Track Thursday with Kenenisa Bekele’s squad
[article by Tait Hearps of Sweat Elite]
Following the Christmas festivities Coach Mersha invited us to join a track session in Sululta. He and his group pulled up to Bekele’s track as the sun was only just beginning to show the faintest signs of its arrival. Frost still covered the grass. The athletes piled out of the team minibus and began to shake out the legs after the brief confinement, travelling out of Addis and over the range.
Warm up – four kilometres progressively increasing in speed. The group casually chatted, still comfortable even as the pace climbed to around 3:45/km. A ten-minute stretching routine was followed by dynamic drills, and the group was ready.
The athletes gathered around and Mersha dealt out the workout: 2 x 3km, 3 x 2km, 5 x 1km. The group started the workout all together. Mersha oversees the training of a large group, with athletes racing distances from 5000m to the marathon. The 3km reps were both done in slightly over 9 minutes. An impressive pace given the 2700m altitude. Recovery between the reps was not specific however they generally had an active walk/jog recovery for 3-4 minutes. The 2km reps all completed in right around 6 minutes (the second in 5:54).
At this point the group split. 5,000m and 10,000m athletes did 12 laps striding through the straights and walking the bends. Yenew and two others started the 1km repetitions. who Mersha informed us that these three are currently preparing for the half-marathon. Pace in these reps remained around 3:00/km.
Matt observed that Yenew looked to be struggling, appearing to be quite depleted. Mersha said that the athletes hadn’t eaten prior to the session, and none were taking on any fluids or calories during the session. At this point they were approaching the end of 17km of hard running. Mersha said that he likes to introduce nutrition (electrolyte drinks etc.) into the training sessions only in the weeks approaching a race, as this makes the depleted sessions comparatively much tougher. He also says that he doesn’t buy into the idea of “train low, sleep high”. This was evident in the fact that the group are all living in Addis (roughly 2300m) and completing their track work at 2700m – “Sleep high, train higher!”
The two groups of athletes finished their sets and regrouped. They took off their shoes and ran some laps of the grass field inside the track, barefoot. After around ten minutes of shuffling around the field they all congregated before Mersha, stretching and chatting for a little while, relaxing after a hard session. Mersha rounded up the group and they all jumped into the minibus: back over the range to descend into Addis.
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