Lydiard v Cerutty

I bought "Training With Cerutty" back in 1978 at Bjorklund and Slack's running shop. The chapter on natural diet sparked a lifelong interest, but the chapter on learning to run asymmetrically like a horse gallops screwed up my running for several years.

IceCold can you write atleast about ceruttys approach to 5K/10K!

Hi

I actually own every book written by or about Percy Cerutty (I think!). When I first started running in 1971 at the age of 14 I became interested in Perce's teachings after reading 'Athletics: How to become a champion ' from my local library. Luckily at that time many of his books were still available. My collection includes the aforementioned 'Athletics',plus 'Middle distance running', 'Success in sport and life', 'Schoolboy athletics', 'Sport is my life' and 'Be fit or be dammed!' as well as Elliott's 'The golden mile' and the two biographies - 'Mr Controversial' by Graeme Kelly and 'Why Die' by Graem Sims.

The last of these is very recent and still in print, although not that easy to get hold of outside Australia. I also have Larry Myers' 'Training with Cerutty' and must say I am very disappointed with it. Percy would never have allowed a schedule in any of his books and the whole thing seems to be an attempt to reduce Cerutty to an orthodox running textbook. It has removed all the passion and the fire from his writing and left a formula:- not Percy at all!

That's a very interesting post. I especially like the part about passion and fire because I'm more and more convinced that those are the things we're losing in our approach to training for the sport. But it also raises real questions about how a coach like Cerutty's ideas would be passed along once he's not able to do the passing.

Could you have a go at the question in the post before yours about how Percy would prepare an athlete for 5/10 km races? I think I have a reasonably good idea but I'd love to see how someone well versed in Cerutty's ideas would resond.

oops the Buzz's books. I'll wrap them in tinfoil!

Interesting comment about Myers book as I felt the same. Something did not "click" for me, not that I am any expert on Cerutty.

But I do have the book and also "Why die" by Graeme Sims.I have read all the others but that was some time ago.

A point made here about Perce not allowing Schedules in his books. That is something Arthur Lydiard did not want but the publishers talked him into it.

They have been a bone of contention ever since.

yes please wrote:

IceCold can you write atleast about ceruttys approach to 5K/10K!

Will do mate, found the book this morning. Am at work right now but will try and post something further tonight, probably another 12hrs or so.

sim wrote:

icecold it would be great if you put some stuff from the book down. I will be in New Norfolk soon so i will take my books with me. Maybe we can catch up and compare them in person?

Sim, I'm about 40mins away from New Norfolk but if you can let me know when you're coming down it would be good. I have this 'Training With Cerutty' book as well as "Why Die?" but none of Cerutty's earlier works.

Cheers

Icecold, I'm really interested in why die now that i have heard it goes into his personal situation a lot more. I'm a bit off the Myers one now thanks :)

I'm thinking of Tassie at the end of this week, flights are really cheap and one of the guys i coach also wants to head down for some treatment in New Norfolk by this amazing self-trained healer that lives there.

ps is ice cold the weather down there at the moment?

Sim, I have both Why Die and the Myers book and am happy to lend them to you if you can't get hold of them in Tassie. I am in country Victoria so can easily post them to you if you want. Curious to know if you are a former Decathlete?

I was a decathlete (always a decathlete?) a few years back. Where do you live and do we know each other?

HRE,

this thread should probably be titled Lydiard and Cerutty, two sides of the same coin (medal) or something, it's getting a bit crazy.

Herb under Percy clearly did 100 mile weeks and ran long runs of 28-30 miles. It is from his book 'Athletics. How to be a Champion' and it's quoted in the thread on Herb and weight training.

The two were closer to the same style than most people think.

Cerutty was more "in your face" obviously, but both were convinced that what they taught was absolutely the gospel. Cerutty more into the Zen than Lydiard.

Perc's athletes may have been a little faster over the shorter distances if they developed their speed (CNS) as much as their strength.

Vigil is one guy I've met who seemed to have combined the two perfectly.

sim wrote:

Icecold, I'm really interested in why die now that i have heard it goes into his personal situation a lot more. I'm a bit off the Myers one now thanks :)

I'm thinking of Tassie at the end of this week, flights are really cheap and one of the guys i coach also wants to head down for some treatment in New Norfolk by this amazing self-trained healer that lives there.

ps is ice cold the weather down there at the moment?

I will be working all this weekend as well as Mon/Tues next week but if you let me know the exact dates once you know might be able to arrange a meet up. I'm fairly sure I saw 'Why Die' still on the shelves at a Hobart bookshop fairly recently (as in last 5-6 months) so hopefully might still be there.

As for the weather, pretty much every day has been a peach the last 2-3 weeks! 15-19C, no wind, clear or partly cloudy and dead still. Just brillliant. Will be a different story in 3 months time though when the mountain is covered in snow and the frost sets in every morning.

To HRE

I will try to answer your question about how Percy would coach a 5/10k runner, but first I think its important to say that you have hit the nail on the head when you talk about the difficulty of passing on his ideas without the man himself being present. I believe the reason we don't have a 'Cerutty foundation' and people all over the world following his teachings in great numbers, as we do with Lydiard, is because the man WAS his ideas. Despite my reading of his work and following of his principes I could never consider myself an authority on Percy Cerutty because I never met the man and I believe that he struggled, despite a fairly prodigious amount of writing, to convey what he believed in print.

