regain the pace he had been setting, and set about reeling in the twelve second handicap he had just given himself. Silva looks to be imperturbable. The really impressive thing about the footage of this would-be disaster is the way Silva doesn’t panic. He takes his time and it is only with one hundred metres or so remaining that he passes Paredes and surges to victory. Watch the video, it’s great. This win changed a lot of things for German, it also earned him the moniker ‘Wrong Way Silva’.
German shared a lot on his training with us during our conversation. What I found most interesting was how he and his training partners harnessed the power of altitude to their advantage. He says that “one of the key runs for me was once a week going up to the volcano.” Inhospitable conditions welcomed the athletes every Thursday, as they ascended into the thin air on the slopes of Mexico’s fourth highest mountain, also known as Xinantecatl. In a twelve-week block preceding a marathon, the volcano was a once-a-week staple, however prior to commencing these blocks Silva would often spend a few weeks sleeping up on the volcano, habituating his body and mind to the strain of the hypoxic conditions.
An austere hotel served as the base for Silva and his teammates. It was “the cheapest hotel in the world,” at less than $1 per night, with the athletes supplying their own food and blankets. “It was so cold at night,” he says, “tough, tough conditions. Conditions made to develop your mind.” For Silva, the difficulty of the conditions up there was the main attraction, with the boost in mental fortitude being just as valuable as the release of EPO and subsequent increase in red blood cells. He says that just getting through a 20km run up to the crater, even at a very slow pace, was much harder than the 15 x 1000m set they would often do on the track the next day.
Silva says that he tried to do some hill sessions on the volcano, but that fatigue accumulated too quickly, and it was better to focus on longer, slower runs at that altitude. Frank Shorter says that he experienced diminishing returns beyond 3000m, as “you just can’t move your legs fast enough,” in the thin air. Silva adds, “I tried a couple of times to do sessions up there. But no way! You can’t… Better to profit from the conditions and build up good endurance, and also build up the condition to recover. It’s a hard workout, but not one that will put you in a state of fatigue.” On Thursdays Silva and his comrades would train morning and evening on the volcano, sleep up high and then come down on Friday morning for a track workout.
When training for the 10,000m there were two track sessions per week, whereas when he was building for marathons, he would swap one of these for intervals on roads through the forest near his home.
Here are some of the key workouts German Silva would run:
Marathon Preparation
- Intervals on Tuesday: 4-5 x 2km or 3km Splits @ Half Marathon Pace
- Track on Friday: 20 x 400m (65-66), 15 x 1km (all under 3:00mins)
10,000m Preparation
- 10 x 200m (29-30s) with 200m recovery (jogged in 1:00-1:10min), 7-8 x 400m (60-62s), 10 x 200m (down to 26-27s, finishing in 23-24s).
“I always loved to do changing distances… That kind of interval really helps to be able to kick at the end of a race.” - 1 mi (67-68s/lap) 3 min rec, 3-4 x 1200m, finished with 2-3x 800m (around 2:00)
- 3 sets of 7 x 400m, 200m recovery jog between intervals, 400m recovery jog between sets. Starting 65-67s, down to 60-62s. Last interval all out, competing with training partners, sometimes down to 52-53s final rep.
Silva says these workouts, and all their training, were strictly a team effort. Distributing the responsibility of holding the pace for 1km reps between 5-10 athletes meant that each athlete only had to lead 2-3 reps and could hold onto the back for the others. The group would go to Veracruz for training camps where they could do workouts at the relatively low altitude of 1300m, but from there they could quickly access altitudes of up to 2500m, or head to sea level, which was something they did regularly. “We used to travel a lot to train at different altitudes, that was the advantage of living in Mexico.”
Dehydration, according to Silva, is a much more significant factor at sea-level than at altitude, and he feels that recovery was facilitated by training at altitude. The siesta was also a key part of his regime, and recovery was a priority. Life in training was simple and repetitive, “we didn’t have much technology, we didn’t spend time on phones, we spent our time working out hard and recovering the hours we had to recover.” German says that this, and the strong sense of camaraderie and teamwork, were integral to the success of Mexican runners through that period. “If you see Kenyans and Ethiopians now, they are doing the same thing.”
There were so many lessons to take from our conversation and we thank German for generously sharing his time and experience.
Read more articles about Half Marathon Training and Marathon Training.
