15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui

Altro Blog successivo» demighty@libero.it Bacheca Esci

Thoughts and comments on long-distance training, injuries, and more from a student of the sport

Home Consulting The Injury Series About Me Books, Articles, and Publications Contact Me Links

FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2012 CHECK OUT MY BOOK!

Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of

Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui

Modern Training
and...
$8.99

Shop now

Abel Kirui (left) and Moses Mosop (right)

Renato Canova is a widely-renown coach of some of the most elite middle and long-distance
athletes in the world. His runners routinely medal at World Championship and Olympic races
and place highly at major marathons. I've done a good bit of writing on this blog about his
training methods, and those posts are some of the most popular of all of my articles. Unlike Corso
many other elite coaches, Renato Canova has no reservations about sharing his training
philosophy and the workouts of his athletes. 2011 was a banner year for Canova, as several Pilota
of his runners won medals at the 2011 world championships, including Abel Kirui, a young
runner who won his second marathon World Championship. Additionally, Moses Mosop, a
Aereo
long-time Canova runner with sub-27 10k credentials, made his debut marathon in an
earthshaking 2:03:06 for second place at the Boston Marathon, then later smashed the 25k
and 30k world records at the Prefontaine Classic meet in Eugene, Oregon. To cap off his
amazing season, Mosop won the Chicago Marathon with a course record as well. Soon after
this incredible spring and summer, Renato Canova posted the training of Moses Mosop before
the Boston Marathon and Abel Kirui before the World Championships marathon on
LetsRun.com. I've had the training schedules sitting around for some time, but I've just now Diventa Pilota
gotten around to copying them to a calendar and translating them into relevant paces. di Aereo con i
Corsi di
If you would like to read my other work on Canova, a good place to start is my article titled Accademia del
"Something New in Training:" Volo!

http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2011/07/something-new-in-training-methods-of.html

And last fall I completed a similar analysis of the training of Canova's track athletes (1500-
10,000m) in the last month before the World Championships:

http://runningwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/peaking-with-renato-canova_28.html
Questo sito si serve dei cookie di Google per l'erogazione dei servizi, la personalizzazione degli annunci e
l'analisi del traffico. Le informazioni sul tuo utilizzo del sito sono condivise con Google. Se prosegui la
navigazione acconsenti all'utilizzo dei cookie.
The Training Schedules ULTERIORI INFORMAZIONI OK TWITTER

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 1/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui
I have transcribed the training schedules of Moses Mosop (four months' worth of training) and
Abel Kirui (two months) onto calendar pages on .pdf files for easy viewing and printing. Two Tweets by @JDruns
versions exist for each athlete's training: a schedule with the absolute paces and times for
workouts, and a schedule with the paces translated into relative percents of PR pace, which is John Davis
@JDruns
how Renato Canova discusses relevant training paces. In most cases, the schedules have
been "Americanized" by translating kilometers into miles and times per km to times per mile. RunningWritings.com hit
Some workouts, mostly interval repeats of familiar distances to Americans (i.e. 3ks, 5ks) have TWO MILLION all-time
views last month!!! I
not been translated into a per-mile pace.
know I've been neglecting
it recently but I've got big
plans...
Abel Kirui's training schedule—absolute paces
Jul 20, 2017
Abel Kirui's training schedule—relative paces
John Davis
@JDruns
Moses Mosop's training schedule—absolute paces As of this weekend my
time as a coach at Edina
Moses Mosop's training schedule—relative paces came to an end. It's been
an incredible four and…
instagram.com/p/BVQMB
To download the files in their original PDF form (for better text quality), select "File >
KwlCEH/
Download" on the Google Docs menu.
Jun 12, 2017
Remember that all training was done in Kenya, which is at relatively high altitude, and most
road runs were over fairly significant hills. However, according to Canova, Kenyans are much John Davis
better at running close to their sea-level performances while at altitude than Western athletes @JDruns
are (probably because the Kenyans have lived at altitude their whole lives), so I don't think the Creatine use a risk factor
schedules need any drastic adjustments to compensate for that. for chronic exertional
compartment syndrome

Embed View on Twitter

Glossary of Terms

You'll need to know the following terms to understand the schedules:

Fartlek—Swedish for "speed play." A low-key workout that involves surging and
recovering during a run. Usually the efforts prescribed for the surges are general
terms like "fast" or "moderate" instead of specific paces.
Diagonals—A low-key workout popularized by Kenyans. It involves running the
diagonal between corners on a soccer field quickly, and jogging along the goal line Corso
to the other corner. This is repeated either for a number of diagonals or for a
specified length of time. Pilota
Aereo
A Note on Renato Canova's math

