Does Lydiard have you increase mileage during base phase or simply maintain it?

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I have read many old threads but this is one area that never seems to be made clear.

The "purist" old school Lydiard line is that you get up to 100 miles per week as soon as you can then keep it there.

But 12 weeks is too short for a proper base phase.

In practice you'll need to figure it out. For yourself.

But is there a distinction between build-up and holding the mileage? I just think it’s a lot to ask that you increase mileage while trying to run steady, high-end aerobic pace.

Snell, Halberg, Bailie, and co wrote:

I have read many old threads but this is one area that never seems to be made clear.

That is because Lydiard was never clear. He did say 100 mpw but he also said after 100 miles you could jog as many miles as you could stand.

The old-school Lydiard advice is to build to 100mpw as quickly as possible then to work on doing it faster. Lydiard seemed to think that 100mpw would not hurt you if you did it slowly enough. I don't know if people were tougher back then or the food was healthier or the shoes better or if he oversimplified a bit but I don't find that this advice works anymore.

The other thing about the old-school Lydiard approach (Halberg, Snell, Magee, Baillie era) is that the training cycle was a full year long. So they only did one base-building phase per year. Theyd take it easy after track season ended then build back to 100mpw and work on running every other day's run faster and faster until they were able to hold marathon pace for near 20 miles. Then they'd switch into the hill phase then the track phase as track season was approaching again.

too hot wrote:

But is there a distinction between build-up and holding the mileage? I just think it’s a lot to ask that you increase mileage while trying to run steady, high-end aerobic pace.

From what I've read, no, there is no prolonged buildup. As previous poster stated, get to 100 miles per week and stay there until you are no longer seeing gains. This could be for many, many weeks. If you're doing it correctly and are actually running the correct paces, it doesn't run you down. It's when you throw down hard interval sessions or threshold runs above your lactate threshold that you start to get worn down. Read the book Healthy Intelligent Training by Keith Livingstone. He explains it really well, and you use heart-rate zones to determine the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 effort levels.

The idea is to run the following schedule:

M - 1hr 3/4 effort marathon pace tempo

Tu - 1.5hr 1/4 effort easy run

W - 1hr 1/2 effort alactic fartlek

Th - 1.5hr 1/4 effort easy run

Fr - 1hr 3/4 effort marathon pace tempo

Sa - 1.5hr 1/4 effort easy run

Su - 2.5hr 1/4 effor long run

If you're true to yourself and go based on HR, you will be running those 1hr tempos on Monday and Friday much slower than you'd like at first. And the fartlek is a steady, slightly easier effort than the tempos, just with 8 to 10 alactic sprints of 10 to 12 seconds in duration, just enough to get your anaerobic system a quick taste without introducing the lactic acid buildup that sustained running over your lactate threshold does.

As you progress, you should be able to run faster at the same effort levels. You just have to trust that it will work.

Livingstone explains how to figure out your effort level paces based on Heart Rate Reserve. Find your resting HR and your max HR, then calculate your HRR by subtracting your resting HR from your max HR, i.e. HRR = MaxHR - RestHR. You then figure out effort levels based on RestHR + % of your HRR. So a 60% HRR effort would RestHR + .60 x HRR.

For example, if my RestHR is 42 and my MaxHR is 192, then my HRR is 192 - 42 = 150. A 60% HRR run should be done at RestHR + .60 x HRR, which would be 42 + .60 x 150 = 132 bpm.

1/4 effort level should be done between 65% to 75% of your HRR

3/4 effort level should be done between 75% to 85% of your HRR

The main point of emphasis during the base building period is to keep your HRR under that 85% marker, because that should be approximately your lactate threshold. Running too much for sustained periods of time over that HR and you're introducing lactic acid buildup, which deteriorates your aerobic fitness.

Once you are closer to your race, that's when, depending on the distance, you should start introducing faster running above your lactate threshold. Do that during the base period and you're setting yourself up for failure.

basing run length on time is a good point. When Lydiard prescribed a 20mile run in the schedule, he was picturing Halberge or Magee running it at 5:15 pace and it taking 1:45:00 not someone like me running it at 7:30 pace and it taking 2 1/2 hours. I doubt he'd recommend the full 100mpw to someone as slow as I am.

When you say “get to 100mpw” does that mean as long as it takes? I thought he didn’t want you to spend more than 4 months TOPS in a base building phase?

“Get to 100mpw and stay there until you are no longer seeing gains”

That could take years. Would Lydiard want you to spend years building base before introducing any type of track training?

Wasn’t Lydiard’s training cycle 6 months long? Peaking twice a year?

dhjvjk wrote:

“Get to 100mpw and stay there until you are no longer seeing gains”

That could take years. Would Lydiard want you to spend years building base before introducing any type of track training?

Sure, you could do it for years if you wanted to continuously build your base, but it's up to you to determine when you want to peak for a race.

The fundamental idea is that there is a proper order to training. Build your base first, then decide when to begin transitioning to track training - which he did with his hill training period to get your body ready to handle the hard track training. Then finally finish things up with track repetitions and sharpening work. After that you're ready to peak. Livingstone and Lydiard describe this as building the pyramid. The bottom and foundation of the pyramid is the aerobic base. The top of the pyramid is the hill training and track repetitions. The larger your aerobic base, i.e. foundation, the higher your pyramid will reach. You can't hang out in this final period for long because it erodes your aerobic base. So once you've run your target race and peaked, you need to start over, rebuilding your aerobic base.

Livingstone also suggests that when training for the marathon, you can pretty much do without the hill training and a very small amount of higher-end threshold type runs. Aerobic base building is essentially marathon training on it's own.

Lydiard did not want you to stay in base for years and years. I’ve read that he wanted you to change the stimulus or else a person would not improve. Therefore, it might be beneficial to enter the anaerobic phase after 12-16 weeks even if you only built up to 60 miles per week during that time. Is that your interpretation?