Lelisa Desisa won the World Athletics Championship marathon in 2019, the , and the Boston Marathon in 2015 and 2013. He’s been on the podium at Boston and New York eight times. In February, he was training for a return to Boston. Before the race was postponed, Desisa shared the daily details of his training from February 17–23, nine weeks out from Boston.

Now that , Desisa will be taking an active break. He will not cease training completely, but will train with a much lighter load—mostly moderate recovery runs. As a central member of in Ethiopia, he typically rarely trains alone; training together and pushing each other to new limits is a central component of Adilo’s training style.

Now, however, the training group is taking precautions, so athletes will be training individually until further notice. When they regroup, he will likely be putting in similar weeks as detailed here, in preparation for his next marathon.

Monday, February 17

Desisa has become a busy man. He is still performing at the highest level. But with a growing family, expanding business interests, and interested to still succeed at the highest level, recovery has to be reprioritized in new ways.

Monday morning, Desisa does an easy run of 14 kilometers in one hour. After that, some breakfast and a nap, he goes over to the building he is constructing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. It’s going to be nine floors and done in a few years for multi-purpose use, and he goes there pretty much every day to check on things

Then, he returns home to play with his two kids. Having a new baby around is tiring, so he only goes out for second afternoon runs when he feels up for it. Today he does an easy slow 10-kilometer run in one hour to get ready for tomorrow.

Daily total: 24 kilometers (15 miles)

Tuesday, February 18

Tuesday is the first of a trio of days where Desisa meets the group for training. This entails an early, breakfast-less morning. He rolls out of bed around 5 a.m. and his driver is ready to go by 5:05.

This morning’s training is a long run of 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) on dirt roads in Akaki (6,900 feet). It’s beautiful scenery and the rolling dirt hills are nice for long runs. Coach Haji sets the pace at 3:55 per kilometer (6:20/mile), but by the workout’s close, Desisa’s group is going under 3:30 (5:40/mile). He looks strong throughout, but at the workout’s end he is lying, dusty, with his back on the ground doing some bicycle kicks to make sure his legs don’t get too stiff.

The ride home after training in a highly trafficked Addis Ababa can take up to 1 œ hours. So after a shower and big breakfast, it is past noon. Desisa is a fan of classical music and opts for slow classical tunes when there is time. Then, time for a nap.

The afternoon is an easy 8-kilometer run in the forest near his neighborhood.

Daily total: 38 kilometers (23.6 miles)

Wednesday, February 19

Wednesday morning calls for an easy recovery day—12 kilometers in one hour, which is a standard off-day morning run. Desisa says his legs don’t feel good, but they aren’t supposed to for a run like this.

From the recovery, he goes to get a massage from physiotherapist Jeroen Deen, who he typically sees two times per week. His office is in the stadium, in the middle of Addis Ababa. After the massage, Desisa goes home to rest and see his family.

Afternoon is an easy run of 10 kilometers.

Daily total: 22 kilometers (13.7 miles)

Thursday, February 20

Speedwork: 16 x 2 minutes hard, progressively faster with longer rests.

In a rare turn of events, Coach Haji has called the group to the national stadium track (7,700 feet) on Thursday morning. Haji holds a track session once in a blue moon, but this time the program is 2 minutes at a hard effort, 16 times. For the first five 2-minute intervals, the runners take a rest of 1:30. For the next set of five, they take a 2-minute rest. The final interval has a 3-minute rest, the speed of the work interval getting faster as it progresses.

That afternoon is an easy and slow shuffle—10 kilometers in one hour.

Daily total: 25 kilometers (15.5 miles)

Friday, February 21

Another easy recovery run of 12 kilometers in one hour. Another massage physiotherapy session with Jeroen Deen.

It’s not often that this happens, but one of the agencies’ sponsors, Maurten, is in town for two days. They are giving lessons about how to properly use the sports drink. Desisa attends the meeting at Ararat Hotel, listens intently, and asks a few questions at the end of the presentation about fueling properly. He is, indeed, a student of the sport.

In the afternoon he sneaks in an easy 10 kilometer run.