Renato Canova computes many of the paces he prescribes based on percentages of an

athlete's personal record. It's important to discuss how this is calculated, because it is not
straightforward. For example, if we say "run at 90% of 5:00 mile pace," many people would
divide 5:00 by 0.90 and get 5:33.3 minutes per mile. Renato, however, does his math
differently. To him, deviations from PR pace are measured quite literally in per cent—parts of Diventa Pilota
one hundredth of the original pace. So, when Renato says "90% of 5:00 pace," he means
di Aereo con i
"10% slower than 5:00 pace." To compute this, you do the following:
Corsi di
Accademia del
5:00/100*10 + 5:00 = 5:30 pace
Volo!
Here are two simple formulas that will aid you in calculating "Renato Canova percents":

To calculate the resultant pace N by going P percent of race race (RP)

N = RP*(2-P/100)

As you can verify yourself, this formula works equally well if P is greater or less than 100
percent. For 110% of 5-minute mile pace, N = 5*(2-110/100) = 4.5 minutes per mile, or 4:30
mile pace. For 90% of 5k pace, N = 5*(2-90/100) = 5.5 minutes per mile or 5:30 mile pace.

BLOG ARCHIVE
To calculate what percentage P (faster or slower) than race pace (RP) some new pace N is,
use: ► 2017 (1)
► 2016 (6)
P = 100*(2-N/RP)
► 2015 (17)
► 2014 (22)
Disclaimer
► 2013 (11)

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 2/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui
Please note that the analysis of these schedules is only my own interpretation, and that I don't ▼ 2012 (22)
claim to speak for Renato Canova or anyone else. As I have written before, any scholarly ► December (1)
analysis will necessarily involve placing things into a context where they can be understood. ► November (1)
Finally, I take responsibility for all typos—I'm sure I've made at least a few, so don't read too far
► October (2)
into any one particular day's workout! Also, for computing Mosop's relative paces, I used a
rough prediction of 2:05:51 based on his 10k PR. Abel Kirui's percentages are based on his ► September (3)
PR of 2:05:04 ► July (2)
▼ June (4)
Observations and Analysis Elite Marathoning
with Renato
Canova: The
After a first glance at the schedules, a few things jump out right away. The first is
Training...
consistency. Barring a disruption in training, Kirui and Mosop train twice a day almost every
Basic Training
day. While the workouts will be the focus of most of our analysis, do not forget that these 40-
Principles now
80min runs at an easy to moderate effort, day in and day out, make up the core of their available in print
training. These are not so much aerobic training sessions (as they would be in a diet of high- a...
mileage training for a less experienced Western runner), as Kirui and Mosop both have many Basic Training
years of high volume training under their belts, and are thus already in exceptional shape. Principles for
Middle and Long-
Rather, think of these as more of supplemental or maintenance work—just like a calculus Dist...
student has already mastered algebra, yet still uses it on a daily basis to accomplish more
Brief thoughts: On leg
complicated tasks, such is the role of easy to moderate mileage in Canova's marathon stiffness and
training. To Mosop or Kirui, 80min moderate in the morning and 50min easy in the evening is impact
likely no more stressful to them than your regular easy eight-mile loop is for you.
► May (1)

Second, there is very little long easy or long moderate running. Both schedules include one ► April (3)
run around the duration of a marathon (2:10 for Kirui and 2:28 for Mosop), but aside from that ► March (3)
outing, only a handful of easy/moderate runs are longer than 80 or 90 minutes. To Canova,
► February (1)
these long easy runs are not very useful to an experienced athlete, as he writes in a thread on
► January (1)
LetsRun.com:
► 2011 (16)
One question : if you want to run a Marathon at 3:19 pace (about 2:20 final time),
do you think that running 30k at 4:00 pace can have some connection? If you
want running 10000m in 30:00, do you think that the main workouts are 400m on SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL

track, and long run must be only easy regeneration?

