LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Uhh wrote:

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But the answer is not to give them 3.5 -4 hrs runs. I've watched lots of these runners following training plans where they're building up to the Magic20 mile run because that's what Lydiard's elites did. And what happens is they break their bodies down. They get demotivated. They begin to dread the next Sunday long run, so they stop running during the week to conserve their energy for it. Then on race day, they run five hours and end up having to walk sections of it anyway.

Hanson's Marathon Method has a whole section on Long Runs and comparing recommendations of different coaches. Their view is to build Cumulative Fatigue through the week so that a Sunday long run of 16 miles is simulating the last miles of the marathon, not the fresh legged opening miles.

The reason they crash and burn trying to hit those 20 milers in training is Becca use they try to run them too fast. Most of those people are running maybe 2-3 x per week and then they get to the Sunday long run with fresh legs. I agree with cumulative fatigue but if you discipline these runners to run consistently and slow down they will be able to handle those extra long distance runs.

Uhh wrote:

wang xu wrote:Take the 4:30 marathoners that I see who are training 55mpw. Their race pace is 10:20/mile.

I missed this line.

If they're doing 55mpw and only running that fast there is something seriously wrong with their training plans.

Disagree. Maybe you haven’t been around too many of these runners to know. Even with the most optimal training (speed, high mileage, consistency, etc...) they will never be as fast as we think they should be able to run.

Uhhh wrote:

wang xu wrote:I’d argue that these 4.5 hour runner marathoners need to train by distance, not by time.

At the very least (if not 100mpw schedule) give them 3-4 hour long runs for crying out loud.

Do you see the conflict in these two statements?

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Question for you to think seriously about before you answer ...

What distance do you think a 4hr30 marathonner should be building up to in training?

What's this based on? (i.e. why do you say that distance is important?)

(Suggested possible answers to research - Hanson say 16-miles, Europeans say 18.6miles (30K), Imperialists say 20, Lydiard's guy did 22-mile runs. Or maybe you need to do the full 26.2 or even go overdistance to 30?)

How far or how long go hand in hand. I am arguing that it should definitely be more than 2.5 hours for these slower runners or the equivalent 13 or so miles that they would cover. I’m saying at least 20 miles (I like Lydiard’s 22 mile distance) which would mean more along the lines of a 4 hour long run at a slow pace. Again, it had to be nice and easy to lower the overall stress.

Leaving out the Igloi Method homie... smh

Arthur was far from dismissive of slower runners. In many ways he preferred working with them to working with world class runners. He found them generally more appreciative. He was never dismissive of anyone who sincerely wanted to race faster. So he had "beginner's schedules" and considered anyone who hadn't run better than 2:45 a beginner.

Some of those schedules had even LESS mileage and shorter long runs than the schedules most people associate with him had. I've seen schedules where the longest runs are 90 minutes. You need to balance all the elements of training to get your best results and faster paced running is part of that balance just as increased volume is. Running at 11-12 minutes per mile is fine for really new runners or really older ones but it's limiting the runners in your club unless they fall into something like those two categories. They pretty much HAVE to run that slowly if they're going to be out there for four hours and that kind of pace is limiting their results.

There's a lot that I've read over the years about what you need to do when you're coaching slow runners. Obviously you need to make some adaptions to what you do with such people, as is the case for anyone, but the same principles apply to them as to faster people and one of those principles is balancing volume and "speed." When you start basing their training on the idea that you have to train them specifically as slow runners you're likely setting them up to remain slow. My first marathon took 4:34. In half a year I got it to 3:29 and I never ran longer than two hours in the process of getting there. But I did not train with the idea that I was a slow runner and needed to train specifically like one. I trained like someone who wanted to get a lot faster.

You think you're right on this and that's your business. But if you are thinking that the reason you know more about coaching slower runners than Arthur did because he was dismissive of them you could not be wrong. He put considerable thought into how to help them be less slow and they mattered to him as much as any other runners did.

