letsrun.com - Technical Analysis of 30km and 10000m in Eugene

We asked John Capriotti to organise the attempt for the WR on track on 25k and 30k, after I saw the recovery of Moses Mosop after Boston Marathon. The WR was 30 years old, and not too difficult to better. My idea was to bring Abel Kirui, now at the beginning of his specific preparation for defending his title of World Marathon Champion, at the record of 25k, and after to increase the pace with Moses, at the moment faster than Abel in every distance we use.
For those reasons, I prepared a schedule looking at 1:13’40” for 25 km, and 1:28’ for 30 km.
I was interested in two things : to control the level of Moses and Abel in long run at the moment, and to better the records, but not in running at their max speed. This attempt must not be a “finalized” record, but a record coming during a phase of preparation without specific focus. The reason was : if we use sometimes sessions of 30 km fast like the WR on track, why don’t try one time to do this on track in official way, so the athlete becomes owner of one official WR ?
But, during last week before the attempt, Abel had a problem in one foot : during a session with the bike (sometimes we use with the goal to increase the frequency of the action), pedaling barefoot, he burnt the skin of one foot because of the friction with the belt of the pedale, and this provoked a little infection, so his left foot became painful and swollen. Consequentely, he had some problem in running fast for 25 km.
During the race, the fact Joel Kimurer tried to stay with Moses like a competitor, not like somebody for helping the pace, changed the plan. Moses decided to increase the speed for going alone, after realizing that Abel could not stay with Kimurer till 25 km, so there was no more reason to wait, but could run faster than the plan.
He went for two following laps in 63”2 and 65”2, covering the km between 17600 and 18600 in 2’42”, and when was alone put himself at a pace of 2’52” per km in comfortable way.

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