I'm either interpreting it wrong, or Lydiard's program is insane and no-one actually does it or would do it today

Maybe you're jumping too soon to conclusions. I'm not qualified to defend Lydiard, but I do have a lot of questions.

If Lydiard's complete message could be summarized by you in one sentence (or one page), why did he write a book? What do the other sentences or pages in the book say?

Is it true that *no-one* thinks 100+ miles of near-best aerobic effort a week is a good idea? Do his followers just copy his training principles, and simply reduce intensity? Isn't there a consensus now that, for example, Americans are worse at marathons today, because they started training less miles with more intensity? Perhaps what people regard as a good idea today should carry less weight than what people regarded as a good idea, say in the 70's.

I agree that running 4 marathons a week sounds like a lot. I guess running 100+ miles of fast running takes many years of building up, and what top runners do is very different than what Lydiard would tell me to do today. Maximum steady state is a lot higher for top marathoners, than recreational runners.

I guess Lydiard got a following because he produced some fast runners.

Think some more about which of your assumptions are really valid.

i am not sure but i think lydiard's program was about 6 month's of

monday 10 miles fast

tuesday 15 miles moderate

wednesday 12 miles fast

thursday 18 miles easy on flat surface.

friday 10 miles hard

saturday 15 miles moderate

sunday 22 miles on hilly course.

his theory was once the aerobic basewas built then running sub 5 minute pace for 10-12 miles, 515-545 pace for 12-18 miles and 6 minute pace on the 18-22 mile runs would become easier every week, then the athlete could specialize in his event 800-10k, peter snell ran a 144.3 for 800 meters just a few weeks after following this schedule.

Nobby, Glenn and HRE will have you tracked down, tarred and feathered at least.

Lydiard's 100-mpw has gotten bad pub, he changed to minutes later on (thus) during the base phase:

60 90 60 90 60 60 120

This shows that his guys got into great shape in an aerobic context. Their sub-6-minute runs WERE at their top aerobic level.

Savvy?

You run your base at improving levels for what more or less amounts to 3 to 5 years, then you hit your peak, depending of course upon your age, talent level etc.

The 100-mpw thing is taken out of context. An average HS-runner who tried this would be out on the road for maybe

700-750 minutes or in excess of 11 hours per week. Remember the time element. (See schedule above)

One must have patience. You have to run within yourself.

Like Daniels, Lydiard had different programs for different distances and events.

So there was no single "Lydiard program" except in the most general sense (base work, progression towards competition, etc.).

It's a pity Running the Lydiard Way is out of print and hard to find. I used it as a guide years ago when I was younger, faster, and more serious. I pulled it out a couple of years ago and it still seemed very sensible to me, even after reading Daniels.

I have a first edition, signed copy of Lydiards book... anyone have an idea as to how much it would be worth?

The term "Steady State" and "AeT" are synonymous which Canova would define as 2.0 mmol of blood lactate... or 85-90% of Lactate Threshold pace per mile. 100 miles per week at that effort seems somewhat reasonable if you don't have a job, have a good diet, take naps... etc.

First of all, this is a very good point; but I would still like to track you down and feather you with HRE and Glenn, so please let us know where you live! ;o)

Now, all the seriousness, you've got to realize that the Old Man had a tendency to exaggerate a bit to get his point crossed. Following this "best aerobic" stuff, he said something about Snell running 150 miles a week with morning jog. You can ask Dr. Snell; that's a bunch of BS. Why did he do that? Simply because he got tired of people telling him that 100 miles a week is not enough. You may not believe this; but people actually ran more than 100 miles a week back in those non-professional days. His runners did run more than 100 miles a week at times; did morning supplementary jogging; but he was just making the point. Just as someone else said it; you can not, and should not, just read one line and jump to conclusion. Ron Clarke, for example, said in one of his interviews; that people say that he ran 150 miles a week, 3 times a day and so on. He said, he tried this 3-times-a-day stuff once and it was too much and dropped it quickly; but when he mentioned that once, the reporter quickly calculated and next thing he knew, that became his career-long routine and his weekly mileage calculated "the best mileage of 3-times-a-day" X 7 days. Just as Coe's 35-miles-a-week-year-around deal, that's a bunch of BS.