Igloi

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10024825

HRE,

I’m not trying to be hostile towards you or Lydiard. I just think that we need to revisit this idea. Remember that Seko (Lydiard-inspired) did many 4+ hour / 30 + mile runs and that’s just the first runner who popped into my head. I definitely think there is a place for running ultra long distances and putting a lot of time on your feet if you want to run a good marathon. I don’t disagree that these runners should be working on their speed too and over time those 11-12 minute miles will become 9-10 minute miles.

What I disagree with however is that everyone who starts out running a 4:30 marathon (like you) and trains intelligently can hope to run a 2:35 marathon someday! Much less on 10 hours of running per week. Talent is talent.

So my point is we need to HELP these less talented runners maximize their performance in the marathon by giving them more mileage or at least a longer weekly run that builds up to 22 miles. within a cycle. The beginner schedules leave people in the 4 + hr category undertrained.

I don't feel any hostility. I just think there are better ways to get from over 4:00 to under it than doing regular four hour runs. Yes, you can find plenty of examples of people doing runs at and beyond the marathon distance. Some of Lydiard's guys raced at 40 miles. Seko did some incredibly long runs. We had a guy in our club who ran the London to Brighton one year and said it helped his marathon running a lot because the marathon no longer seemed like a long distance.

But these are all experienced and pretty fast runners and those runs were occasional if not one off performances. If you want to send a 4 plus hour marathon runner off for a four hour run to feel what it's like to run for that long a time, fine. It might even be useful to have them enter an ultra to get the experience of a marathon not feeling quite so far. But for week in and week out training you'd do better by taking 90 minutes off of that four hour run and redistributing it the other six days.

Ok so now we’re getting closer to some middle ground here. If we can agree that doing occasional 4+ hour runs can be beneficial I’m satisfied with that.

These are distances you work up to. No beginner should ( in their right mind) try running 4 hours on week 1 and repeat that week in and week out. Build the volume up over time and if you go over 10 hours so be it. I dislike the 10-hour rule for that reason.

If your marathon pace is 10:20/mile this year....you don’t have to wait until your baseline fitness improves to run longer. It will naturally come down on its own as you add more volume, steady-paced running, and track work.

The real issue is that we have many people selecting the marathon as their primary race distance who would be better served concentrating on their speed for a year or 2 but alas arguing that is a lost cause among today’s bucket list generation. As a coach you have to help people reach their goal even if you think that goal distance is not ideal for them.

I don't believe there is a 10 hour rule. If you followed the "time" schedule in Lydiard's later books you would do about ten hours but there was no rule, no prohibition against running more, nor one requiring that much. His "beginner's" schedules had much less running than that. When I went from 4:34 to 3:29 I was probably doing a half hour either way of eight hours a week.

Your last paragraph is bang on the money. When I made that improvement I was running in college and racing regularly at one to six miles. The marathon was just another race. Many of today's marathon runners aren't looking to do anything more than run marathons and don't want to spend a year or two not running them while they get faster overall. And yes, I'm okay with sticking a rare really, really, long run into their preparation but overall I think they're better served by keeping the long runs to a couple hours or so and having those runs cover more miles as time goes on because they're getting fitter and running faster in that time.

Ron Hill's wife ran 4:18 gun time, 4:11 in what would now be called chip time, it was before there were chips, at London. She'd have been in her mid to late forties with no previous athletic experience of any kind. He told me her biggest week was eighteen and half miles and her longest single run was eight and half miles. And I cannot believe this thread is up and kicking again.

HRE wrote:

I don't believe there is a 10 hour rule. If you followed the "time" schedule in Lydiard's later books you would do about ten hours but there was no rule, no prohibition against running more, nor one requiring that much. His "beginner's" schedules had much less running than that. When I went from 4:34 to 3:29 I was probably doing a half hour either way of eight hours a week.

I always heard 10 hours . Good to know that Lydiard would not object to someone going for more than 10 hours per week so long as they were doing more than just mucking around or jogging. I don't think dropping your pace naturally over time and running big volume are mutually exclusive. The key is to make sure you are recovering. There is a place for very long/slow runs and a place for longer tempos. I just finished looking at the marathon beginner's schedule in Running with Lydiard and he doesn't prescribe any time trials beyond 10K in the last 12 weeks leading up to race day! I don't know if that is adequate half marathon training not to mention marathon training.

wang su wrote:

HRE wrote:

I don't believe there is a 10 hour rule.

