LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Was that your firt week at thirty? How long has your layoff been and what was high yet manageable milage, i.e. what you'd done consistently before the layoff? All of that will have some influence.

Well, this summer before going into college i started to up my miles from high school( 30-40 ) mile weeks. Started to work up to 60 miles a week and stayed like that untill i got hurt. Its been about a month and im starting back up now. I ran 30 miles to see how my body would feel and react. I didnt time my runs, i feel mentaly fine like i could jump on the track and go mid 15's again, but im gonna try to hold back at least 6-8 of straight base building. When reading up on the lydiard way i want to get a base build before outdoor best i can. Im not going to race until mid-season, and my goal is sub 15 by the end of the season. Is 6-8 weeks going to put me at the base i need in this system to start harder workouts.

Once track is over, im planning on taking no time off and building up high base untill my first year of college XC ( red-shirted this year).

I guess, i want to commit to the lydiard way though, now once i get back to campus this week, ill talk it over with my coach and get his take.

HRE,

Anaerobic literally means 'without air'.

Recently I took my senior soccer coaching certification and the instructor had coached premier, Div 1, Metro (like all star) University and military teams and has provided certification for others for years.

Everything was good until he desribed going up for a header and an anaerobic exercise.

I clarified that if you go up for one header, you are not anaerobic ...yet, but you will if you did it non stop until you became out of breath and had to rest, because you are then operating without air.

It's interesting that Lydiard thought that if you did not produce lactic acid yet, you were not anaerobic....hmmmm.

The only thing I an tell you is that if thrity felt ok you can probably bump the miles up. I would think that if you were doing sixty you could get to forty five in a week or two, then maybe add five miles a week.

If six to eight weeks is what you have for basebuilding it will have to do. You should be reasonably ok on that. The basework you did over the summer will have significant residual benefit. I'd try to keep a weekly run of 90-120 minutes in, or whatever is "long" for you, even when you get to anaerobic work and racing.

Wetcoast, Glad to read the exercises seem to be helpful, stay with them for a while particularily in single leg stance there are others I could provide you with later on but a I would probably either have to mail them to you or figure out how to scan them in to e -mail evantually.Anyway keep up the good work. I like what Glen mentioned to me once about gradually progressing into the hill phase rather than jumping sraight in from one phase to another. I usually did or use minimum a six week period for the hill phase, just seemed to help me and those I have coached a better transition.Happy new year and a succssfull year of running!

Wetcoast wrote:

48,

Thanks,

The exercises seem to help, although I caught a wicked cold and have not been running much other than short, easy and flat.

I am starting the hill phase this week and want the lower leg to be strong as it was before the twist...feels better anyway.

Wetcoast:

Your comment above :

"It's interesting that Lydiard thought that if you did not produce lactic acid yet, you were not anaerobic....hmmmm."

Don't forget that Arthur had no science background at all. He came up with these ideas about training and what worked and what did not, then some scientists gave him the "terminology". As Nobby has said Arthur had enough knowledge to be dangerous.

But having seen some of the guys in action and using some of the basic ideas myself. The "green finger" approach Arthur called it. (Refers to good Gardners who whenever they touch a plant it seems to grow .. Arthur was a good Gardner)

When doing faster work you check the athlete is not pushing into that area which becomes too Anaerobic.

I ask "Do you feel the rot?" If the answer is No, then we push on. If it is Yes, (depending on what we are doing) we make the appropriate decision.

I realise that that is really "Rough logic" as we would say in NZ, but it does prevent an athlete from overdoing it.

The famous story about Dick Tayler's 400's and the "How many, How fast" is a classic Arthur approach.

I too have told a story about training with Bill Baillie (back aways inhere somewhere !!!)and when the workout did not seem right we bagged it and went for a run.

Our Sunday distance running group has found that a runner is more likely to avoid injury if you do not increase your mileage more than 10% per session or 25% a week. This advice comes from an orthopedic surgeon who was one of the original members of the marathon group over 38 years ago. He is now 80 and still works and runs with us every Sunday if he is not off skiing that weekend.

Yes, work well enough that I ran a harder hill repeat session with sprints on the flat and had no problem with strength in the ankle.