Email address Submit

Instead, the focus of training is in long fast runs, long intervals workouts, and short
fartlek-style workouts. ABOUT ME

Main Workouts

Starting early on in training, and continuing up until three weeks out from the goal marathon,
Mosop and Kirui run long fast runs on a regular basis. These are typically between 20 and
John Davis
40km (12mi-25mi) and are done at least once every two weeks. The pace for the continuous
long-fast runs is between 87 and 95% of PR marathon pace. On weeks that do not contain a I'm a graduate of Carleton
continuous long fast run, Mosop or Kirui often instead do a broken up or progressive long College and a long-time
fast run, for example, 10km at 87% + 12km at 97%. These broken up or progressive sessions student of distance running.
My interests include elite
allow the runners to do some blocks of continuous running at 95% of race pace or faster after
training, biomechanics,
first covering several miles.
injury prevention and
treatment, long-term
Another staple training feature are long interval workouts. The repeats last from 1km to 5k, development for younger
and sometimes vary in distance and pace. The longer invervals of 3-5km are typically at 95- runners, and coaching
101% of marathon pace, while the shorter repeats of 1km-1mi are usually at 103% or faster. philosophies. Currently, I
Very often, the recovery is not a slow jog, but rather is 1km at a prescribed pace. Early in live in the Twin Cities, write,
training, this kilometer of recovery is at an easy pace (50-70% of race pace), but as the and coach at Edina High
marathon draws near, this kilometer of recovery gets faster, culminating in the "alternating" School.
workout two weeks out, where the athlete runs 22-24km alternating kilometers at 103% and View my complete profile
89% of race pace. The pace of the long repeats themselves seems to increase over time,
from as slow as 86% for Mosop in January up to 96-100% in March. FOLLOWERS

Short fartlek-style workouts and diagonals are also a common occurrence in Mosop and
Kirui's schedule, and they likely have several roles: breaking up the monotony of the longer
continuous running, preparing for the abrupt surges of speed that have become the trademark
of top-flight marathons today, and keeping the body and legs fresh between long workouts.
Typical sessions involve fairly short bursts of one or two minutes of fast running (~100% of
race pace), followed by 30sec to 1min of easy or moderate running. Abel Kirui does a great
deal of diagonals, described above, which are quite similar to the short-burst fartlek workouts
that Mosop does at least every two or three weeks. These workouts may also serve as "light"
versions of the alternator workout which tops off the training schedule. Longer fartleks aren't
unheard of, but are less common than the long interval workouts described above.

As with all Canova schedules, recovery before and after workouts is proportional to the
intensity and stress of the workout itself. Relatively easy workouts, like the short fartlek

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 3/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui
sessions described above, can sometimes be done the day before or after a larger workout. Follower (103) Avanti
But before and after very long or very intense workouts like the 40km runs and the "special
blocks," there are several days of easy running, often at a reduced volume.

Speaking of intensity, Canova employs Special Blocks every 2-4 weeks (as long as training is
progressing nicely) which consist of TWO workouts in a single day, one in the morning and one
in the afternoon. These workouts are usually either broken up long- fast runs or long intervals
of 1-4km.

Finally, it is well worth noting that there are two, not three, main workouts most weeks. Many
western athletes in high school or college who jump at the opportunity to get in a third workout
on a non-race week could learn something from Canova's philosophy of sufficient recovery
before and after major workouts.

Segui
Marathon Preparation

Moses Mosop races once during his four-month preparation for Boston at the Paris Half-
Marathon (six weeks before the marathon). His time is good, but nowhere near the caliber of
his eventual performance at Boston. Many people speculate that it's not possible to be in top-
notch half-marathon shape during preparations for a marathon, since the speed of the half-
marathon requires a sacrifice in stamina-type training, which is necessary to run a great
marathon. This seems to confirm that speculation.

Mosop's preparation differs from Kirui's in that Mosop tends to do a good bit more high-speed
track training. Mosop comes from a track background and boasts sub-13 5k and sub-27 10k
credentials, so perhaps the track sessions of repeats from 200-1200m are playing to his
strengths as a runner. Kirui has relatively paltry track PRs compared to Mosop, so he may
stay away from high speed track training. But it is also possible that this type of training was
planned for Kirui as well, but was shelved because of his knee problems in late July.

As the marathon draws near, the training schedules focus on preparing the athletes to run a
championship race. The last major sessions in the final three weeks of training are an
alternating continuous run, a short fartlek workout, and one final high-intensity session near
marathon pace or faster. Three weeks out from the race, Mosop completes a 15.5mi run at
97.5% of race pace, while Kirui completes a special block session that includes 9mi at 98.5%
of race pace. Two weeks out, both Mosop and Kirui complete a fast fartlek session (20x1min
fast/30sec moderate and 15x1min fast/1min easy, respectively) and 22 or 24 km alternating
between 103% and 89% of race pace. In the final week, Kirui and Mosop are busy with
traveling, and take several rest days. It's unclear what their training is once they've arrived at
the race location, but Renato does not seem overly concerned with it.

