Renato Canova
Coach
Coach of many of the fastest marathoners in history, known for training around race pace. Influential elite practice, documented in detail but not trial-tested.
Renato Canova (born 1944) is an Italian coach whose athletes have won many Olympic and World Championship medals and include several of the fastest marathoners in history. His ideas reach the English-speaking world mainly through coaching write-ups rather than peer-reviewed work.
His method organises training around race pace: build event-specific speed, then progressively extend how long race pace can be held, with workouts expressed as percentages of current race pace. It is influential elite coaching practice, documented in detail but not tested in controlled trials, and some features sit in tension with the polarised-training literature. See training philosophies.