Lydiard base - aerobic pace

Some days will be faster than others. Sometimes, you'll be moving quite well, but they should always be comfortable. Don't worry about numbers.

If you look at Lydiard's writings (at least the early ones), he tends to talk in terms of effort. Though he advocated a good mix, *in general* the shorter runs got a stronger effort (= higher intensity = faster pace).

Lydiard was not a big advocate of long, slow distance and frequently spoke of training at a pace that left you "pleasantly tired," while still putting some pressure on the heart. In other words, most of his distance runs would not have permitted much conversation.

Also, Lydiard and his guys generally had a fair amount of hilliness to contend with, even on easy distance runs. You should probably finish your run with some strides, a few days per week--but *definitely* do so if most of your running week has little or no hill in it.

there is no limit to how fast you should be running this phase. Start out at a comfortable pace where you are running and get faster. If you push it a little bit you should find yourself getting faster and faster in no time.

After about a month I think you should be doing most of your runs sub 6:15/mile with a few in the 5:50s

he would say run a pace that your comfortable with but still giving an effort at the high end of your aerobic capacity. so anywhere from 5:30s to 7, i would shoot for 6-6:30s if you feel good

Probably the best answer is it doesn't matter too much, as long as you get in a good mix of paces, and you are always ready for the next day. It should be faster than easy runs, and slower than race pace.But occasionally someone wants more guidance than "fast enough, but not too fast", so in his books, Lydiard spoke about training efforts: 7/8 effort (for time trials), 3/4 effort, 1/2 effort, and 1/4 effort. This isn't obvious, as the very next question is, 1/4 of what? How do measure effort? I still don't know. Lydiard borrowed, and adapted the concept from Gosta Holmer. Gosta Holmer added 2.5% of pace for each quarter (credit to Tinman). But Lydiard adapted the concept (e.g. shorter distances use bigger percentages) and produced tables for his books.The training efforts are relative to the distance you are running. So if you are a 15:00 5K runner, than the table gives the following efforts for a 5K training run:3/4: 15:301/2: 16:001/4: 16:30Let's say that makes you a 31:30 10K runner, then your 10K training efforts are:3/4: 32:101/2: 32:501/4: 33:30You can see that even 1/4 training efforts are still somewhat fast.My book has tables for 220yds, 440yds, 880yds, 1 mile, 2 miles, 3miles, and 6 miles. So determining the pace for your 10 mile and 20 mile runs requires some extrapolation. I'll leave that as an exercise to the college runner. These tables are based on your best times for that particular distance, so your 5K time won't tell you how fast to train 1600m at 1/4 effort.But as far as I know, Lydiard's boys didn't ever train by these tables.For pace guidance, I prefer Mcmillan, see http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm , or Daniels' VDOT tables, if only for their completeness.I also like the idea (credit to Antonio) of throwing in a regular "speed" session of 400m reps (w/100m jogging recovery) at 10K race pace, for a fast, yet highly aerobic workout that helps you stay in touch with your speed during the off-season base building period.Hope this helps,

college 10k runner, yeah wrote:

If am a 15:00 5k runner, how fast should my aerobic runs be during the base phase?

You're right that Lydiard's guys never ran to those tables. Snell told me that at the start of the base phase they'd run about 7:00 miles for the Sunday 22 mile run and by the late part of the base phase they'd be in the low 6:00s. On shorter runs they'd go, in his words, a "bit faster."

But it's important to remember that they NEVER set off to run at a particular pace. The emphasis was on covering the distance enjoyably, not getting out of breath, but not running slower than was necessary. Some of those runs could be quite fast, but the faster pace came naturally because of improved fitness; the effort would have been about the same on the runs in the low 6:00s as on the runs at 7:00.

While Lydiard was not a fan of LSD training, he also used to say not to worry about running too slowly because you'd go faster as you got fitter and that "you can never train too slowly, but you can train too fast."

I've also heard that not all of the guys followed that improvement curve. Bill Baillie reportedly never found that his long runs got faster as the season went on and stayed at about 7:00s or maybe slightly faster. If Kim Stevenson sees this maybe he'll chip in with a "Baillie" story or two as they did a lot of training together.

The answer to the original question is that there is no specific answer. A fifteen minute 5km runner would do his/her long runs at a pace that's comfortable but not unnecessarily slow. So would a fourteen minute 5km runner, a seveteen minute 5km runner, a thirteen minute 5km runner, etc. What that specific pace is will depend on what the particular runner is comfortable with. It's not inconceivable that all of them might be able to do their run together.

I'm pretty sure those numbers are wrong... where did you find them. It seems unreasonable that you would run your 1/4 runs at 5:18 pace...

I got them from directly from my copy of Lydiard's first book "Run to the Top". Maybe some corrections were printed since 1960, but I'm pretty sure I copied the numbers I have right. I copied them from the 3 mile table and the 6 mile table, so they may be slightly inapplicable for 5K and 10K due to the metric conversions.A 16:30 5K is 5:19 mile pace -- for a presumably 4:50 mile pace 5K runner. This is 29 seconds, or 10%, slower per mile. I'll admit it seems fast -- I even said so, but it's a 16:30 5K for a 15:00 runner -- not unreasonably fast.But remember in Lydiard's aerobic phase, you are not doing 5K runs, but 15K to 35K runs, with 1/4 effort paces closer to 6:00 +/-, for this 4:50 runner. It still seems a bit fast, but it's slower than marathon pace (~5:38/mile).

the rocket wrote:

I'm pretty sure those numbers are wrong... where did you find them. It seems unreasonable that you would run your 1/4 runs at 5:18 pace...

