What is your favorite Lydiard quote?

When I saw him this past year, he was talking about New Zealand runners and he said something to the affect of: "We have a guy who runs for the University of Michigan who made the olympics, he didn't do very well, but he made it."

I love how high his standards are and that fact that he believed so stongly in his system that he thought anything else was a waste of time.

Jesse Parker wrote:

Something I live by and as I coach I fully agree with this statement.

“If your coach can’t tell you why you are doing a particular workout, get yourself another coach.” —Arthur Lydiard

As a coach and a teacher I work by this statement every day. Probably the most important thing I've learned from running.

College Guy wrote:

"How often should one take a day off?"

"Never."

That's a good one among Lydiard's many quotes. Here's something similar from another coach, Carlo Vittori who was Pietro Mennea's coach. Mennea probably was the most training sprinter. There was a clinic where Vittori told about Mennea's training. Afterwards one coach asked: "Don't you have resting days?". Vittori answered: "In Italia we sleep in the night."

j squire wrote:

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."

Since all the good quotes I know of Lydiard seems to be mentioned alreay I come with another from Carlo Vittori. (Of course I could choose not to write, but I won't):

It was the same clinic I mentioned in my previous message. Vittori told that Mennea did almost no weight training. Instead he did short hills (20-30m) with a tire hanging in a rope behind him. The East German coaches believed in strict sytematics and a lot of heavy weights, so they found this a bit odd. They asked: "How much did the tire weigh?"

Vittori: "We don't know and we don't care - as long the tire is heayvy enough to make a sensible resitance and light enough to allow a fast stride."

On Stretching:

Well I suppose some moderate stretches might help, but I never saw a race horse stretching!!

Jimmy Fallon wrote:

On Stretching:

Well I suppose some moderate stretches might help, but I never saw a race horse stretching!!

another one on stretching:

"Some people say they don't have time to do 100 miles a week of running and spend a couple of hours every day stretching. I'd say do your 100 miles a week of training ..."

When asked how do you know what pace to run, he said, "as a runner, you should finish and be able to say, 'I could have run farther, or I could have run faster. But I would not have wanted (been able) to do both', say 1/2 mile longer or up to 10 seconds faster, but no more".

Also, if you want to be a coach, "get out the physiology books and study, study, study. You cannot know to much."

Glenn

My favorite in the below letter from Arthur is the bit about his athletes not doing slow running.

"Dear Nicholas,

I think that the first thing to remember is that your performance are governed by your aerobic threshold and that your anaerobic development is a limited that can only be developed in incur an oxygen debt of between 15 to 20 litres. Yet American coaches refuse to recognisees that this is so and invariably destroy the great potential of your country.

I do not believe in using a monitor and rather the runners try to run at a good pace within their capabilities finishing feeling tired, but knowing that they could continue.

Conditions change daily so does the runners; my runners never jogged their long runs. I.E. 22 miles each Sunday we would run aerobically in 2:300 mins: if it was the competitive season. Otherwise we would run it in about 2:05 to 2:10 not slow running as some people believed.

The important aspect is to get the pressure by the high aerobically as possible to bring about the necessary development of the blood vascular system for the time-spent training. This development can continue for several years. I coined the phrase years ago. “Train don’t strain”.

As you get fitter so the runs become faster without and increased effort. All my runners did most of their training together as it does not matter what the distance are being trained for 800 mts through to the marathon, endurance and a high aerobic threshold is required by all as well as the resistance work outs and anaerobic capacity to exercise all that is needed is to coordinate the speed training for different distances.

I do not know any fast way to the top. It all takes time with gradual improvement. It took me three years with John Davies and Pete Snell to get them Olympic medals. I do not think it could be done any faster. With Halberg it was nearly five years because the distance required more endurance.

Regarding the difference in the 5k & 10k schedules. I can only say that it could be some mistake by the printer, as we always run long runs.

They are to gain muscular endurance through the development of the capillaries and mitro-condria. We always ran 30 mins on a Friday as years ago the shops in NZ closed weekends so we had to shop for weekends of starve. That was to allow the runners to do whatever shopping that they had to do. Also we found that it fitted into our schedules nicely as a consolidation period. So we kept doing the same later on.

We do not have days off from training even if it is only 30 mins jog. I hope that this answers some of your queries?

Over all it is wise to train how you feel and not to take much notice of hypothetical figures.

Kind regards,

Arthur Lydiard"

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but it goes something like this:

"You [whites] can run with the Africans. Its not skin color. The negroid in not invincible. The training is the key. Years and years of base training build the champion. Not genetics. Volume + Time = Champions."

The idea was that he emphasized that there are no genetic differences that cannot be made up by training.

Training = Everything.

"They say beer dehydrates you but it doesn't if you drink enough of it."

Just funny, I'm not advocating it.

He also emphasized that "American's are lazy"

I tend to agree. Too much fast food and X-box.

We could beat the Africans if we trained hard enough.

"American's are basically stupid. they run intervals over and over. when you asked them what they are doing. they have no idea. here lies the problem."

\"Americans have it all wrong. They go out for a training run to see how fast they can go. Instead, you should see how long you can go.\"

Favorite quote, circa 2001: "If I had coached Jim Ryun, he would STILL hold the 800, 1500 and mile records."

Lydiard knew his stuff wrote:

Favorite quote, circa 2001: "If I had coached Jim Ryun, he would STILL hold the 800, 1500 and mile records."

He almost does.

When speaking in Boulder several years ago, Coach Lydiard was asked about the usefulness of vitamins and nutrition. This was more humorous than profound but it still makes me crack a smile. He responded by saying that studies were mixed about the efficacy of vitamins but he took them anyway. To quote: "Some people say that vitamins are just a waste of money because you piss most of them out but I always feel better when I take them. I have the most expensive u-rine in New Zealand but I am bloody well going to keep taking my vitamins." (pronounced urine rhyming with shine).

In a Lydiard video I have seen many, many, many times...

"You can't make chicken soup out of chicken shit"

"Americans arrogantly want it all now, this is why they finish last. Speed must be used in proper proportions. Build and build like the Afrikans. This is the only way to realise your potential."