Kenyan Elite Training Series: Brigid Kosgei (64:28 Half Marathon, 2:14:04 Marathon)
Brigid Kosgei is one of the most outstanding marathon and half marathon runners in the world. Her recent 64.28 at Great North Run is by far the fastest time in half marathon ever, but isn’t recognized as a world record, due the course isn’t officially accepted. Nevertheless, she won this year’s London marathon in 2.18.20, where she dropped the last year’s winner Vivian Cheruiyot with a 66.42 second half, which was the fastest second part of a women marathon ever. As well her 10 kilometres road time of 29.54 in Madrid last year is impressive. She later went on to break the Marathon World Record at Chicago Marathon on October 13th 2019, running a time of 2:14:04, bettering Paula Radcliffe’s 16 year old record by well over one minute.
One month before the London marathon she won a well-paid half marathon in Bahrein. The newly crowned marathon world champion Ruth Chepngetich became 2nd in that race. Brigid ran the last 5k in Bahrein under 15min. As well she won the Peachtree Road race on 4th July this year with a new course record of 30.22 and a bonus of 50.000 Dollars for this achievement, beating the 10.000m bronze medallist Agnes Tirop on the line. Brigid aims to run the Chicago marathon coming week and we can expect a very fast time, even a new world record is possible, considering the 64.28 half marathon last month.
Brigid is very light, and her running style can be compared with a bicycle, because she lands directly under her body, when running. She is a real marathon runner in every sense, very economically running style and she started her professional running career right away with marathon. That means she has no background with running shorter distance, apart from competitions in High school. She started her marathon career with a first place in Porto in 2:47, but already one year later she ran 2:24 in Lisboa marathon, before she became 2nd at the Chicago marathon 2017 behind the great Turinesh Dibaba in 2:20:22. Only one and half months later she won the Honolulu marathon in cruel conditions in 2.22, and surpassed the previous course record by five minutes. At this point it was already clear that Brigid has a great potential to be one of the best marathon runners of all time.
Brigid Kosgei trains in Kenya, a specific place called Kapsait, which is located more than 3000m above sea level. Her manager is Federico Rosa and she is coached by the former Kenyan runner Erick Kimaiyo. She stays in the Rosa training camp and trains with a big group of male and female runners. One of her training mates is Vivian Kiplagat, who won this years Milano marathon in a new course record of 2hours 22 minutes. The training of Brigid is characterised by long and hard runs. It’s stated that she does up to 50 times 400m repeats on a grass slope and once per week long runs of 40 up to 45 kilometres with around 4.00 min/km during her build up.
One of the craziest things in the lead up to the Peachtree roach race were 4 times 3km reps on a flat piece of road, near Kapsait at around 3.00 min/km pace. As well she does sometimes long, and hard tempo runs on a hilly tarmac route at 3000m altitude, for example an 18 kilometres tempo run in slightly under 60min. She rarely trains on track, and even to run on a flat road is more the exception, than regularity. Sometimes her training group drives towards Eldoret to do long tempo runs on a flat road. Only five weeks after her win at London marathon she did a track session, 9 times 1000m and started right away with 2.58 and finished the last one with 2.52.
Her running style isn’t perfect, especially her upper body and arm swing seems to be far from ideal, but her cardiovascular system and elasticity is outstanding. Her training is simple but most if it is hard and long, exactly what is the most specific for running a marathon. More and more women are coming near to the world record from Paula Radcliffe (2.15.25). Ladies like Brigid Kosgei or Ruth Chepngetich, who ran last year in Istanbul 2.18 and this year 2.17 in Dubai are very close to break this long-standing record.
Please note: this article was written by Thomas Potzinger (European coach and assistant to Renato Canova). The article hasn’t been edited to correct grammar or brevity but rather published as submitted.