Thanks.

Kim, Lydiard bases his ideas of aerobic and anaerobic on the work of the great English physiologist A.V. Hill. The idea of "going anaerobic" when we start to produce "lactic acid" and breathe harder was published in 1923, the year in which Hill and his German colleague Otto Meyerhoff won the Nobel prize for science for their work on bioenergetics.

So yes. Arthur knew enough to be dangerous 25 years ago

However, in the last few decades, that bioenergetics model has been proven to be false. It is now known that lactic acid is not produced, rather lactate, which is an aerobic fuel, not an anaerobic waste product. Lactate doesn't increase acidity in muscle and blood, it's production actually does the opposite, reducing the acidity which is caused by anaerobic fuel utilization.

Eventually, when we can produce no more lactate, for whatever reason, we slow down. This not what was thought 20 years ago, it was thought back then that lactate accumulation slows us down, it doesn't, it's the lack of lactate production and uptake by the mitochondria, the aerobic powerhouse of the muscle cells that slows us down.

So yes. Arthur knew enough to be dangerous 25 years ago, but now his terminology clashes with what is now known about physiology.

We don't "go anaerobic" in a race, we actually start a race using mostly anerobically derived energy, and as that begins to be used up after a few seconds, aerobically derived energy increases.

There is always a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic fuel sources being utilized, since the breakdown of muscle glycogen for energy(glycogenolysis) and the breakdown of blood glucose for energy (glycolysis) also both supply glycolytic ATP constantly. Glycolytic ATP is considered to be an anaerobic energy fuel, since it does not require oxygen to provide energy.

However, if we have a healthy heart, we never actually run out of oxygen, no matter how hard we run.

Hard interval training is mostly aerobic. Short sprints are mostly anaerobic.

I hope that helps.

Please excuse the typo that suggests Arthur Lydiard is still alive.

Of course he is in spirit, and probably more popular than ever.

Wellnow : Thanks for the reply.

What I was trying to do is illustrate how Arthur approached this "Anaerobic" aspect.

I am familiar with the latest thinking and I wonder if Arthur was around now (and a lot younger) how he would "tackle" the subject.

Because he had the guys in really good shape all the time he was not averse to hitting them with a few Interval sessions and also his famous 2 miles of 50 yd dashes to "Bring them on". ie : Get them ready to race.

Contrary to popular opinion, Arthur did use Interval training (various distances etc) a lot in his programmes. But he only did so when the athletes were superbly conditioned.

I heard some of the old timers talking once about how Arthur gave Halberg some intense track workouts prior to him tackling the NZ 6 mile record back in the late 1950's).

Murray ran something like 27:40 on a grass track.

The reason he did that was Percy Cerutty was touring NZ at the time and said something along the lines that "No Kiwi could run any decent times for anything over 3 miles".

I really like your comment about the Heart

"However, if we have a healthy heart, we never actually run out of oxygen, no matter how hard we run".

Arthur really took that idea to 'Heart" (literally). He really pushed the idea that the longer running developed an efficient Cardiovascular system and that was the kwey to good running.

I look at myself now with a resting Heart rate of 48 and BP of 110/70. I recently turned 59 and can still run with my athletes.

Cheers

Kim,

About Murray's 6-mile race, did he compete against Percy's runners? What was the outcome, if he did?

Thanks!

Tinman

p.s. Please send me an email:

runfastcoach@gmail.com

It appears many great coaches seem to be eccentric or exhibit eccentric behavior, as well as being very motivating speakers.

Although I haven't read anything about Lydiard being eccentric, I read that he was compassionate and could motivate anyone, anytime with his motivated type of speaking.

So it sounds like, based on what you are saying, he was pushed instrinsincly to have his athlete do a workout by the words of a quazi madman in Cerutty. Ok so he was highly competitive.

...more to the point...

I wonder if it would be a good idea to do a translation of sorts, of Lydiard's meanings versus what was said.

My question is, if a well conditioned heart does not get anaerobic (without air according to wikipedia) then what do we become, when we have to stop to catch our breath?