Funny, I quickly estimated (extrapolated) between 5:48 and 6:09 per mile, for 1/4 pace efforts for 15 miles to 35 miles, for this 15:00 5K runner.Seems your estimate is pretty much in line with Lydiards pace tables.There's "no limit"!?!?! I guess race pace seems like a reasonable "not faster than" upper bound.

the rocket wrote:

there is no limit to how fast you should be running this phase. Start out at a comfortable pace where you are running and get faster. If you push it a little bit you should find yourself getting faster and faster in no time.

After about a month I think you should be doing most of your runs sub 6:15/mile with a few in the 5:50s

Oh no -- there goes my "exercise for the college runner".

Mr. Ray wrote:

Funny, I quickly estimated (extrapolated) between 5:48 and 6:09 per mile, for 1/4 pace efforts for 15 miles to 35 miles, for this 15:00 5K runner.

The 1/4 effort is pretty close to AT pace. There is no way that is right. I would like to think I was in about 15:00 5k shape a few weeks ago (my PB is 15:06), and I couldn't even run a HM at 5:19 pace.

I think the 10k tables prove this pretty well. There is no way I could go off and run a 32:10 10k without a pretty massive effort.

Okay so I'm also a 15:00 5k runner who hopes to run close to 68 minutes for the half marathon. So these tables say that I should do my 1/4 effort 13 milers at 1:12-1:13 or 5:45 pace. This still seems fast, but at least this is more reasonable. I'm not sure about running 5:20 pace for a 3/4 effort run though.

I think 6:15 1/4 , 6:00 1/2 and 5:45 for 3/4 is a good guess as to what you (the OP) should be able to do within a few months of developing your aerobic base.

The essence of Lydiard training is to run to the point of being pleasantly tired. Finding the correct pace is something each runner must figure out themselves.

Surely you can run your AT pace for 5K. I think that's not a big deal for anyone.I'm not sure I made myself clear. The pace table of efforts for a distance only apply to that distance. You wouldn't use a 5K pace table of efforts for a HM. You would use a different table, relative to your HM race performance. That means that your 1/4 effort for 5K might be 5:19, but at the same time, your 1/4 effort for a HM might be 6:00.The 32:10 in the pace table is a 3/4 effort for someone that can do 31:30 for a 10K. 3/4 effort is harder, so yes that would be a massive effort, but not quite race pace. This would be more like a 10K time trial, which is a training close to race pace, for the full race distance.Right or wrong, that is the table of efforts that was published in 1962. I agree the paces might be a bit on the fast side, but they are not completely unreasonable.

bw wrote:

The 1/4 effort is pretty close to AT pace. There is no way that is right. I would like to think I was in about 15:00 5k shape a few weeks ago (my PB is 15:06), and I couldn't even run a HM at 5:19 pace.

I think the 10k tables prove this pretty well. There is no way I could go off and run a 32:10 10k without a pretty massive effort.

I pretty much agree with everything you said.3/4 efforts are supposed to be hard, almost as fast as a race. (Actually I didn't yet mention 7/8 efforts for time trials).I just had one last thought. The fact that my tables only goes up to 6 miles (10K) might indicate that getting an exact pace is less important for longer distances in your base building phase.Sorry I spent so much time on the tables.

the rocket wrote:

Okay so I'm also a 15:00 5k runner who hopes to run close to 68 minutes for the half marathon. So these tables say that I should do my 1/4 effort 13 milers at 1:12-1:13 or 5:45 pace. This still seems fast, but at least this is more reasonable. I'm not sure about running 5:20 pace for a 3/4 effort run though.

I think 6:15 1/4 , 6:00 1/2 and 5:45 for 3/4 is a good guess as to what you (the OP) should be able to do within a few months of developing your aerobic base.

The essence of Lydiard training is to run to the point of being pleasantly tired. Finding the correct pace is something each runner must figure out themselves.

but...if my covering the distance enjoyably is the LSD pace ?

1/4 pace = standard long run pace - as you feel. When I ran 15min for 5k this was anywhere between 6.40-7.20

3/4/ pace = about 13-19 mile race pace in my experience but normally over about 6-10 miles.

1/2 pace - somewhere in between!

They should be aerobic, no oxygen debt? have fun! It's your body, it knows where aerobic is, not your watch.

Then you probably should do it. It might not be ideal. But it will improve your fitness. Again, in "Running to the Top" Arthur wrote, "You can never train too slowly. But you can train too fast."

Here is how the Lydiard aerobic base development phase works in my understanding (very simplified idea)

1. Push your body while staying aerobic

2. aerobic only running hastens recovery

3. Body is able to push again the next day and the cycle repeats.

After several months of this, you will find your aerobic system has developed a lot.

Problems:

1. If you run too easy you won't develop your aerobic system much

2. If you run too hard you will lose valuable recovery, which leads to less aerobic development. Also repeated overtraining may result in exhaustion.

Either problem is harmful, but I think it is better to err on the side of running too hard. After you discover your limits you will have a better idea of what Lydiard is talking about I think.