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I have prepared well and I have the confidence I can win.

Kenenisa Bekele

Ever heard the name Kenenisa Bekele? If not, it’s about time you hear it. Bekele is “arguably the greatest long-distance runner of all time.” There is much debate on who is the greatest, but without-a-doubt Bekele would end up on the short-list of candidates. Here are but a few of his accomplishments:

• Current 5000m (12:37.35) and 10000m (26:17.33) world record holder.
• Eleven-time world cross-country champion
• Won every 10000m race he competed in for eight years straight winning four world championship titles in this time span
• Gold in the 5000m and 10000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics
• Gold in the 10000m and silver in the 5000m at the 2004 Athens Olympics. In the 5000m he was beaten by another runner that is “arguably the greatest distance runner of all-time” Hicham El Guerouj
• Fifth fastest marathoner of all-time with a time of 2:03:03

With this pedigree, you can imagine it was a bit of surprise when during the 2007 world championship 10000m final in Osaka Japan Bekele was distanced by his rivals in the final few laps and had to play catch-up.

Let’s watch what Bekele did to close the gap and take the win. For the sake of brevity, I forwarded the video below to final 1000m. Bekele is in second place and then drifts back into third. Watch his stride compared to his two rivals – it looks massive because it is! Pay close attention to what Bekele does in the final 200m. Here we go:

At the start of the video, Bekele is running with a cadence of about 185 strides per minute. His air-time is not as much as Juantorena, but it is significantly more than the other two runners. Then in the final 200m, he increases to a whopping 215 strides per minute! This move allowed him to overtake his countryman Sihine and bring home the win. At 215 strides per minute, it makes John Landy‘s cadence look slow.

Developing this range is not an accident. It is something you can and should practice and develop. If you are familiar with cycling training, you’ll know that cyclists practice higher cadences like >105rpm and lower cadences like <75rpm to be prepared for any situation. A fast break on a downhill may call for 115rpm. Then a few minutes later 72rpm up a steep hill may be just right. You need to be ready for anything.

Now, a runner does not need quite as varied a cadence as a cyclist, but a runner should practice different stride rates none-the-less. In fact, it is fun to incorporate cadence drills into your training. I suggest you include them into what I call Fast but Not Hard drills. You run “fast” for short durations practicing specific cues without having to deal with the accumulation of fatigue, mental or physical.

Fast but Not Hard drills my friends is the topic of tomorrow’s post.