Second; his deal with "best aerobic effort" is, once again, his attempt to get his point crossed that it wasn't just "jogging". Americans came up with the idea of "Long Slow Distance" which was also associated with Lydiardism. Basically, what happened was Arthur only emphasized 100 miles a week. Some people tried it and they weren't as fit as Arthur's runners and the only way they could manage 100 was to go as slow as possible. To justify that, they came up with this "LSD" method. It's not Lydiard at all. But, again, people associated him with "LSD" and he got annoyed by it and, his typical fashion, told everybody "screw you" and said "we never ran slow; we were runnnig damn fast!" Now, here's the thing. When you look at the schedule, as someone else already pointed out, they are all at different effort level. You could probably safely assume this 3/4 effort or 1/2 effort is the marathon pace (or half marathon pace)...or LT pace or sub-maximal pace or whatever you want to call it. Greg McMillan and I were talking about this and, yeah, we feel there is a need to straighten out when so-and-so says this, this means at around this effort. It seems like everybody's using different names for the same effort level.

Thirdly, when Lydiard came up with his program, the marathon races, at least in NZ, were won in about 2:30. If you define "best aerobic pace" as marathon pace, it's not that fast. Snell ran his one and the only marathon in 2:40. That's 6-minute pace and he was easily circling around 22-mile Waiatarua counrse with a 3-mile long uphill at that pace during the build-up (well, maybe not that easily...). But then again, if the marathon guy like Magee, whose marathon time I think was somewhere around 2:16, going around Waitak at that pace, his "best aerobic effort", or sub-maximal effort, was applied in his 10-milers.

Lastly, I think Arthur was mainly referring to Derek Clayton of Australia. Actually I think he, and perhaps Jim Peters of England in the 1950s, were two runners I can think of who did lots of mileages at close to their marathon pace. Some people, as long as they keep aerobic, can to that and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with keeping it nice and easy; but at the same time, there's nothing wrong, if you CAN handle it, to keep pushing the pace.

It's funny, though, most people criticise Lydiard training for too much mileage and too slow. I haven't heard people complain his training "too hard". It's like; you can't win... We however do have a heffty goal of reproducing Lydiard's books with footnotes from various people. There are way too many "myths" surrounding "Lydiardism" and Arthur himself, undoubtedly, was responsible for some of them. We welcome questions like this. The more we think about it; the more we get the ideas of what we need to do to clarify those myths. So thanks; we'll reward you with tarr and feather! ;o)

Is there some obvious reason why nobody's picked up the rights and reprinted the old edition?

Updating and footnoting would be great, but even just having the old text out there would be nice.

Another poster asked the value. Hard to say -- about a year ago I went to amazon.com and picked up a used copy for my stepson, and I think it was maybe $10, something like that. Then when I misplaced my copy I tried again...oops! The least expensive copy was something like $40 and the most expensive one was ridiculous -- maybe $100 or even more.

Today there's one for $65 and one for -- gasp -- $185.

I think the problem is that it's so difficult to really peg what Lydiard was trying to say that updating it would prove pointless.

Ron Daws' book has some really good Lydiard interpretations as he was a devout follower. Lydiard's boys would avg anywhere from 3.25-3.75 minutes per kilo for their runs. That's 3:15 to 3:45 per kilo, which is 5:22-6:03 per mile. That doesn't seem too crazy for an elite professional. Of course there are times when they would be a bit slower. On a 9 mile run you could run the first 3 at 6:30, the next 3 at 6:00 and the last 3 at 5:30 and average 6:00 flat for the entire run. Also, he is only refering to the "conditioning" phase at the begining. Once you start putting in his workouts I'm sure the pace on these aerobic runs would be easier.

Onto his hill and interval workouts....In his book he mentions doing interval workouts up to 3 miles or so total with equal distance jog. So "only" 6x800 w/800 rest. That doesn't sound hard, but when you are doing THREE of them a week the total density of that week becomes quite a bit harder. Ditto with his hill workouts thrice a week. I've tried something similar in the past and that is deeeficult.

Alan

I didn't say his "complete message," I said his "principle training idea"...and I'm pretty sure I got it right. on p.26 he says unequivocally, "...the best running programme is to cover approximately 160 kilometers a week at just under your maximum steady state, plus any supplementary running, such as jogging, that you feel inclined or have time to do."