Timan:

I thought the situation was that Cerutty said something like no Kiwi had broken 28 minutes for 6 miles and that pi$$ed Arthur off (knowing Halberg was well capable of doing so). Arthur talked about it in Run to the Top on the topic of warming-up--it was cold windy day and he had Halberg put olive oil on his legs to keep him warm. He did break 28 minutes but can't remember the exact time. By the way, thinks for sending me those pictures. Cute baby--I don't know about the guy with 5 o'clock shadow, though! ;o) Congrats...and how's life?

Wellnow:

That was a great post that you shared. Thank you. I'm the one who said that Arthur "knew just enough to be dangerous" (per Dr. Martin which I agree) on this board. In fact, way back in 1986, when I met with Dr. Dick Telford, he explained to me what his interpretation of Arthur's "anaerobic training". It was when Arthur came to the US in the 70s when he got "baptized" with terms like aerobic and anaerobic. He went back to NZ and started talking like that. (Kim should know this) And Bill Baillie said, "Coach, you mean, fast stuff and slow stuff?" I'm sure it was so much easier for Arthur to simply say "when you are running slow enough, that's aerobic; but if you start to run fast, that's anaerobic." I'm still intrigued with the effect of 50/50. So are you actually saying body's pH doesn't even change as you engage in some heavy "fast" running?

Wetcoast:

Seriously, after reading wellnow's comment, that really got me thinking... I think it may be safe to say what Arthur termed "anaerobic training" is oxygen debt training. I don't think anybody would argue (except for maybe Richard Gibbens) that, as the work load intensity goes up, the demand of oxygen sky-rockets. When it goes beyond our ability to exercise aerobically (or if this terminology is incorrect, maybe "when the demand of oxygen surpasses body's ability to take in, transport and utilize oxygen"), then you'll start to accumulate oxygen debt. I guess my question is--what happens to the body and what's happening inside the body when you get this debt?

Interestingly, over the years when I've been associated with some of the top Japanese marathon runenrs and coaches, I have hardly ever heard the term "anaerobic training". They talk about "aerobic base building" all the time; but they hardly see the training in terms of aerobic-anaerobic. I don't know if it's because they don't quite understand (as I) or they don't quite dive a damn; but certainly, not talking too deeply about it haven't hurt them much....in terms of marathon training. Now, as I've mentioned before, I'm bringing Peter Snell to Japan to have Lydiard/middle distance training lecture tour in March. I'm very much looking forward to it; not just to have these clinics; but also to learn about what THEY are doing with middle distance training. One thing I've noticed, again, is that they don't really talk about "anaerobic training" but they do a lot of it! Well, okay, not "anaerobic" training; but lots of oxygen debt type workouts throughout the year simply because they think "they need more speed". As we all know, Japanese middle distance, well, sucks.

Nobby is right. I wrote that off the top of my head. !!

Cerutty did say something along the ines that no Kiwi had broken 28 minutes for 6 miles and as he said that Pi$$ed Arthur off.

Where I knew about this was I was part of a conversation (Many,many years ago) where George Gibson and Ernie Haskell (RIP)plus some of the other old hands mentioned that when Arthur heard Cerutty make that statement (whch pi$$ed a lot of those guys off as well)they decided Murray should have a crack at that 28 minutes. George said that was quickly followed by a hard session on the track (400's if I recall correctly .. I maybe wrong). I am not sure whether they did another quick session or not.

The race was held at Manurewa (South Auckland .. John Walkers home town)on the grass track there.

It was a 10k Murray ran 28:48 after passing through 6 miles under 28 minutes.

As Nobby said conditions were not good. cold and windy.

I have run on that track and in those conditions it would have been a tough run as that track was quite exposed to the elements..

Old story: What would Murray have run in ideal conditions in a set up race ???

Tinman : there was none of the Cerutty crew in the race

Wellnow : Nobby's explanation of Arthur's interpretation of Aerobic/Anaerobic is right 'on the button'.

Thanks Kim,

I like that 50 yards fast 50 steady, funny you should mentions that, I was thinking about it last night, but I was thinking in metric, being more of a metric miler and all.

