Eliud Kipchoge: How Rest, Recovery and a 'Roasting Beef' Approach Power His Record-Breaking Runs

Patrick Sang has opened up about the training philosophy that has powered Eliud Kipchoge’s dominance for more than two decades.

Eliud Kipchoge has achieved extraordinary milestones, including back-to-back Olympic marathon titles at the 2016 Rio Games and the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.

The marathon legend also owns an unmatched collection of major victories, five Berlin Marathon crowns, four London Marathon titles, and one Chicago Marathon win.

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He has competed in all six World Marathon Majors, taking on Boston, New York, Tokyo, and even the Sydney Marathon.

Despite such sustained success, Patrick Sang revealed that very little has changed in Kipchoge’s approach over the years, except during preparation for the historic INEOS 1:59 Challenge, where training was specifically adapted for the sub-two-hour attempt.

Patrick Sang explained that Eliud Kipchoge’s training programme had largely remained consistent over the years, but the breakthroughs came during periods where preparation was extended far beyond the usual marathon cycle.

Patrick Sang noted that the most successful races, the ones where Eliud Kipchoge produced extraordinary speed, were preceded by unusually long build-ups.

He added that experience had taught the team a clear lesson, the longer the preparation, the better the outcome. To illustrate the point, he compared marathon training to carefully cooking meat, the idea being that steady, patient heat produces the best result, rather than rushing the process.

According to him, a traditional four-month training block was often not enough for a truly demanding marathon project.

The sub-two-hour attempts required far more time, and he recalled that the first Breaking2 effort lasted nearly seven months, with the INEOS 1:59 Challenge following a similarly extended schedule. These adjustments, he suggested, were crucial in allowing Eliud Kipchoge to reach unprecedented performance levels.

“They say practice makes perfect. And I guess you know, in a way, we have some lessons that if you prepare longer, it's just like roasting a beef in a very nice fire, but if you move the beef slightly further from the fire, that beef will cook better,” he said in an interview with Citius Mag.

“Those are learning lessons that show that if you want to prepare for a serious marathon, you need more time than the traditional four months. If you look at breaking two, I think we were talking about close to seven months or something like that, and the other 1:59 challenge was closer to that as well.”

Patrick Sang emphasised that any training plan, regardless of the distance, must consider the latest insights and innovations in distance running.

He highlighted that, historically, runners often compromised on rest and recovery, but incorporating these elements effectively could significantly enhance performance.

In Eliud Kipchoge's preparation, he explained, the team deliberately prioritises both sufficient rest and proper recovery periods. This approach, he noted, allows the body to achieve supercompensation, the process by which training stress leads to performance gains, ensuring that each session translates into maximum improvement.

“One key thing that needs to be factored in in any training, regardless of what distance you're training, is what is coming out of the new approaches to distance running. One of the key things that we've always compromised in running is rest and recovery,” he added.

“Those two things, when factored well, at least achieve more. I think in the preparation, we factored in those two aspects. Yeah. The aspect of good rest and adequate recovery, so that you know in training, you have what is called supercompensation.”

The veteran coach explained that the cycle of training, recovery, and subsequent effort was crucial to maximising performance, as it allowed the body to get the best return on the effort invested.

He revisited his earlier cooking analogy, noting that during the seven-month preparation for the sub-two-hour attempt, the process was slow and deliberate, like meat gently roasting.

In contrast, the period between the Sydney and New York Marathons, just 63 days, was much more intense, with the “beef” practically on top of the fire.

He highlighted that rest and recovery were levers that coaches could adjust to preserve an athlete’s progress. When an athlete had trained well, the goal was not to rebuild but to maintain and protect what had already been achieved.

“Those are the two things (rest and recovery) that coaches can play with. If an athlete has been preparing so well, whatever you have done is not lost. The challenge is how to maintain what you've done such that it's not going to waste. It's more preservation,” he added.

“It's like we've moved the beef slightly away from the fire but still within the fire zone. So it continued cooking from Sydney all the way here. With Boston, the challenge was the course for him and how it wasn't a great day.”

Looking ahead, Patrick Sang revealed that Eliud Kipchoge is not slowing down anytime soon. Building on his decades of success and meticulous preparation, Eliud Kipchoge now plans to take on an ambitious new challenge, running seven marathons across all seven continents.