It definitely was Shorter. But I know he was heavily influenced by Jack Bacheler, though that wasn't coaching. I remember reading some comments by Roy Benson who was assistant coach for he Florida Track Club then about what he did as "coach" to Shorter. He said something along the lines of, "If they needed a towell I'd get them one.
Athletes choose their coaches.
Discuss.
Skuj wrote:
Athletes choose their coaches.
Discuss.
There's nothing to discuss.
Skuj wrote:
Maybe we have, or soon will have, 100% of the science figured out. There will never be any more discoveries or discussions or debates regarding the physical / chemical science.
That's one of the more ridiculous statements I've read (that's saying a LOT). Historically whenever man believed he was at the end of the discovery rope, inevitably vast new horizons were about to be unfurled. No, we're nowhere near the end of the scientific discovery end of this thing.
WTF?? wrote:
Skuj wrote:Athletes choose their coaches.
Discuss.
There's nothing to discuss.
oh really?
Ok. You start.
HRE wrote:
It definitely was Shorter. But I know he was heavily influenced by Jack Bacheler, though that wasn't coaching. I remember reading some comments by Roy Benson who was assistant coach for he Florida Track Club then about what he did as "coach" to Shorter. He said something along the lines of, "If they needed a towell I'd get them one.
Most runners I knew, when they reached a certain level of maturity, were very skeptical of coaches and I would say they were wise to be so.
Study/work with the best coaches and fellow athletes you can and ultimately you make your own decisions based on your current experience and knowledge.
Sometimes there is close consultation with a coach sometimes not.
As has been stated numerous times, I have to add my agreement that the discussions here are priceless. Thanks to Snookie for starting things up. I really appreciate the candor, banter and willingness to share of Kim Stevenson, Glenn McCarthy, HRE, Nobby, Tinman, jtupper, Skuj, Hotlanta Master and ronin, along with the rest who have posted.
Like most here, I am on the journey of trying to sort out the Art of Running. How do you put the whole package together so over a period of time you improve? My biggest coaching influence came from a descendent of the Bowerman/Dellinger tree. Much of what I learned from that coach also seems to be foundations shared by Lydiard and Daniels. "Consistency is the key" "Train don't strain." "Six months in running is not a long time" "If we work together, we all can improve" Within our training group, he would match us up by ability, regardless of age/sex/running history. "No racing in practice" I have seen him pull two of my training buddies off the track and send them home for the day because they were racing each other through the workout. Our workouts were structured as to distance and effort, but not strictly by time and numbers. Effort for a repeat was generally easy, medium or hard. Example: "Do one easy, two medium, one hard and we'll see how it goes" We needed to learn what our effort and pace was. A main principal was to try and negative split or cut down times. So one easy, two medium, one hard would work into that. Or it might be four medium, each a little faster than the one before. He wanted us to learn how to control the expending of our energy and get stronger through the workout. And apply that to our races. Run even pace and finish strong. Often we didn't know exactly how many repeats we would do. Depending on how we responded to the efforts, he would determine when we had enough. If someone was struggling that day, he would break them off with something easier to finish or just call it a day for them. If someone was having a great day, he might add in something extra. We trained as a group, but each of us were individuals that required individual adjustments to the basic plan. Oh, I should add, we weren't supposed to wear our watches on the track. He would tell us our splits, but he wanted us to learn our effort and pace and not be looking at our watches to tell us if we were running too fast or too slow. That's what the pace and feel without the watch was about. So you knew the feel of the effort and could manage your energy. The times just sort of took care of themselves. I always left the workout feeling challenged, but never exhausted, and often surprised at what I had actually been able to do.
Sorry for the ramble. Life, family, job have prevented me over the last eight years from training with a group/coach. Instead of having someone guide me like above, I have to figure it out for myself. The Art of Running. How much? How hard? How easy? What to do today and how does that fit in with my goals and what I need to do two months from now? And fit that in around life, family and job commitments. That is where this thread has be a tremendous help. Solid concepts of ideas and techniques explained based on the contributors' experiences and results. From both Lydiard and Daniels and other camps. Not some boiler plate from a schedule which may or may not have an explanation and may or may not make sense. And I can balance against my own experiences. After reading this thread I feel more confident in taking a basic framework, tailoring it to me and having a reason for my decisions. I still have those agonizing questions sometimes of: was that too much? hard enough? too easy? but I feel with much of the advice shared here, when I'm guessing wrong now, at least I'm close and not doing myself real damage, and then that adds to my experience for future decisions. Your posts have been enlighting, entertaining and very helpful to me. Thanks.
What a great message. Thanks for that. Who is this guy you talk about. He sounds as though he really UNDERSTOOD the whole deal.
I know I too have learned heaps on this thread, more than I have contributed.
I was talking to a buddy yesterday and said how neat it would be to visit Dr Daniels in 2008 and see the guys from '68, 40 years on. The knowledge that could be gained from that would be awesome.
Dr Daniels, How about inviting Peter Snell along as well ???
I know Arthur loved to share what he knew and that is one of the reasons I am on here.
Back to another question asked above by runstrong I believe.
It was about how 'quickly' do you get to 100 miles a week.
My approach, along with getting consistency of days. Is to gradualy work on increasing the long runs.
My own appraoch was to start at 12 miles until I could do that comfortably, then push out to 15 until I could do that comfortably, then to 18, then on to 20 to 22.
I really did it with time. It was a couple of old hands that dropped in the fact that I had covered a 'distance' but not to get hung up about it. Just get out and run.
Cheers Team.