Interestingly, while workout duration does seem to ramp down somewhat in the last three
weeks, the volume on the easy days between workouts does not change much. This is in
keeping with Renato Canova's philosophy of easy mileage being a "maintenance" type
session, not a stress on the body in and of itself. However, overall volume must decrease
significantly in the week before the marathon, given the days off for travel.

Final Thoughts: what's missing and differences from Western marathon

training

One of the most enlightening ways to examine a training schedule is to look at what's not
present. In the case of Renato Canova's marathon preparations for Mosop and Kirui, what
stood out to me was the lack of much sustained long fast runs at around 100% of marathon
pace. There are a lot of long fast runs at 88-95% of marathon pace, and a good bit of long
interval workouts at 100-110% of race pace, but "staple sessions" to a Western athlete like 12-
16mi at marathon pace are quite rare. It's possible that this might just be a function of altitude
and muddy/hilly roads slowing the pace of training sessions. But perhaps Canova believes
that the focus should be on extending endurance in long continuous runs at 5-15% slower than
race pace—this would certainly be in keeping with his philosophy for the shorter track events.
In many ways, the workouts here are quite similar to what a 5k runner would be doing in terms
of relative paces. So, a 5k runner's training would consist of long fast runs at 85-90% of race
pace, plus long repeats at 95-100% of race pace, and medium or short intervals at 100-110%
of race pace. This is quite similar to the marathon schedules seen here!

This finding illuminates why Canova's marathon training is so different than the traditional
Western approach. When an American coach trains a 5k runner with long continuous runs at
85 and 90% of race pace, it is because he or she believes that these paces are physiologically
relevant (because they correspond to the aerobic and anaerobic thresholds). And Canova's
training for a 5k runner looks roughly similar. But, when this American coach is training a
marathoner, they train the same PACES—aerobic and anaerobic threshold. But now, aerobic

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 4/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui
and anaerobic threshold correspond to ~100 and ~106% of race pace! But Renato Canova
would train the same PERCENTAGE—85 and 90% of race pace. Seeing the stark
differences in how an American might train for the marathon and how Renato Canova has his
athletes train should change how we think about preparations for the marathon. Despite the
fact that Canova's athletes are at an extremely high level of fitness and experience, I still think
many of these principles can be applied to less-experienced marathon training.

I'm hesitant to make too many recommendations on how to adopt these principles for your own
marathon training, as I don't have a whole lot of marathon experience myself (barring
Grandma's Marathon as a sixteen-year-old!). But I would start by looking to the principles, not
the numbers. So instead of focusing on doing 20-40km long fast runs, or 4x5km interval
workouts, focus on introducing long-fast runs at 85-95% of marathon pace and long interval
workouts at 95-100% of marathon pace into your training. The volume for a 2:20 or 32:40
marathoner will likely be much less than one of Canova's 2:05 runners. Remember, Kirui and
Mosop have a huge amount of mileage and racing experience under their belts, so they
require a much greater stimulus from their workouts to improve. And also keep in mind that
Mosop and Kirui's marathon pace is under 3min/km, making a 20km run at marathon pace
over in less than an hour.

Finally, despite the eye-boggling workouts that crop up in these schedules, there are some
very down-to-earth lessons we can take from them. First, even World Champions get injured!
Abel Kirui's training was disrupted for several weeks because of a knee problem, and he
almost didn't even get to race! And Moses Mosop faced several disruptions in his own training
because of travel and a death in the family. Mosop and Kirui did not let these interruptions
faze them—they "rolled with the punches" of travel and injury, not trying to force in more
workouts despite a busy travel schedule. Second, while Mosop and Kirui indeed ran fairly high
mileage, it wasn't absurdly high—most weeks were in the 120-mile range. But the modulation,
or day-to-day variation in mileage, was very high. Mosop would follow up a thirty-mile day with
only eight or nine miles of easy running, so he was clearly not afraid to back off and take it
easy after a hard effort. Finally, both Mosop and Kirui spend time preparing for the type of
race they would encounter. As the Boston and the World Championships Marathons are high-
caliber competitions, Canova knew that Mosop and Kirui would have to be ready for abrupt
bursts of speed from their competitors, and trained them to be prepared with short fartlek
workouts and the "alternating" fast continuous run (much like Canova's shorter distance
charges prepared with interval workouts of alternating speeds). Mosop also did a lot of his
long fast runs over hilly terrain, preparing for the ups and downs of Boston.