Daily total: 22 kilometers (12.4 miles)

Saturday, February 22

The last training session of the week is in Sendafa (8,200 feet) on the east side of Addis Ababa. The group comes here for long asphalt runs usually every other week, and today’s 25-kilometer (15.5 mile) run is no different. The pace is set to be in the 3:30s/kilometer (~5:40/mile), but many training partners are in good shape and it turns out to be a near race. They finish the session in under 1:17:00 (sub 5:00/mile, approximately marathon pace).

Afternoon is an easy shake-out of 10 kilometers in the forest.

Daily total: 35 kilometers (21.7 miles)

Sunday, February 23

Every other week Desisa takes a complete day off. But this Sunday is one hour in the gym, doing activation and strength exercises.

Desisa has a massage gun at home to help with some recovery around the house, and once per month takes a trip to Sodere–a spa town 25 kilometers south of Addis Ababa with a hot springs resort. There, he enjoys the warm water and sauna as it relaxes his muscles.

Weekly total: 166 kilometers (103 Miles)

Workouts:
1 long progression run (18.6 miles)
1 speed workout (16 x 2 minutes)
1 high-altitude marathon-pace run (15.5 miles)

The post How World Champion Lelisa Desisa Trains appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

On February 29, 43-year old USA’s Abdi Abdirahman battled through to the final straightaway to qualify for his fifth Olympic games on a punishing, hilly, and windy course in Atlanta. One week earlier, Abdi’s training partner Mustafa Mohamed had run 2:10:04 in the Seville Marathon, earning himself a spot on Sweden’s Olympic team. Later that day, while Abdirahman was answering questions from the media, Belgium’s Bashir Abdi, another teammate, ran 2:04:15, to break his own Belgium record and finish second at the Tokyo Marathon.

“My training this time in Ethiopia was so, so, so good,” said Bashir Abdi, who has already earned a spot on the Olympic team for Belgium. “I didn’t know I would run that fast, but I thought 2:05 was a realistic time after this training camp.”

Plus, he received a little extra motivation the morning before his race, when he woke up to see that his 43-year old training partner and close friend qualified for the Olympics.

“When I woke up the first thing I did was I grabbed my phone to check [Abdirahman’s] race and I thought: ‘this old guy is getting young.’ This is good. After Mustafa ran the Swedish record and qualified for the Olympics, and Abdi and I were putting up strong training blocks, I had extra motivation.”

There’s nothing quite like seeing people you’ve worked with to put in grueling training blocks succeed alongside of you.

The Team

Among these training partners, Bashir is “the serious one”—who makes all of the plans both for training and for leisure. On the way to training, he is stone faced and focused. Abdi Abdirahman, by contrast, is the “funny one”— he might be the one cracking jokes before difficult intervals. After training, Mustafa Mohamed “probably eats the most,” they agree.

These three are core members of the Mudane team (meaning “sir” in Somali, in reference to Sir Mo Farah’s knighthood). The team is a non-commercial brainchild of Farah that came to fruition in 2018. Farah, “best DJ of the group,” came up with the idea to have a Somali-focused group composed of a group of athletes who may represent different countries, but were all born in Somalia, share a work ethic, and want to meet for training camps around the world.

Sometimes Kenya. Sometimes Arizona. Sometimes Ethiopia.Ìę But always all-inclusive. And always fun. “We’re there to help each other in training. To have a joke, have a laugh—because if you’re not enjoying training, it’s hard.” “But when it comes to competition, there are no friends. They are there to compete and win medals.”

Perhaps no one embodies this mix between fun and serious as much as , who never ceases to make the group laugh but battled through grueling windy conditions and a hilly course to nab the last Olympic qualifying spot, flashing his five fingers shortly after sealing the deal.

The Training

“To be honest it was a difficult course, but we trained for it,” Abdi Abdirahman said. “We had weekly long runs in Akaki [a training site South of Addis Ababa, perfectly situated for long runs over rolling dirt hills] between 35–40 kilometers, but our bread and butter was just the consistent workouts.”

Long runs are the main focus of the weeks training, and the final three key workouts were run between 3:22–3:26 kilometer pace [5:25–5:30/mile]. However, because Akaki is located at over 8,000 feet elevation, key track workouts gave the team a reason to introduce more turn over, and also brought back some of these aged legends to their old training days.