Kim,
Thanks for the reply. Very interesting. I am in a wierd position because I can comfortably run up to two hours without having any problem whatsoever. I've done several two hour runs and many in the 1:40-1:45 range. They are no problem. Running long isn't a problem.
However, I've always been a relatively moderate-WEEKLY mileage guy. I've gone up to 70ish for about a month before in the past year. "Listen to your body," is the phrase everyone likes to throw out. I was doing 70's in the midst of workouts to be honest. The goal is to be great years from now, not now. However, with cross steadily approaching, I haven't gone any higher this summer than what I've done in the past. Would it be an okay idea to flirt with stints of higher mileage(around the 15-a-day area) but never make a serious commitment to 100 (for now)? Also, if only doing moderate mileage, are the three long day's per week still advocated?
Thanks for all your help.
In Daniels' Running Formula, the program lasts 24 weeks. Is there any advantage to doubling the length of the program to build up to a one year peak? If so, what would be a good way to do this? Sorry if this has already been covered previously in the thread.
Been upping my mileage SLOWLY after a multi-year layoff, looking to get into a Lydiard cycle. Legs have felt very good. Did some 100 meter striders Monday evening, and my achilles feels a little bit tweaked. It's not really painful, but I know it's not 100% either. Any ideas on what I should do to make sure it doesn't get any worse? Ice? Few days off? Run easy every day with no hills?
Thanks!
I'm having the same problem. This past week or so, my achilles has been a bit sore after I run and I've never had problems with it. I'm resting it today and have been icing so I hope I will be okay. I know achilles tendonitis can be pretty bad as it progresses.
This info is probably somewhere on here already, but I have a few questions about Lydiard training. Is the mileage the same for women as it is for men, like getting up to at least 100 mpw? Also, at what point do you start the hill resistance period? Is there a certain mileage you should be at when you start each phase and do you ever reduce mileage such as when you start the anaerobic training?
txRunnerGirl,
I think the application of the Lydiardism (as Nobby calls it) would be to try to get to the highest amount of time you can run each week without wearing yourself out. That is why many of the later Lydiard books went to time instead of distance. So if you can run close to 600 minutes per week you should do great. Of course, you may not be able to handle that load immediately, so perhaps you only do 500 minutes. The idea is to get your cardio-vascular system and musculature to the best you can. Some folks can only manage 200 minutes per week. So that is where you stay.
As far as hills, or any other training segment, it is all based on the race(s) you want to run well. Decide on the race you want to peak for. Count back 4 weeks for freshing-up, then 6 weeks of sharpening/race pace work, then 4 weeks of anaerobic work, then 4 weeks of hills and leg speed. Yes your reduce mileage when you start doing harder work. You always keep the long run in the schedule, you drop the other long runs that are usually shown as mid-week. Your goal is to maximize the endurance you developed by running all those miles/minutes so you can race well. Arthur's "boys" as Snell and all were called, dropped from 100 plus mile weeks to sometimes half of that when they were doing faster and shorter work.
Hope that helps.
Glenn
Hey Runstrong, I neglected to answer your question. Time is a bit tight right now.
But I may have answered earlier in the thread, as I was never 100mpw man.
Will check in later.
Cheers
Glenn,
You are recommending 4 weeks for freshen up and 6 weeks for coordination phases. Arthur's paper with Nobby "Arthur Lydiard's Athletic Training" recommended 10 days of freshening up and 6 weeks of coordination (to include the 10 days freshening up).
I like the 6 full weeks of coordination instead of basically 4 (when you subtract out the ten days freshen up).
How do you do the 4 weeks of freshen up without losing your conditioning? or is this 4 weeks like the race week, non-race week?
Thanks.
gallopinggoat,
it is the race week-non-race week scenario to my understanding.
Glenn
Sorry this has taken so long.
If I was you I would work on gradually geeting the long runs up in mileage.
But not every day.
Many years ago I ran a weekly schedule along the lines of what I show below.
It took a while to get where I could do the Sunday run and not still feel 'shattered' on a Monday.
Sunday : 2 to 21/2 hrs (Usually a hilly course .. )
Monday ; 45 to 60 mins as I felt with maybe 6 to 10 easy strides.
Tuesday : 1 to 11/2 hrs steady on hilly course. (generally this was around 12 to 13 miles)
Wednesday: As for Monday but more like a fartlek or maybe a 3 to 6 mile Timetrial depending in what was happening around the traps with the Harrier season.
Thursday : As for Tuesday
Friday:30 to 45 mins easy, usually on a Golf Course
Saturday : Club run which could be anything up to 11/2/hours.
Now when I did this I was working full time and did not get out until around 5:15 pm.
What I found was I could hold together nicely for quite a few months doing that programme. My consistency was good. When I cranked it up too much I got minor infections/colds etc. So I held pretty much to that programme.
The Key for me was the Sunday run. If I did that the rest of the week 'fell' into place.
As I said above, I have never run 100mpw. But I have diaries that show yearly mileages of around 3250 to 3500 (When I was on the Mileage kick). Consistency is the Key in this game of Distance running.
Hope that helps a little
wow, you did you're longest runs on a hilly course? I don't know about you but when I do a 2.5 hour run on a hilly course I pay for it in muscle aches the next day. But if I do it on a flat course i feel like I worked my aerobic system harder and I am not limited as much by my muscles, and also the next day the run goes much smoother....Doesn't Lydiard say avoid hills?
Runit,
I can guarantee you Arthur loved variety. I don't think he ever met a hill he did not like. The famous route that was the weekly 22 mile run his runners ran from his house had some infamously tough hills. If you are beaten up by running hills on your long runs, perhaps it is the speed you are running them and not the hills that are the cause of your soreness?
Glenn