How did Arthur inspire Kiwis to take on the World, he must have been a bit of a hard nut to have that kind of vision and a very motivational speaker to have such an impact for so many years.

Cheers.

Thanks Nobby, I really appreciate that fact that I can push you so hard and you hold up to the pace, so every now and then I can be nice to you as a reward for you not cracking (but almost)

Yes the PH does go down when we run very fast, but we still remain mostly Aerobic, or rather, we go from mostly anaerobic to aerobic respiration. Tinman explains it much more elegantly than myself:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&id=284699&thread=283441

As I have stated on other threads, I don't agree with the notion of oxygen debt, another thing which Tinman explains on that thread. Thanks to him, I went to the source of the oxygen debt hypothesis, the great A.V. Hill and his writing in the 1920's here is a résumé of his life's work:

http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/93/5/1567

I believe that the main reason we get out of breath is heat stress, the build up of heat in our bodies during a race increases the effort required to maintain a given pace. At the end of a hard race, if you have run well, your core temperature is as high as it can go without making you ill.

Richard Gibbens has read some of the same sources as me, and he presents their work well enough. However, when he states that he believes that some of us can run 100+ miles per week because we have superior recovery, he fails to rationlize what any knowledgeable coach knows, that the reason we have superior recovery is of course because we run 100+ mpw.

Wellnow : you just hit on one of the great arguments of that rages in this this country. "Takng on the world"

Arthur did not have to motivate or inspire Kiwis to take on the world. The culture was there so to speak. Arthur just knew how to tap into it.

One argument: We are so small (4 million people)that we have an inferiority complex and want to prove we can take on the world in anything. ie We are big enough to play in your backyard.

Kiwis have always wanted to be the best and the country was founded on hard/physical work and a never give up attitude (sadly lacking these days in many quarters)

Arthur was one of those guys who displayed that attitude and toughnes and if he Coached a good athlete it wass to be the best in the World not the best in NZ. Having said that, he did take 'very ordinary' athletes to 'extraordinary' heights and many placed in national and regional Championships who normally would not be there.

Although he did not Coach me I put myself in that ordinary category. I am still running today at 59.

As I have said before in the thread. When I first met him it was when he took a class for me in my Graduate PE year.

The class was 21-22 people, at the end of the 90 minutes or so the place was filled to overflowing and everyone was inspired to get out and run.

Regarding the 'toughness" aspect. I tell a story quite often of my Freshman year at College in the US.

I had invited a girl to our Winter formal and had I had gone downtown to order a Corsage for the lady concerned at the local florist. However I had a huge problem explaining what I wanted to the lady in the shop, so much so she became slightly frustrated with me. Suddenly I heard a mans’ voice yell something from the back of the shop. I immediately thought I must have offended the lady somehow. Much to my surprise the man came running out and said “Are you from New Zealand.” I replied “Yes.”

He promptly swung around to the lady (his wife) and said “When these guys from New Zealand take a step forward in battle, they never take one backwards. This guy can have anything he wants and he has it for no charge.”

He then explained to both his wife and myself he had met New Zealanders in the North African Desert during the Second World War and held a high opinion of us as soldiers.

After further discussion on what I wanted and a profuse apology from the lady concerned I was given a very beautiful Corsage for no charge.

I left the shop somewhat bemused but very proud to be a New Zealander.

BTW: I never paid for flowers again !!!

That was not the first time I came across that attitude towards us.

Does that help?

Kim, that is very profound, but I hope I don't develop an inferiority complex just because I am not a Kiwi. Should I emigrate? would you guys want me in your beautiful country?

You have given me a lot to think about. I have tried very hard to motivate runners to believe in themselves, and I have found that in some cases it works, but in most cases, the less I say, the more effective my attitude is in motivating them.

The kids in my club are motivated, by a few words of encouragement, zero physiology talk and a positive attitude amongst the older runners like myself.

I like this talk you give about wanting to be the best in the World. It scares a lot of people, but it doesn't scare me, it inspires me. The can do attitude of people like Arthur is coming back. There is a lost generation in my country that has been beaten into submission, but the 10-20 year olds don't think like that today, they are inspired.