What is your favorite Lydiard quote?

At the Charlotte "talk" some woman was asking him about heart rate monitors. She said something about how your heart rate can fluctuate.

Lydiard's response:

"Yeah well it depends who you're sleeping with."

That of course got everyone laughing.

"champions are everywhere, all you have to do is train them properly"--Lydiard

In the sixties, When I was a kid, Lydiard gave a talk at morning assembly at Tokoroa intermediate School,In New Zealand. [I suspect on the invitation of John Davies who was a teacher there].His quote "It is important that you can see your feet". Me being a little Porker at the time must have received the message.

when someone asked him what he thought of the benefits of altitude training, he responds, "what benefits?" it was classic and i'll never forget it.

"How often should one take a day off?"

"Never."

Train don't Strain

"You don't see any rest days on the schedule do you?"

when asked what he thought about days off, when he was in boston this November.

Run to the Top, Chapter 1

"The First Step - Enjoyment"

also when working with Dick Tayler and a coach asked him how many 400m repeats he was doing and how fast. "Look, he doesn't know and I don't know. It wouldn't even matter if they were 400-meter repetitions."

Snell took Lydaird out to dinner last week and asked him how he was holding up under the stress of the our. He answered that he was doing great, and loving the clinics adding,

"I don't get tired."

"It's old-fashioned to say, but the fundemental physiological mechanics of running have not changed. We used to run 22 miles through the mountains and you don't see people doing it that much anymore. People have gotten soft and flabby. It's a question of application, not talking. Why did Peter do the mileage and the 22-miler? Because he knew it made him a better runner. He saw the improvement."

We took Arthur out to dinner with a bunch of our high school runners a few weeks ago. I asked "if he could give them one piece of advice, what would it be?"

"Run every day"

In New York, he told the story of being heckled from a passing car while out running with Peter Snell, just after their return from Rome where Snell had won an Olypic gold medal. The heckler shouted, "Who do you think you are, Snell?" Lydiard couldn't stop grinning as he told this, that grin will stay with me forever.

"it was not only that i ran hard, it was that i ran long and hard."

" Altitude training is a gimmick"

I thought his interview with the Chicago Athlete had a lot of good quotes. Here are a few....

"No one will burn out doing aerobic running. It is too much anaerobic running, which the American scholastic athletic system tends to put young athletes through, that burns them out."

"If you want to be a successful runner, you have to consider everything. It's no good just thinking about endurance and not to develop fine speed. Likewise, it's no good training for speed, or anaerobic capacity with lots of interval type of training when you haven't developed your aerobic capacity to maximum. You have to take a long view and train on all aspects of development through a systematic program. It's a lot of hard work for five, six or seven years. There's no secret formula. There's no shortcut to the top."

http://www.chicagoaa.com/features/speedplaylydiard03.html

My favorite was at the houston talk someone asked what he thought about Seb Coe/Peter Coe's low mileage and Lydiard just yells out "It's Bullshit!"

I once saw him speak at SFSU a few years ago when i was still in HS. During the Q and A session somebody asked "How much of a break do you give your runners after their season?" "Excuse me sir, I am old and didnt hear you well", the Lydiard said. The guy once again tried to ask his question: " A break. How much of a break do they get?". "Whats a break?" Lydiard said. The man tried to explain that it was a peroid of time off of running. "Oh a break" Lydiard said, "Ha, there is one of every crowd!". Funny little story I think.

When touring around Japan in 1991, he was asked what quality he looks for in the athlete; without hesitation he replied: "Sincerity." It didn't matter to Arthur how fast you are or how good you are, how talented you are; you had to "win" and "earn" trust from Arthur. The only was is to be sincere to him. You do that, he always gave 110% for you. God, I wanted to give him the Royal treatment. I was perhaps only a half way there. He kept telling me, "I won't let you down..." What a man! That's one thing he could never do.

When asking him about long runs last week, he said "We never had any of those sports drinks or goo, after a long run, we had a beer."

"Americans eat too large of portions"

and a repeat that is so important...

"There are champions everywhere, Snell and Halberg lived in my neighborhood. With the right training, anyone can be a champion"