Lydiard Anaerobic Phase

It's a different thread

Lydiard man:

Sorry, when I clicked it, it just simply came around and opened the same thread. But I noticed the title was different so I searched it and checked the thread you were referring to.

Well, you know as well as I know that this is where things go south usually so I'd rather not get into suc a "discussion". However, I've always been curious and he one I have had a lot of "discussion" on this topic is Dave Martin. Of course, as you know, he is the one who wrote that book ("Better Training...") with the late Peter Coe. And, if I really want to know what Seb Coe did, I wouldn't come here and start out the thread; but I would either go directly to Lord Seb Coe or ask Dave Martin. Dr. Dave, of course, is one of the advisory staffs for our Lydiard Foundation and I've been asking him to write something about Coe's training. He hadn't done it yet. I always enjoy talking to Dr. Dave; we just spoke for about an hour and a half on the phone the other day. I always hear about bits and pieces about what Coe did and I would very much like to someday put them all together.

The point really is; there is a need to develop your aerobic capacity as much as possible in the most effective way in the time allowed without getting injured or mentally burning out. If running 10 miles at 5-minutes pace 3 times a week and total of, say, 40MPW is the best way for you to achieve that as some claim Coe might have done, so be it. If running 200MPW at very slow pace like some Japanese marathon runner might do is the best way to achieve that, so be it. You also need to develop (or re-introduce) power and flexibility in your legs; and I think, as did Lydiard, hills are probably one of the best ways to do it, as well as some gym work or weight training, whether you do it in the winter or spring or summer; whether you do it during the build-up or 2 weeks before the competition, so be it. Whether Lydiard claimed Coe did "his" training or not, or if Coe did his own way and said the hell with Lydiard or not, it really wouldn't do much to change the way I would train or coach runners. And this "other debate" might be quite fitting here but I'll stay out of it.

Thanks for the reply, Nobby.

Haha, very diplomatic.

I am a bit busy now but...

- didn't Dr Dave write a whole book on Coe's training? Why the need to ask any more?

- Seb is the last person I would ask if I really wanted to know what training he did.

I'm surprised to see you say you find this "without exception", because when it comes to interval training, everything I've ever read from Lydiard was more along the lines that the details didn't matter -- it's all "eyewash". Do whatever you like, as long as you leave the session well-fatigued, as if you couldn't do much more, or couldn't have done them better. Lydiard didn't make any distinctions between partial recoveries and full recoveries, nor prescribe specific paces, and sessions, or any progressions. He rather recognized that all athletes are different and specific sessions should be tailored to the athlete.It's not Lydiard, but the best descriptions of "Intermittent Training" I've read here on letsrun comes from Antonio Cabral. There was a "Cabral and Hadd" thread a while back, and also an "Important moments and concepts in the history and development of Intermittent training" even further back.

Not Garfunkel wrote:

Thanks HRE,

This was my gut but I was realizing that everything I have ever read from Lydiard said the anaerobic phase was "run one, jog one" without exception so I figured I'd clarify.

If I am wrong about this, please reference me the quote but every tme Lydiard does mention recovery in regards to the anaerobic phase, he says "run one jog one." The reason I ask is exactly what you say; he rarely gets too specific. This is more a queston on Lydiard training philosophy than general training as I have my own experience and thoughts on the matter. I just wanted to know if his guys really took that much rest between 8s or mles. I think I got my answer.

777 wrote:

In distance running, "anaerobic" usually refers to something that requires a significant contribution from the lactate energy system.

So a 10k is all anaerobic?

I appreciate that most people don't really care one way or the other, but the anaerobic threshold concept was based on the flawed assumption that lactate was a waste product of carbohydrate metabolism, whereas now we know it is an inevitable product of carbohydrate metabolism and thus part of the chain of reactions on the way to aerobic respiration in all activity and inactivity.

That was Alan's point, I believe.

Linking doesn't seem to work right, but thanks for the "2 kinds of runners" link.Here is the other one:http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=825534

6 aafn 8eho wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=2375989&id=2388392

No, no, I don't say your wrong, I'm just surprised that's all. Listen to Nobby and HRE -- they know better than me, and I don't have more to say than they already did.I guess you're right though (so I stand corrected). If you follow Nobby's link, there is a reference to "run one, jog one", and Nobby clarifies in a footnote: "Lydiard was never too concerned with type of training to develop your anaerobic capacity. He believed all the fancy formula for interval/repetition training is nothing but a lot of 'eye-wash'."That's why he's never too specific. "Run one, jog one" means full recovery, simply to maximize your volume of "anaerobic" work. Like HRE said, this makes sense for shorter reps, but not longer reps, which are likely less "anaerobic".

Not Garfunkel wrote:

If I am wrong about this, please reference me the quote but every tme Lydiard does mention recovery in regards to the anaerobic phase, he says "run one jog one." The reason I ask is exactly what you say; he rarely gets too specific. This is more a queston on Lydiard training philosophy than general training as I have my own experience and thoughts on the matter. I just wanted to know if his guys really took that much rest between 8s or mles. I think I got my answer.

The recovery needed between each interval is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen debt incurred during the running of interval. In Dixon's case for marathon training, I doubt that his blood lactate level jumped high enough during 2mile repeats that he needed to jog two miles in between each rep.

Prefontaine would do 2x1 mile with a 10min rest, for an anaerobic session. Dixon himself witnessed him do this session in 4:01 and 3:58. YIKES!

