Transcription
Today we talk about the Kenyan way of training and what that says about one of the most well-known training principles. The training principle I'm referring to is called polarized training and it's also known as 8020 running. This training principle says that we should do 80% of our training at an easy pace mostly in zone one and zone two and around 20% of our training should be done at faster paces that is zone four and zone five and one key principle of polarized training or 8020 running is that we should avoid running in zone three. Zone three for most of us runners is close to marathon speed. It's a moderate pace and according to polarized training is an ineffective training zone. They call it a gray zone that doesn't give you much improvement for the effort you're putting in.
Now let's take a look at how people here in Kenya train and what that says about polarized training. Right? So of course you know there have many Kenyans and not everyone trains in the same way. But I think it's fair to say that 90 to 95% of Kenyans use a kind of uh default training program. People use that everywhere, right? So we'll go through that step day by day. Yeah. From Monday to Sunday.
So starting with Monday, many Kenyan runners do a progressive run. Progressive run of 60 to 70 minutes where they start in zone one, zone two, I would say the first 15 to 20 minutes. Then they do a significant portion in zone three, moderate running, and they finish the last part in zone four, a threshold. So, it's a progressive run where they go from easy up to basically 1 hour race pace. Um, but they don't do a lot in zone 4 because that would affect their workout the next day. So, the biggest chunk of the Monday workout is in zone three. That's the morning run. So, yeah, this already tells you, of course, hey, that's not very polarized, right? They go through all the zones from one zone one to zone four. Okay, let's continue. The afternoon Kenyans do an easy run 40 to 50 minutes and this is a real recovery run at a very easy pace. 5 minutes to 6 minutes per kilometer. It often can't be easy enough for many Kenyans. It's really about recovery.
Then we go to Tuesday. Tuesday people go to the track. So this is for most people a zone five workout, half marathon, 10k, 5k pace. Um they do intervals on the track with a walking recovery. Um and they normally cover 10 to 15 kilometers of speed like 10 times 1,000 30 * 400 m combination of 1,200 800 600 400s any kind of intervals that altogether come to around 10 kilometers up to maximum of 15 kilometers of speed. That's the Tuesday and then in the afternoon they do an easy run again.
Wednesday is kind of a recovery day. On Wednesday morning, most people will run anything between 50 minutes and let's say 80 minutes of easy running. Well, that's not as easy as afternoon runs. Afternoon runs are purely for recovery, but the Wednesday morning run, I would say for most men, that's between 3:45 and 4 minutes for 10 per kilometer. For the ladies, 10 to 20 seconds per kilometer slower than that. So, still a decent pace. And then in the afternoon again 40 to 50 minutes easy. So they would still cover 20 to 30 kilometers on the Wednesday but they keep it easy.
On the Thursday most canyons will do a fart leg. So um they warm up do some strides and then they do a session of around between 30 and 60 minutes of alternating fast and slow running. So uh it's often intervals of either one two or 3 minutes fast and then in between 1 minute easy. So if it's for example 31 that means three minutes fast one minute easy up up to 15 times that makes one hour of fart or they might do one minute fast one minute easy up to 30 times right is also one hour of fart um so that's the Thursday session and I would say because of the easy running in between right that's a active recovery so most of the faster intervals are at zone four right so this is your zone four session and then again in the afternoon they would do a 40 to 50 minute easy run.
Now the Friday is very similar to the Wednesday. Not much difference there. So it's again 50 to 60 70 minutes in the morning. Maybe not as much as 80 because of the following day. Um and then in the afternoon another 40 to 50 minute easy run.
Then we come to the Saturday. Saturday morning in Kenya is long run day. And long runs in Kenya are not easy. They are done pretty fast. Uh long run can be anything between I would say 25k and 40 kilometers. And um yeah people start easy the first few kilometers but then they quickly go to their zone 2. So there's not much real easy running there. They immediately very soon go to zone 2. And then after maybe 10 15 km of running they go to their zone three or their marathon effort and they run at that zone three for the next of for the rest of their run. So yeah when it's um let's say 35 km long run I would say they do at least 20 to 25 km of that in their zone three. Uh, one variation to that is where some of the teams, some of the real elite runners that have, you know, a coach and cars with them and and a team around them, they do not always go for a typical progressive long run on the Saturday, but they might do what we call marathon blocks. So, they would do, for example, a session like five times 5k at marathon speed with one or two minutes of recovery in between or 1 kilometer easy running as a recovery in between. So they would cover anything between 20 to 25 kilometers of marathon speed again in their zone three.
Then a little bit nuance to this I would say or two exceptions. uh the Monday morning progressive run is not done throughout the year but typically when athletes come closer to their important races they take it easy on the Monday so that they are really fresh for the Tuesday track session and you know they can nail that session very well whereas when they're further away from the races they you know they they they do that progressive moderate run on the Monday they might be a little tired on the Tuesday but that's okay for them because they're not close to their competitions And another thing is that not everyone does the long run or the longer marathon session on the Saturday. If you look for example at Kip Choka's team and Fate Kipon, they often do the long run on the Thursday and then they do the fart on the Saturday. And by the way, that's what I would personally prefer as well because um if you do the fartback on the Thursday and the track session on the Tuesday, you have two, you know, zone four and zone five pretty fast sessions close to each other with just one easy day in between. But yeah, so that's uh a little bit nuance to that.
Now let's like look at the whole Kenyon way of training. Um, I would say it's pretty high mileage because the training program that I just described, uh, by the way, I didn't mention the Sunday, but that's a full day off. That's a rest day. So if you look at that training program, it's anything between 150 and 180 kilometers of running per week, which is pretty high mileage, but not as [clears throat] high as some of the I would say Japanese or European or American top marathon runners because in some other countries, people would go up to 240 km or 220 km a week. In Kenya, I think partially also because we're here at the Ecuador and because of the high altitude, most people don't run more than 180. But okay, 150 to 180 kilometers a week. A lot of that is easy running in zone one and zone two. But then the three hard workouts, that's the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. They are basically in zone five on the Tuesday, zone four on the Thursday, and zone three on the Saturday. So people use all the zones. They don't ignore zone three. Zone three is a very important part of their whole training program. And it makes sense, right? Because zone 3 is your marathon speed. So if your focus is on the marathon, if you want to improve your marathon, why would you leave marathon speed out? And we know that running at a certain speed makes you more efficient at that speed. So if you want to get more efficient at marital speed, what do you do? You run at marital speed. And that's what the Kenyans do. I think we can conclude that the Kenyan way of training kind of proves the polarized training wrong at least when it comes to this part where it says that we should ignore the middle zone or zone three right. uh we do see a lot of easy running but we also see that Kenyans and yeah I think I can say because I have you know 33 years of experience in running and have trained with elite runners from all over the world elite runners from everywhere are training in all their zones they don't ignore any zone they train in zone one a lot they train in zone two they train in their zone three zone four and zone five so they cover everything and um yeah that's what I can say about the Kenya way of training and how it basically um proves polarized training wrong. So this whole idea of zone tree being a gray zone is a myth. Yeah, we can say it's a myth. It's not true. Um, let's leave it there. So that's it for today. If you want to learn more about training or you know want to learn more about the Kenya way of training, please join us here at Kenya. And in my next video, I will explain more about what we can actually learn from polarized training because we don't have to throw away this whole idea of polarized training. Uh there are still a few things we can learn from it. It's just that this idea of zone 3 being a gray zone is a myth. But next time we talk more about that in detail.