Overall Patterns

Here is a brief summary of the important points to take away. In general, Moses Mosop and
Abel Kirui's marathon training programs as designed by Renato Canova consist of:
Consistency in training: easy to moderate running, twice a day for most days
between workouts
A focus on fast continuous running as opposed to long easy or moderate runs
Long fast runs of 12.5-25mi at 85-95% of marathon pace at least once every two
weeks, sometimes supplemented by broken up long fast runs or progression runs
Long interval workouts every 2-3 weeks with repeats lasting from 1-5km.
Recovery is often, but not always, 1km at an easy to moderate pace. The intervals
from 1-2km tend to be 103% of marathon pace or faster, while the longer repeats of
3-5km tend to be at 95-101% of marathon pace
Short fartleks of 1-2min at marathon pace with short recovery (or diagonals) every
few weeks to break up the schedule, to prepare the body for surges in
championships races, and to serve as a precursor for the fast alternating run.
"Special block" workouts with TWO workouts in one day every 2-4 weeks if
training is going well, usually consisting of a broken up or progressive long fast run
and/or long intervals
Recovery days before and after workouts proportional to the duration and intensity
of the workout
Two major workouts most weeks
9-15mi of continuous running at 97-98% of marathon pace 3 weeks out from the
marathon
22-24km (13.5-15mi) alternating 1km fast (103%)/1km moderate-fast (89%) two
weeks out
15-20x1min fast fartlek 2 weeks out
A focus on PERCENTAGES of race pace over physiologically relevant PACES
I hope you've enjoyed this analysis and have discovered something useful. I'd love to hear
your thoughts below.

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 5/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui

Original threads with Canova's posts:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4213844&page=1
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4021862&page=2

Posted by John Davis at 7:48 PM

Labels: aerobic development, coaching, marathon, renato canova, training

9 comments:

Jonathan Marcus June 30, 2012 at 12:49 PM

John,

Thanks for the informative post. Much appreciated!

JM
Reply

Elite Coach July 1, 2012 at 8:26 PM

Excellent post, John. I met Renato at last summer's American Distance Project summit at the
Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where he detailed the exact same Mosop training,
workout by workout, and one of things that he mentioned was that Moses doesn't like to taper.
As a result, Renato made a point of saying that Moses still ran 100 miles during the week
leading up to Boston. So it may not be safe to assume that volume must decrease in the last
week due to the travel. Assuming that what Renato said was true, Moses must have been
finding time to get in a bunch of easy miles.

Reply

John Davis July 2, 2012 at 3:44 PM

That's very interesting—I'd be surprised if he was actually trying to make UP for lost miles due
to travel, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was still doing 80min/50min sessions in the days
leading up to the race. Thanks for the comment!
Reply

Scott Wietecha July 3, 2012 at 10:35 AM

Great article. I've spent countless time trying to dissect Canova's principles and your work will
be a huge help to myself and others. Great work!
Reply

Anonymous July 5, 2012 at 3:29 PM

Great Post! I love reading about Canova and have been looking at a lot of his work. Thank you!
Reply

Kenley November 8, 2012 at 8:21 AM

This is very good stuff. Thanks for sharing! Will have to come back and read more of your posts.
Reply

TalkED November 15, 2012 at 11:04 AM

Well, done. I've taken the formula and have plugged in percentages in an Excel spreadsheet to
calculate my workout paces. I like reading about his approach. You've made this very user-
friendly. Looking forward to more posts.

Reply

NACHO May 14, 2013 at 8:08 AM

Hi John¡¡¡
Very interesting article¡¡¡ it's dificcult to find out on the internet such an interesting staff for
people who is looking for more than a plan to follow.
I'm now just trying to write on what will be my personnal plann to beat 2:40 in next Berlin
Marathon, and this will be very usefull for me¡¡
Thanks.

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 6/7
15/10/2017 Running writings: Elite Marathoning with Renato Canova: The Training of Moses Mosop and Abel Kirui
Reply

Coach Jeff October 12, 2014 at 7:20 AM

Thank you very much. You have highlighted some key differences here. I appreciate the time
and effort you put in to this review.
Reply

Enter your comment...

Comment as: Dimitry Frattare Sign out

Publish Preview Notify me

Newer Post Home Older Post

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

POPULAR POSTS

Low ferritin and iron deficiency anemia in distance runners: A scientific guide for athletes and coaches

The bone stress injury model: a new way to deal with stress fractures and stress reactions in runners

Injury Series: Biomechanical solutions for iliotibial band syndrome

Should you think about running in college?

Eccentric decline squats, tendon remodeling, and patellar tendonitis

TOTAL PAGEVIEWS

2,096,092

All text © 2011-2013. John Davis is not a doctor. Powered by Blogger.

http://www.runningwritings.com/2012/06/elite-marathoning-with-renato-canova.html 7/7