As to the training - I'm sure this isn't what people really want to hear, but if you want a schedule go and read Myers for what its worth (which in my opinion is very little). The extremely long title to chapter 4 of 'Athletics' is, to me, the most concise summary of Percy's beliefs:

'The recognition that anything that is inhibited, mechanical, regimented, done under imposed duress or direction, even that which may be thought to be self imposed - anything at all that is not free, out-flowing, out-pouring, instinctive and spontaneous, in the end stultifies the objectives, limits the progress and destroys the possibility of a completely and fully developed personality _ athlete and man.'

My advice therefore, to anyone wanting to follow Cerutty's methods would be throw away your heart rate monitor and your Garmin and start getting back in touch with how you really feel when you are running. Abandon your schedule of set hard days and rest days and let your body decide what is best for it each day.

Seek out challenging terrain where you can run freely, surging up and down hills, running flat out on stretches that lend themselves to it, jogging when tired until ready to go again. Some days will be exhaustive, others less so but all will contain varied paces so as not to develop the 'metronome' stride of the average distance runner, as Percy liked to call it.

Take one day a week where training is reduced but ensure there is some activity every day. Lift the heaviest weights you can handle in short sets of 5 or less. Practise gymnastics using body weight and learn yoga for flexibility (Percy was a great proponent of Yoga).

During the six month conditioning phase do everything you can to make yourself stronger - yes run lots of miles, but run hard up long and short hills, run 30 miles or more occasionally, go on long mountainous hikes covering up to 100 miles over 2 or 3 days and treat races over this period as aids to conditioning, not easing down but using them as a good way to push yourself hard.

Once the 'race practise' phase begins, run much at race pace with as short breaks as possible to ingrain the pace in your mind. Run hard also for the length of time your race is to last to get used to working hard for that amount of time. (I find low key races very good for this).

Never at any time set a weekly mileage target or decide when you are going to go hard or easy until you are out there and know how you feel that day.

Read about the weight exercises, the basic movements and the dietary suggestions, but most of all learn to become self-sufficient in your training by knowing whats best for you - everything you need to know is already inside you if you stop yourself being distracted by all the information out there and start listening carefully to yoursef.

Wow!! I'm beginning to sound like a new age guru - sorry about that, but thats how I interpret Cerutty - not the

'Mon - 10 miles steady'.... that you were maybe hoping for but it got me down to 49 mins for 10 miles at my best and, more importantly, still has me competing and loving every days running at age 51.

yes please wrote:

IceCold can you write atleast about ceruttys approach to 5K/10K!

Here you go!

General info:

-Both events need a high mileage base, but these need to be fast, varied-pace miles rather than slow steady ones, or "plodding" as Cerutty refers to them as.

-In the 'conditioning' period (IMO Cerutty's term for 'base') up to 100 miles/week should be done with 5 doubles, 1 long workout, and 1 rest day. Not much difference in training for 5k or 10k but a few extra miles for the 10k runner. Weight training 2-3x/wk is recommended during this time, as are occasional weekends involving 60 miles of running consisting of 2 15 mile sessions each on Sat/Sun. Long run should be built up to 20 miles of quick varied pace running.

-In the 'race practice' period leading up to competition, the mileage is reduced somewhat with a higher percentage of training done at race pace or faster, including sessions designed to be able to handle surging and changing pace during a race. Cerutty says here that a world class 5k/10k runner should be able to run a fast mile at any point during a competitive event.

-In competition season the focus is on maintaing speed and sharpness for races without training so hard that you can't race optimally. Uses Les Perry as an example of someone who trained too hard during this time and raced below par because of it. Weight training reduced to once a week.

-In the non-running season hiking, cross country running, bicycling and swimming are suitable ways to maintain fitness.

There are a couple of sample schedules included:

- Conditioning Period:

Mon-Fri AM was 3-10 miles

(longer ones recommended for 10k runners and the distance should be increased throughout the period up to the maximum of 10 miles)

PM sessions:

Mon: Weights, 7 miles fartlek, run on spot 10-15mins

Tues: Uphill sprints 30-45mins, run on spot 10-15mins, gymnastics

Wed: Weights, 8 miles fartlek, run on spot 10-15mins

Thurs: 15 miles varied pace

Fri: Weights, 3 miles fartlek, run on spot 10-15mins

Sat: 18 miles varied pace

Sun: Rest:

- Race practice period:

Mon-Fri AM was 3-6 miles fartlek for 5k, 4-8 miles for 10k. Weights 2-3 mornings a week.

PM sessions:

Mon:

5k- 5x 1 mile faster than race pace

10k - 4x 2 miles faster than race pace

Tues:

5k - 1 hour uphill sprints + 2 miles fartlek

10k - 1 hour uphill sprints + 5 miles fartlek

Wed:

5k - 8 miles with 100, 200, 300, 400, and 600m fast surges

10k - 12 miles with hard 200, 300, 600 and 800m fast surges

Thurs:

5k - 90min fartlek incl 6x600 fast

10k - 90min fartlek incl 6x800 fast

Fri:

5k - 6x 2 miles with easy running between

10k - 5x 3 miles with easy running between

Saturday: 20 miles at varied pace

Sunday: Rest

I'm not exactly sure what the difference between fartlek and 'varied pace' is. Also not 100% sure on why running on the spot is recommended so often.

Jeff Julian told me that, at his (Cerutty's) prime, he came to Auckland and had a seminar. So a bunch of runners got together and went to listen to what Herb Elliot's coach would have to say. Someone asked him what kind of training Elliot does and Cerutty looked a bit startled (sounds like the man...) and said, "Man, I have NO idea what Elliot does...! I don't have any interest at all what Elliot does in training. I'm a maker of a man!"

Will let you know via email when i book it. If you have a long term physical problem you should book in as well!

**The above is summarised from 'Training With Cerutty'