Mustafa Mohamed, for example, used to excel in the steeplechase, and competed in the event at the 2004 Olympics. Moving up to the marathon was not an easy transition, and training with seasoned marathoners from the Mudane team certainly helped. “I was kind of naive and I didn’t think it would be so big to change from the steeple to the marathon,” Mohamed says. “At first I increased the training mileage too fast and kept getting injured. Now I’ve made the key part of the trainings the long runs.”

Even with an emphasis on volume, introducing speed back into the legs remains an important principle. “If I’m going to run five minutes per mile and feel comfortable I need to be able to run 4:40 on the track,” Mohamed says.

Although two track workouts were never the same, the group had training sessions ranging from longer intervals—two-kilometer repeats—to a downward ladder. One day, they even did 300 meter repeats—around 20 times—to ensure that the turnover in the legs was still there.

Mohamed cites his coming to the training camp in Ethiopia already in good shape—and the high quality training the group put in—as instrumental to the performance. Because he works part time and has to spend time with his family, this was likely the only training camp he’ll be able to do in 2020. But he believes his performance in Sevilla was so successful because of this stint with the Mudane team, “In addition to the training, we also support each other and have fun together. We are like a family and that is the important part.”

Abdi Abdirahman agrees. It is not only the regular massages, consistent naps, and taking the easy days easy that gives them fuel to keep training. It’s the team effort that breeds collective energy: “When we went to our competitions we were all rooting for each other. When Mustafa finished a week earlier we knew we were capable, because Mustafa was in really good shape but Bashir was leading the group and I was not far behind him.”

What’s Next

What the members of the nebulous Mudane family do next is yet to be determined. The original crew includes “the one who sleeps the most” Ahmed Osman—who represented the U.S. in the marathon at 2019 Doha World Championships and recently finished 15^th at the U.S. Olympic Trials. There is also Mohamed Ali of the Netherlands, who the team hopes puts up an impressive performance in his debut Marathon in Rotterdam in April, not only because he’s part of the family—but also because he’s “the best cook” and will throw together a delicious celebratory meal thereafter.

However, the Mudane team is constantly growing and evolving. Athletes from various countries who share national, lingual, and traditional Somali roots are often joining in training camps, reaching out via social media. While there’s a core group of about 12, in Ethiopia, there can be up to 60 members joining Mudane training camps, with exemplary performers like Farah, Abdi, Mohamed, and Abdirahman, setting examples and leading the way.

As of now, Mohamed, Abdi, and Abdirahman will be training to compete against one other at the 2020 Olympics. Farah will drop down to the track, and a few members of the Mudane team may yet still qualify. The plans for the next training camp have not yet been set in motion but they will probably meet again for a block to push each other to new limits before they become rivals in Japan.

The post The Team and Training That Got Abdi Ready for the Trials’ Podium appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Sitting in a guest house in Sululta, Ethiopia, just over three weeks out from the marathon trials, Abdi Abdirahman looks as relaxed as ever. Over the past 20 years, elites have come and gone, but Abdirahman has managed to remain a consistent threat on the U.S. and world stage. On February 29, 43 year-old Abdirahman, known as the “Black Cactus,” aims to make his fifth^ÌęOlympic Team.

American Abroad

Twenty years ago in Vilamoura, Portugal, Abdirahman was about to toe the line representing the United States at the 2000 . A Qatari friend approached Somali-born Abdirahman, and told the recently naturalized citizen about another Somali athlete running at the competition.

“I got excited and yelled ‘where?!” Abdirahman remembers, “Because at that time I hadn’t seen another Somali in like 12 years. In Arizona there weren’t other Somalis. It was just my family.”

The junior athlete who came to look up to Abdirahman as a role model, training partner, and family member, finished 25th in the junior race. His name was Mo Farah.

Born in 1977 in Somalia, Abdirahman moved to Arizona at age 12, right when the war in Somalia started in 1989. Thus he had few memories of Somalia and few relationships with Somalians prior to starting running in 1994. But success in international athletics and making his first Olympic team in 2000, introduced new transnational relationships, travel experiences, and training techniques, that have proven to stand the test of time.