I said no-one SEEMS to do this today. hence, I allowed for a margin of error. The point is that I personally can't think of any elite runners who follow this sort of program today, and I challenge you to present one who does.

I don't see how that's relevant, unless you mean it's proportionally harder for them than it is for the rest of us. "Maximum steady state" is still a fast pace no matter who you are.

I respect Lydiard's athletes' accomplishments as much as anybody else, I just don't understand why the program received so much attention when nobody really seems to do it.

in response to Nobby, and in agreement with the first sentence of Runningart's post, I would say that the confusion I have is inevitable when Lydiard writes things with strongly literal wording, and then I'm told by others to interpret these statements as only being somewhat literal. I feel like if you start introducing this relative element you are treading dangerous territory. I'm reminded of biblical exegetes who insist that certain excerpts which are written with a literal bent are actually figurative...the whole thing can't be relative! otherwise no-one would understand any of it. I know Lydiard is not the Bible, but for some people...well...

in regards to the idea that each day of his basic programme called for a different pace...it's still pretty fast. like Nobby and another poster said, 1/2 and 3/4 efforts are still either close to marathon pace or faster...and those paces make up about half the week. the other half, "1/4 effort," is probably still supposed to be somewhat fast, given that he's still building off the idea that "all mileage in the 160km block is at near steady-state."

some examples have been given to suggest that these paces are actually that fast, but again, it's supposed to be relative to each person's ability, so that idea doesn't really make sense to me.

I suppose it is possible that this sort of training is possible and maybe even ideal, but for the majority it just seems a bit too hard. then again, there's always the idea that the one poster suggested that it can be accomplished with several years of build-up...at which point, was it really worth it? might you not see the same gains with having done a different approach?

shadow puppet wrote:

some examples have been given to suggest that these paces are actually that fast

I meant "not that fast"

[quote]shadow puppet wrote:

I suppose it is possible that this sort of training is possible and maybe even ideal, but for the majority it just seems a bit too hard. /quote]

I meant to include "for some" after "ideal"

Still...do we really know what Lydiard meant by 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 pace. Did Nobby talk to Lydiard?

The only concrete pace evidence I have is from Daws book stating Lydiard boys ran between 3.25-3.75 per kilo. I think Daws pulled this from one of Lydiard's books. 3.25-3.75 would not be "marathon pace" for those boys (5:22-6:03 per mile). Maybe marathon pace would be as fast as they went. Maybe they AVERAGED marathon pace which would be easy to do if you start it slow and finish it much faster (refer to my 9 mile example in the previous post).

Lydiard was also never a guy to tell you exactly what you should do. That's why his philosophy was so everchanging. In his first book he says 4 days of hill work in his second he says 3 days. What he does is give you strong principles that you run with:

1) Build a strong base of steady mileage, not slow, not springing, just strong mileage. Up to 100 in singles, plus easy short runs in the morning is the "ideal".

2) Run up hills a few times a week to build length strength and power. This included bounding up, gliding down, short sprints and the bottom and repeat for 30-45 minutes. This was meant as a conditioning exercise, weight training for your legs. This whould prepare your legs for the next phase

3) Interval training. I really think he put this in here just to keep his runners happy because no runner who do a schedule without intervals. He seems to glide over this part. Up to 3 miles worth of hard work 3 times a week. Example was 6 x 800 w/800 rest. Just do enough to make you tired. Of course when you have 3 (or 4 in his first book) of these workouts a week you don't want to hammer any single workout. Since your endurance should be fine why waste a workout training for endurance? Training for endurance would be 6x800 w/equal time or less rest. Training for the "speed" of the race would be 6x800 w/800 rest (full recovery).

4) Co-ordination & Sharpening. This is where things get really interesting as the training here is NEVER the same and always changing. You run a time trial and based on that you'll run either a shorter or longer time trial later in the week. Run a 5k at even speed but not overall fast? Run a shorter TT later in the week. Next week run another 5k TT. Run good at the start only to die? Run a longer TT later in the week. Each week you are working on what you need to work on be it leg speed (50/50s or 100s/100s) pace or endurance.

I think the overall idea behind Lydiard is to let your training dictate your training. That is, why sit down and write a 20 week schedule when you have NO IDEA how you're going to be running next week much less 10 or 20 weeks down the road.

