Olympics Marathon Training - Phil Sesemann - what it takes to line up with Kipchoge 

Ha ha. He is the only runner I have analysed in the roughly 3.5 hour marathon range so thought was a useful additional comparison.

Good comparison with a Human 😂

@@gw4550 yeah good point. The volume alone is way more than I have ever been able to manage in over 40 years as a runner.

@@TimGrose ditto. I haven't a clue how they manage the recovery aspect.

@@gw4550 yeah it is relentless. For me thinking back my PB 2:33 came of 80 mpw and I was clearly fit enough to do that. One week I tried 100 mpw and felt like I was running all the time and tired all the time what with short gap to the next run. I think I averaged 7:10 but in hindsight maybe my easy runs were too quick but “trouble” is that pace just over minute slower than MP starts to feel quite easy but I see Phil often does his second run of the day slower than my average so seemingly more appropriate to the overall huge volume.

@@TimGrose Absolutely. It's pace management, but still the volume of work! Wowzers. Kiptum, for example was north 180kms a week, before the tamper. I cannot even imagine his calorific needs!

Thanks for dropping by! Yes I made a few comments on his Strava yesterday when he put up a picture of my summary spreadsheet in this video and tagged me in.

Ah good luck. Is that on the exact same course as the Olympics races?

@@TimGrose Yes! I hope they might widen the course in some places because there's going to be 20024 of us but otherwise it'll be the same.

Always find it interesting comparing different types of "everyday" runners.

Thanks!

yeah I think he has postponed his medical career for now (bit like Roger Black did years ago). And yeah nearly everybody has done a parkrun these days! No obvious sign of any in this block though.

Probably need to qualify by "relatively" for the Boston 11. I actually quite liked them but rather different to the older Bostons. Going to be two interesting marathons for sure. Re Kipchoge, I wonder if was as much as the weather as hills in his less good marathons. Recall it wasn't exactly "warm" at Boston (quite the reverse) and London Marathon 2020 it was also wet and fairly cool but that course was very flat. That said looks like sunny in Paris 0700-0900 on Saturday and a decent 17-19 degrees so I think "that" hill will indeed be a key factor.

Oh and Saturday for Kipchoge & Phil etc etc as I understand it and Sunday for the women.

@@TimGrose YES YES exactly, Saturday!!!👍🏻 Saturday night quite a few of my lucky friends will run the Marathon Pour Tous , on the exacte same route … a first in Olympic history!!! I tried to get a bib but no luck !!

Thanks Nick. Was good to see what the elites do. Huge volume, consistency week to week and focus on one goal were my biggest takeaways. And yes, I will look forward to seeing what you can do this time.

Thanks for watching!

Yeah I see Andy FOD Runner has just done a similar video to this one on him. Interesting to compare. Think biggest takeaway for me is the consistent high mileage (well over 100 mpw) and regular sessions where they can hold the pace throughout and whilst very impressive running not leaving your racing in training.

@@MichaelLoweAttorney good point but don’t think so - at least for the sub 2:40 runners here as their average training paces are all quite similar. I reckon personally as a just sub 3 runner last year I averaged about 7 hours a week whereas Phil is pretty much double that. And am not sure if he also does S&C work as only his runs are on Strava.

I would be very surprised if anybody PBs on this Olympics course. Did you see I showed a course profile towards the end of the video. Huge "lump" in the middle part of the race. I think Phil runs with dogs on a lot of his easy runs which usually seem to be 7 something pace. I think the times I have done relatively lots of mileage you can tick off those pretty much like going for a walk in relative terms but still keep the aerobic system and general strength up. Given our relative paces probably like me running close to 9:00 min/miles but TBH I have been starting to work "down" towards. Injury not great TBH. Last night I felt better than the weekend when did not run at all but when did run a bit towards the end still rather laboured. Are you OK again?

Nightmare course..

@@TimGrose first huge climb only 15km in! That’s going to take it out of your legs that early on. Yeah, I did see that in the video. So many run far to quickly on their easy days, so Phil is doing it properly and no doubt the dog helps to slow him down. Crikey, one wouldn’t have thought those fast 200s in Portugal would have taken you out for so long - hopefully you feel you’re closer to the end of this period of injury. My hamstring is ok, but after that recovered my legs generally felt rubbish and my heart rate went sky high. HR still relatively high but moving back in the right direction now. Lots of work to do.