The Old Man

Now, Somali-born friends training in Ethiopia and preparing to make their respective Olympic teams—U.K.’s Mo Farah, Belgium’s Bashir Abdi, Netherlands’ Mohamed Ali, Sweden’s Mustefa Mohamed, and fellow U.S. contender Ahmed Osman—view Abdirahman as a role model, legend, and trailblazer, but they also joke about him being “an old man.” His friends often make fun of his slow gait, “like he’s run so many miles he’s forgotten how to walk.”

Indeed, it’s difficult to fathom how many miles his long, lean, seemingly endless legs rested atop a sofa, have run. But Abdirahman does not think too much about his age; nor does he seem to be too concerned with numerical statistics generally.

“I’m not ashamed to say I’m 43 years old,” he says. “I feel good, I recover well. And it’s all in your mind too. I still believe I can compete at a high level and I get a lot of motivation from myself.”

For someone that has run remarkably fast for so many years (a personal marathon best of 2:08:56 in Chicago in 2006, a at the New York City Marathon in 2016, and a 2:11:34 American masters record in New York last fall, to name a few accolades) Abdirahman possesses a kind of relaxed composure and slow way of life that exemplifies and literalizes the metaphor of running, business, and life, being “a marathon, not a sprint.”

Lucky that he has not endured too many serious injuries, Abdirahman has changed very little of his training over the years. After four consecutive Olympic Games—2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012—he views athletics as a simple endeavor.Ìę“Running is not a complicated sport,” he says. “If you’re tired, you’re tired. You take a rest.”

African Training

That said, after 2012, there seems to have been at least one significant change in Abdirahman’s training. Farah, who after many attempts convinced Abdirahman to join him in a training camp in Ethiopia, changed Abdirahman’s annual rhythm. In 2015, he returned to Africa for the first time. “I didn’t really remember anything from living in Africa so it felt like my first time here,” Abdirahman recalls. “I just started thinking ‘Why did I come here? There’s no hot water. The power goes off all the time.’”

While maintaining his role as the comedian in the group, Abdirahman does credit his longevity by putting in consistent group training at high altitude and responding to how his body feels.

Every Sunday he does a long run—anywhere from 30 to 40 kilometers at a hard effort. Tuesday or Wednesday are speed sessions, which vary in terms of interval distances and splits and are usually done on a track. Friday is often a tempo run between 16 and 20 kilometers.

Two or three times per week he does work in the gym, focusing on strengthening his core and hips. And the other days are recovery days, where he runs very much based on how he feels. Running twice per day is standard, but not obligatory. Taking recovery days slow is not imperative, but is also .

Since his annual trips to Ethiopia have become routine, Abdirahman also travels to Somalia once a year. There, however, he jokes there is still not much of a running culture. “When people see me out training there, they yell ‘What are you running from?’” he says. “But I like running over here with these guys. I like keeping it fun.”

“I love Running. I’m Good At It.”

And perhaps this might be the greatest training secret Abdirahman has to offer—keep it fun. When pressed about his ability to continue competing at such a high level into his 40s, Abdirahman says, “I can’t speak for other athletes, but sometimes people only try to treat running as a business and make as much money as they can as quickly as they can. They say, ‘I’m going to run this many races and get this much prize money, etc.’ But I try to take it slower, one step at a time. I love running. It’s my hobby. I’m good at it. And I get to make money from it, too.”

Despite the fact that Abdirahman and his training partners think he has as good a shot as any to make this year’s Olympic team, he admits this would probably be his last Games. That said, he approaches this race as he would any other. “Of course there’s a bit more at stake,” he says. “But I don’t put any extra pressure on the trials. I just view it as I would any other competition.”

If any extra motivation lingers, it is about his post-race plans. Normally he just takes three weeks to one month off to rest, but this time he has a bigger idea if he makes the team: “I just want to have a big party at my house. I want to have all my friends over. And I want to slaughter a camel.”

The post How Abdi Abdirahman Trained to Make the 2020 Olympic Marathon Team appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.