Audio interviews with Henry Rono, Haile Gebrselassie

I just found the The Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre website, which bagged recent interviews with Henry Rono and Haile Gebrselassie. It also has loads of interviews and features on training techniques and philosophies.

I've only listened to Henry's so far; a bit long on the historical for my taste, as I am more interested in what he is doing NOW. However, he does say he still has as goals a world mile record, then the World Masters Championships in Italy in September.

He is down to 165/170lb from his all-time high of 220 and is training twice a day. He's recently started strength training using the extreme P90X system (see www.P90X.com) and reveals that this is the first time in his life he has done strength training. It's not routine for Kenyans, he says, who normally "just run".

Also, there's an interesting insight into the Kenyan dominance of distance running. Asked what "the secret" of their success is, Henry doesn't bang on about running to school (although he did), training at altitude and the usual stuff, but says that from the '50s and '60s on, running has been the major sport in Kenya. So there is a tradition to run - rather than play soccer, football, baseball and all the other routes to glory and self-expression open to kids in the West.

*Links:
Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre interviews.
www.P90X.com
Team Rono
Henry Rono's strength training and nutrition journal.