One of the things that really sticks out with Coach Patrick Sang who has coached Eliud Kipchoge since 2001 is the control of pace with faster sessions. There are no fly and die sets. The fast sets are really not all that fast for the athlete. An example, an athlete who marathon pace being 5min per km, wouldn’t be doing intervals no faster than 4:10-4:15 km pace. On top of this, the majority of the athlete’s long runs in the lead up to the marathon is done at or just slower than race pace.
While these key sessions are for his marathon focused athletes, the theme is the same for all his athletes and everything is kept simple. Even though his athletes may run 12-14 times per week, most of the run sessions are done at an easy state and more times than not, his athletes have only three key sessions per week. Track, Fartlek and a tempo long run.
Patrick Key Sessions
Fartlek Sessions:
These sessions would be done at or around marathon race pace depending of terrain and altitude.
- 4x 10min + 2min rest
- 13x 3min +1min rest
- 25x 1min +1min rest
Track Sessions
- 12x 800 + 90sec easy, 10x 400 +90s easy
- 1200m + 1 lap easy, 5x 1km +90sec easy, 3x 300m +60s easy, 2x 200m +60s easy
- 20x 400m +50sec rest
- 15x 1km +90sec rest
- 12x 1200m +90sec rest
- 5x (2km + 1km) +90sec rest
Tempo
- Long tempo runs at or just around marathon race pace. This would be between 80-95% of the marathon distance.
TRAIN SMOOTH 
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