Alan

alan,...

yes we do...i have acopy of one of lydiard's books that never gets mentioned that he wrote for TnFnews...in it he outlines what 1/4. 1/2. 3/4 is.....based upon current fitness over that distance....

I have had trouble interpreting lydiard's plans as well. a couple things to keep in mind:

1. I'm a 4:10 miler and a 8:40 2 miler. But I am not nearly as good as the top marathoners in the world. So yes, some of them might run pretty fast, but I don't because I'm not as good as them. Too many people think that because paul tergat or haile g are running a certain pace, then we should too. first of all, they don't run that pace every day or every run, and even if they do they are way better than us and we shouldn't pretend to have vo2 max's in the 90's and incredible talent.

2. it's always easier to write a plan on paper than it is to actually execute it. yes, lydiard says that ideally this is what you should be doing. but he talks alot about listening to the body and recovery and all that kind of stuff. he also talks alot about running varied terrain which inevitably slows you down. i think we should take the good from lydiard: high mileage, mostly aerobic, periodization, lower leg suppleness and strengthening and general strength in the core and legs.

i don't find following lydiard's plans practical even though i average about 4500 miles per year and am totally devoted to most of his message. it just seems like he asks too much. so i tend to think it's my own interpretation problem rather than his fault because i think he is the ultimate godfather of the fundamental necessities of running.

so my message is don't worry about the plans too much. take the broad strokes and experiment with workouts and mileage. but believe me: people used to run alot more than is considered acceptable now in many circles. in my opinion, high mileage isn't a necessity UNLESS you want to get the max out of yourself. also: never try to run like the greats. try to run like yourself and start easy and improve your workouts over the season. good discussion

Oy! Here we go again.

When Arthur wrote his books people were after him to put in schedules and times and the like. If you talked to him in person, and I was lucky enough to do that on several occasions, you'd find that he wasn't all that fussed about pace at all. He essentially wanted you to do enough mileage to get good cardiovascular development and the trick was to run slowly enough that you could cover good volumes day after day. But he didn't want people jogging or running very slowly as he thought a faster aerobic pace provided results more quickly.

It's a hard question to address. Arthur, to the best of my knowledge, ever told anyone to run at any sort of pace. Snell told me that if he went too fast he'd suffer in the next day and would know to slow down. It was really a run how you feel approach. If you could run your marathon pace each day you'd do it. If you could run faster than your marathon pace each day you'd do it. If you needed to run a minute and a half slower than your marathon pace you'd do that. Really, he always said stuff like, "Just enjoy yourself and don't worry about pace."

I feel your pain:

You got that absolutely correctly. The Old Man used to always say; "Forget what great athletes today are doing now. Learn from what they did 10 years ago."

In regards to the effort; yes I have talked to Arthur about the effort many times. forget the numbers. Basically, they mean you run "hard", "not so hard" and "easy". What more should he have had to explain?

And time and again, he commented that any schedule he has written is nothing but a guide and "shouldn't be strictly adhered to." Doesn't have to be 100; doesn't even have to be 3 long runs a week (though, if you could do it, beneficial).

Many coaches and runners who have had success use "major portions" of it, but not necessarily everything.

shadow puppet wrote:

Lydiard advocates running at least 100 miles a week at "near-best aerobic effort" or "near maximum steady state."

Another Lydiard term was "safe aerobic pressure." This is a good way of thinking about it, since "safe" implies it's the kind of pace you can come back to nearly every day and provide a stimulus without running yourself into the ground. Realize that orthopedic stress and metabolic cost affect each other, so you might feel really easy pace-wise but could still be overdoing it from a structural standpoint if you do several uninterrupted weeks of the same distance and pace every day. On the other side, you might be fine structurally but be pushing past the safe zone in terms of pace. Only experience can really get you in tune with what's a good combination of mileage and pace that you can sustain for an entire period of general conditioning. Pace isn't as important as the right effort is during this period. Distance isn't as important as duration.

obvious answer.... wrote:

Many coaches and runners who have had success use "major portions" of it, but not necessarily everything.

Environment, situation, life-style... Most top athletes today compete almost year-round. You may not have hills like Auckland. What if your athletes want to compete more often? Weather, terrain, racing seasons might be different (Japan's ekiden season)...

Principles are there to be adopted and applied; not to strictly be followed to the number.