This is one of the most intelligent comments I've seen in a long time at letsrun. May not be as "idiot proof" as many would have liked, but make you think.

I don't think you are one of those people who are pushing the thread "down south" or are you?

lydiard man wrote:

- didn't Dr Dave write a whole book on Coe's training? Why the need to ask any more?

I thought Lydiard wrote many books and articles and interviews as well. I'm sure he'd mentioned about Coe. Nobby has contributed quite a bit in that gigantic "Lydiard or Daniel?" thread and I'm sure he was asked about Coe more than once there... Why the need to ask this questioin again?

lydiard man wrote:

- Seb is the last person I would ask if I really wanted to know what training he did.

If what Seb Coe himself tells can't be trusted, how can we trust then those who read his articles, interviews, books, biography or whatever and come out as "know-it-all" on this message board and lecture Coe's training? Frankly, so far as I've read on this message board and many have claimed they knew Coe's training; I don't trust 99% of them. Dave Martin wrote that book WITH Peter Coe but I don't recall them laying out exactly what Seb Coe did in that book. If he's willing to share that, I would be all ears.

master tactician wrote:

The recovery needed between each interval is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen debt incurred during the running of interval. In Dixon's case for marathon training, I doubt that his blood lactate level jumped high enough during 2mile repeats that he needed to jog two miles in between each rep.

I doubt Dixon needed to calculate the proportion oxygen debt he's incurring or check his blood lactate level to know he needs less than 2 mile of recovery jog...

St Paul Simon wrote

"I thought Lydiard wrote many books and articles and interviews as well. I'm sure he'd mentioned about Coe."

Lydiard did mention Coe - he said he thought Coe was lying.

St Paul Simon wrote

"If what Seb Coe himself tells can't be trusted, how can we trust then those who read his articles, interviews, books, biography or whatever and come out as "know-it-all" on this message board and lecture Coe's training?"

I have read a lot of stuff on Coe and it is very contradictory. Some stuff is more revealing. I try to keep an open mind about it. The Coe's wrote an book on training published in 1983 - more simple (but with elements of contradiction) - better than the well known one released later.

St Paul Simon wrote

"Dave Martin wrote that book WITH Peter Coe but I don't recall them laying out exactly what Seb Coe did in that book."

Or did Coe write it with Martin - they both wrote it. Peter basically coached one athlete. So I would expect a lot of it to be what Seb did. Training from when he was 16 and 18 wasn't very helpful.

Here it is St Paul Simon

Among other comments

"I believe he's doing more mileage... You can take my advice or listen to what Coe says."

from Runners World

So he didn't say he was lying but implied it.

Chewer:

This is good... VERY good! I think, somewhere in his book; it could have been the original "Run to the Top", it could have been newer book; he said something in the effect of "...the volume and intensity of (anaerobic training) has to be improved gradually..." I don't have the book in front of me so I can't exactly quote but it's basically exactly what you said. I think Ron Daws actually put it even better. When we come out from marathon conditioning and hill training, what do we have best? We should have endurance and strength. What we DON'T have is speed. So naturally, we are still not able to run fast. You should capitalize what your strengths at the time and nurture the weaknesses.

Ideally, if you can afford to do it this way, you should start with lots of volume with low intensity intervals-->then you'll start to increase the intensity and keep the volume-->then finally you'll move on to shorter distance (less volume) but very fast. I remember I experimented with ladder as Ron Daws suggested. I did something like 2~3X200 + 2X400 + 800 + 1200 + 800 + 2X400 + 2~3X200. I liked it and it worked really well with me. Arthur didn't like ladder; but, oh well...

If you look into the schedule in the original "Run to the TOp", you'll realize--again I don't have the book in front of me but--I think he started out with, first week, 20X200 at 1/4 effort; then 20X400 @ 1/4 effort; then 20X200 @ 1/2 effort; then 20X400 @ 1/2 effort; then 10X200 @ 3/4 effort...something like that. So there WAS some pattern. He moved on to more general suggestion later on because people got too technical and started worrying about the shorter recovery or that kind of stuff... To him, it didn't really matter. But the effort and volume thing would have to be well-controled.

This is why I personally don't like to play around with this "5k pace" or anything concrete like that--because the actual pace would get faster and faster as your body gets used to speed. If anything, I personally like to tell runners things like; "Think of this as the middle part of your 5k race (when you're just settling down and slackening)" or "Think of it like at the start of 5k race..."

You've also got to remember, Arthur's original runners did a lot more speed training than most people realize. When they did hill circuit, it was 6 days a week of 4X800m hill springing plus quite a bit of windsprints at the bottom of the hill...everyday! And that was just to get prepared for the track training phase. So by the time they stepped on the track, they were pretty ready.

Nobby,

This is why I hold that practically no onedoes "Lydiard" training anymore. Everyone loves to jog around every day at 8 minute pace andsay they areinspired by Lydiard but once the base is over, no one hits some sort of quality every day save Sunday for the rest of the season. During his track phase, Iunderstand Lydiard had some guys doing sprints on the non track days and Snell would run 3 miles sub 5 pace. During coordination, every day was high quality with pretty much no day of just jogging and nothing else. When I see high school and college kids train, none of their mid to late season schedules look like those of the Lydiard boys.

Those high school and college kids are racing seriously for 8-9 months a year. There's no way they could follow the sort of schedule Lydiard's original guys did. Arthur knew that and made adaptions to his method to accomodate year round racing schedules.

But if you're defining "Lydiard training" in terms of what the original group did then you're right and very few people still do it.