Elite coaching special - Marathon world record holder Paul Tergat

Paul Tergat has been one of the world’s greatest distance runners with five World Titles at cross country, a 10K world record, and a hatful of honours at half marathon.

In 2002 Paul made his debut at marathon. Both he and arch-rival Haile Gebrselassie were beaten by Khalid Khannouchi who clocked a new world record but it was clear that Paul had great potential at the distance.

In 2003 his potential was fulfilled with a world record run of 2hr 4min 55sec in the streets of Berlin, incredibly his pacemaker Sammy Korir came in just a second behind to clock the second fastest run of all time.

We caught up with Paul and asked him about his career to date.

Tergat on training
Unsurprisingly Tergat places a huge emphasis on the importance of proper training. He certainly believes in training hard but also stresses the importance of the training having a purpose and being suited to the end target.

Paul said: "Nothing can compare with training. Training can be frustrating and very hard. If you think about the time you spend training it is difficult. For any athlete or sportsman to achieve anything good you have to put in a lot of work. For an athlete you have to train very hard to reach the top. You may be talented but without training you will never realise your true potential.

He said the most important thing is that an athlete must focus their training what their goal is, whether it is cross country, track or marathon.

Paul said: "In cross country make sure you are training on the country, on hills and roads. Also train with a group. Then move to track go on track to get used to speed and used to spikes again.

"If you are going to run well on the track you have to get used to speed to be able to sustain speed - there are no short cuts.

"I don't think you will be able to compete and stay with the changes at the last stage of the race if you don't have speed. The last 400 or 200 - that's where the race is won.

"If a move is made at 3K you don't have to worry because they are exerting a lot of pressure on themselves. But from 8K you have to have stamina and 200m speed - to be able to sprint. May be not a 23sec or 24sec 200m but you need to have speed to keep up with the pressure of the last stages. If someone is going to win they must have worked very hard. So speed is always the most important thing. The way you start a race doesn't matter, the way you finish does. There is nothing else that will give you an edge.”

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