Pacing Your First Marathon Past the Wall
A practical guide to race day pacing, fuelling and the mental trick for kilometre forty, plus a conversation with a London pacemaker about holding exact splits with a crowd behind him.
Why Kenyans Run So Slowly on Easy Days
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Show notes
Slow is the secret
Visitors to Iten are shocked when the elite group shuffles along at six minutes per kilometre on a Monday morning. Mercy explains the logic, hard days must be hard, so easy days must be truly easy, and how that rhythm lets athletes run 180 kilometres a week without breaking. She then gives a version that works for someone running three or four times a week.
- The weekly rhythm in Iten
- What easy actually feels like, with a talk test
- Why most amateurs run every session at the same pace
- Adapting the rhythm to four runs a week
- A recorded easy run with the group, chatter included
Next week, pacing your first marathon and the wall at kilometre forty.
Transcript
Jambo, welcome to Kilometre Forty. I am Mercy Chebet, I ran a 2:28 marathon once upon a time, and now I coach runners of every speed on the dirt roads above Iten. This is the show about the whole distance, the easy bits, the hard bits and the bit at kilometre forty where everyone becomes a philosopher. Today, the question every visitor asks me. Why do Kenyan champions run so slowly on easy days? I will explain the rhythm of our training week, why slow makes fast possible, and how you can borrow the idea even if you run four times a week in a city at sea level. Then I take you on a Monday morning run with my group, microphone on, so you can hear how much we talk. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Lace up.
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