Starting with Lydiard

Snell made the comment long after he was a physiologist. He said they should have done their miles faster.

SMJO wrote:

Lydiard training was the best training of the day but even Snell says he would have done things differently if he were to do it again.

Your statement about Snell is very misleading.

You say this as if it significantly changes much. Snell said something to the effect that he would change very little in his training, and what he would change was doing less slow plodding in the base phase.

So, how exactly do you think that changes what the OP should do when building up from little base, and around 30 minutes a day? Oh, nothing? Cool.

fasten your safety belts wrote:

SMJO wrote:

Lydiard training was the best training of the day but even Snell says he would have done things differently if he were to do it again.

Your statement about Snell is very misleading.

You say this as if it significantly changes much. Snell said something to the effect that he would change very little in his training, and what he would change was doing less slow plodding in the base phase.

So, how exactly do you think that changes what the OP should do when building up from little base, and around 30 minutes a day? Oh, nothing? Cool.

Excellent HRE interview with Snell 2009:

fasten your safety belts wrote:

So, how exactly do you think that changes what the OP should do when building up from little base, and around 30 minutes a day? Oh, nothing? Cool.

He should make the effort to make sure he's not plodding. Is that not obvious?

SMJO wrote:

Snell made the comment long after he was a physiologist. He said they should have done their miles faster.

He's a physiologist now. He'll be one when he dies. How can he possibly have made any statement "long after he was a physiologist?'

Long after he BECAME a physiologist. For those unable to read unless things are perfectly laid out for them.

Blame the reader for your failure to write clearly. Anyway, where have you seen him say he'd do things much differently now? when I talked to him he said he'd make one minor change.

Take a multivitamin. You're low in whatever contributes to analytical thinking.

Snell has been all over the place with his thoughts on Lydiard training. Maybe you should wait until he finally makes up his mind.

Maybe we both should and while we're at it you should get up to speed with the 21st century.

Or maybe you should have some actual quotes or something more substantial than just Internet access.

SMJO wrote:

fasten your safety belts wrote:

So, how exactly do you think that changes what the OP should do when building up from little base, and around 30 minutes a day? Oh, nothing? Cool.

He should make the effort to make sure he's not plodding. Is that not obvious?

First, you certainly didn't spell that out. I did.

You also coupled the vague Snell comment with something about Coe finishing every run with a sprint. Was that your suggestion too, or just random info?

And most importantly, the OP is not Peter Snell in his prime. "Plodding", or easier running when first building up from 30 minutes a day to 60 minutes a day is certainly not going to ruin a person's efforts. However, going slightly too fast will.

Your advice and comments seem a bit misplaced for this thread. Re-read the OP if you need to. The OP wants to do Lydiard training. He didn't ask your opinion of whether is was outdated or not. He is also a relative beginner, so his primary concern in initially building up a base is probably staying injury-free, not pushing the limit (which he doesn't yet know where it is) by trying to mimic Snell's hindsight training weaks or Coe's finish every run with a sprint.

It's a shame I have to explain that to you.

" We spent too much time plodding along at 7 minutes per mile. You have to go faster to develop the maximum oxidative capacity of the muscles".

There you go.

Could you at least cite that comment if not actually link to it? Because again, that's not what he told me and I've never read it anywhere.

Oh no. Will our worlds ever be the same?

"So, the way that slow running makes you fast is because if you’re doing a

moderate pace – and by moderate pace I’m – my experience is 7 minutes a mile or faster,

NOT SLOW PLODDING (my emphasis). You have to be moderate, at least. And you run for a sufficient

duration, where if you run long enough, eventually the fibers that are being recruited to

handle that pace will become depleted of their glycogen stores, and they can’t continue to

contract"

This is on the bottom of page 3 on the PDF that Hodgie-san linked to. He is specifically defining 7 minute pace as "moderate," not plodding. (By the way, Hodgie, thanks for putting that up. I actually lost my original when the computer it was on died.)

On the next page there is this in which he draws a clear distinction between what happens at 7 minute pace and what happens if you go much slower than that:

". Now, if you’re doing it like these very long distance runners who run

somewhere between 8 and 9 minutes a mile pace forever, then they probably never get to

those fibers because they’re able to do their exercise utilizing fat as a fuel to a large

extent. When you exercise at a higher level, i.e., 7 minutes a mile and faster, then you just

can’t do that on fat. Glycogen has to be used, and eventually it becomes depleted in the

fibers that are being used. And when that happens, others get called in to take over"

If you read a bit further there is a passage where he talks about starting off his base period doing long runs at 7:00-7:30 pace, going faster on the shorter runs and having the long run pace come down to something in the neighborhood of 6 minutes as the base phase moved along. At no point does he ever mention that they were "plodding" or that he would change that.

Who said I was referencing that article?

SMJO wrote:

Who said I was referencing that article?

You haven't said what you referenced. What I referenced contradicts your quote which you have not referenced. If you can show that Snell actually said what you claim and when and have some context for the quote it would be interesting. Other wise there's no reason to believe that you didn't just make it up.

You just had the good fortune that somebody saved your interview and I'm expected to run around scrambling through a mountain of old mags and books to pin down a quote I remember very well?

I think I can live with you getting speculative but I'll certainly bring this back to the top if I stumble on the actual printed quote.

I'm sure then you'll want to see a scanned link.

Do you think you are the only one to ever speak to the guy?

I have a couple copies of the magazine the interview is in so it's not like I couldn't check it out at any time. Hodgie-san saved me the trouble of having to type those quotes.

No, I actually did not think that I am the only person ever to speak to Snell. In fact, I know some others who have as well and they also have never mentioned any quotes of his along the lines of yours. But given that I know he's talked to other people opens up the possibility that he did say something other than what I know of which again, is why I would be interested in knowing if he really did say what you said or if you just made it up.

A link would be nice but anything that gives your quote a little credibility would be fine.

The only thing Snell said he would do differently is some 400s during base phase to stay in touch with speed.