@@josephgonzalez_ I certainly noticed with Phil’s training is that it is so consistent on session days. I think a lot of the elites train “together” rather than sort of trying to race each other. Yeah frustrating all round for both of us. I don’t think it was the 200s per se as clearly I had a weakness there. I feel at least I am sort of just about ticking over and when a similar thing happened in 2017/8, 2019 was a good year for me.

Thanks for the feedback. I will have to investigate.

Yeah I think it is going to be a very different race to a typical fast city marathon. Even with an early start, likely to be quite warm as well. On the flip side, think it might give a chance for those like Phil with slower outright PBs to do relatively better than they might on paper. In that sense similar to Callum Hawkins who placed very high in several World/Olympics races in recent years.

Yes I think the big hill will act as a leveller for the field!

Thanks. It is very interesting question. I understand Andy only wants to 5 days a week but at his now good level and indeed training next for a marathon that is a lot to fit in. I guess then the "obvious" thing is to focus on "quality". That said, even despite my current running injury, I found myself at now age 57 that I can't "push" the quality. Historically I felt I always ran my best at any distance after a consistent period of training and indeed a decent number of miles. Clearly though runners who typically do 50-60 mpw can't just jump to these 100+ mile weeks but what really struck me was the consistency and the focus on a single goal and an absence of "sexy" one off sessions that might leave you unable to train properly for a few days after.

@@TimGrose Quite right and a good point…. Consistency is king! Off course melding in quality sessions that compliment the physiological make up of the athlete is the job of any coach worth their salt. I liked Ben Pattersons interview this morning “I don’t do too much quality as I used to be a sprinter” he went on to intimate that comes naturally/quickly to him and he’s an 800m runner, an event considered to be predominantly anaerobic. This provokes a non marathon query I have Tim, which (with your middle distance hat on) is the idea that 3:28secs is the equivalent to 3:32/3 when Coe/Cram were in their pomp... I wander how much of the 4-5 secs is shoes/track and how much is the development of improved aerobic training methods ie double threshold or just more sub maximal quality? I am not looking to provoke any nationalistic debate but someone would do well to tell me Cole Hocker is just quicker than Sebastian Coe. Clearly both are superb athletes but I’m keen to understand modern progress in top flight middle distance aces. I think you can see variances in even the three American 1500m runners approaches. They, like Kerr and of course Ingebrittsen and I suspect the other finalist invest more in “measured quality volume”. Is this more so than say Ovett? I’m unsure but if you ever got the itch to track modern middle distance aces training in a video as well as Marathoners it may appeal to an across your audience… not looking to invoke work Tim just genuinely intrigued in where they are routinely gaining a handful of seconds!

@@michaelgriffiths305 Re the 1500 yesterday I think it is a cumulative combination of many factors - better tracks and spikes clearly help "a bit" but if you have arguably the world's top runner in recent years effectively pacing a field of that quality at more or less world record speed until the home straight in the biggest race there can be then going to get some amazing times. Also I always think when I look at Coe/Cram/Ovett world record attempts in the 80s how far they had to run on their own - often more than the entire last lap. I still don't anybody now has that change of pace Coe had on a few occasions. So I think another factor is that there are just more top runners now and increased training theory and better shoes for recovery in and between sessions.

@@michaelgriffiths305 And PS Ben Patterson. I was going to compare his training with Phil Sesemann as Ben is also on Strava but Phil does so much training it took ages to analyse it and Ben's looks so different. I may look at Ben's for another video.

@@TimGrose Tim, these videos you do are “projects”! I only suggested it as I know your passion and skill set enable such things but frankly whatever you go with I’m sure will be insightful.

Thanks! I guess as a ShoeTuber I am not overly "special" which is largely why I now try to blend analysis vidoes like this and that review of the reviewers one with my own shoe reviews and training/racing vlogs.

I will have to have a look at his training another time. In this video, I was just using previous research on the RU-vidrs as a comparison.

Easy win!

@@TimGrose superb