I always heard 10 hours .

On page 82 of Keith Livingstone's "Healthy Intelligent Training" he states that Lydiard moved from prescribing 100mile weeks to 10hr weeks when an older lady came in and said that she'd done 108 miles that week. When asked she said it had taken 20 hours to complete!

This is a book endorsed by the Lydiard Foundation and Keith was one of his runners.

Uhhh wrote:

wang su wrote:

I always heard 10 hours .

On page 82 of Keith Livingstone's "Healthy Intelligent Training" he states that Lydiard moved from prescribing 100mile weeks to 10hr weeks when an older lady came in and said that she'd done 108 miles that week. When asked she said it had taken 20 hours to complete!

This is a book endorsed by the Lydiard Foundation and Keith was one of his runners.

Very close. Keith's coach was Barry Magee who has been called "More Lydiard than Lydiard."

Ron Daws, the author of Self-made Olympian - a Lydiard guy and someone else of whom I forget the name of at this moment came to the conclusion that your average male who puts in the training, probably 10 years/10,000-like scenario can run about 2:30.

I tend to agree. 2:30 is fast when you look at the spectrum of times in most marathons sub-2:10 to 8:00 (or 6 or 7 hours).

But the difference between sub-2:10 and 2:30-ish can be a massive chasm, depending. I personally think a healthy young, well-trained male running 2:30 is much closer to the 3:00 mark than the sub-2:10 mark physiologically speaking.

I have seen men and women, that I have observed, coached, or heard of who have run nothing over two hours on the roads for a long run and bang off something respectful like 2:30-ish or for women sub-2:50. And I have seen some jumps in performance for people running new higher volumes and long runs of 30 miles or unique long run days, like cycle 10K to start, run 25 miles, pool run for an hour, cycle back 10K to home and get on with their day mowing the lawn and repairing the fence, go for a good walk after dinner.

I think some bodies are not built for fast marathons. I have the humbling experience of training with people who asked me a lot about Lydiard and happy to impart, I became sort of their coach/advisor. Every single one of them started out as a newb and I was the experienced guy and all of them ended up being faster than me.

I love distance running and did it, but I believe I was built for 400/800m.

Anyway, I always tell people the Lydiard line, "champions are everywhere, they just need to be trained properly." And then go on to suggest that you may have a champion inside you, but because you have never trained, you just don't know it and from your current perspective find that difficult to believe. I can't tell how many smokers, drug-addicted, obese or simply sedentary people get hooked on running and become yet another person who says, "I wish I discovered running when I was young," because they know they would have made a varsity team, or national team or been sub-elite sort of thing.....

Not sure how this fits into the current exchange, but I think 4:30 may only become 4:00 and they may be excited by that, gunning for 3:59 and 4:30 could become 2:30....all 4:30s (sort of speak) should be encouraged to run if they like it.

wang xu wrote:

Uhh wrote:

I missed this line.

If they're doing 55mpw and only running that fast there is something seriously wrong with their training plans.

Disagree. Maybe you haven’t been around too many of these runners to know. Even with the most optimal training (speed, high mileage, consistency, etc...) they will never be as fast as we think they should be able to run.

Do they happen to be older women? 4:30 on 55mpw makes perfect sense if she is a woman in her 50s. And if that's the case, she is a totally different runner from a man under 40 who runs 4:30 on much lower mileage.

I’m intrigued by the notion that regardless of how fast you are 10 hours per week may be the optimum amount of training. Something like this in the conditioning phase for example at a strong aerobic effort

Monday- 60 min

Tuesday - 90 min

Wednesday- 60 min

Thursday- 90 min

Friday- 60 min

Saturday- 2-3 hours

Sunday - 60 min

It’s a very similar distribution to what Arthur’s elite runners did in terms of effort over duration

Maybe the key training effect is not mileage-based but I can see how this prejudices slower marathoners especially in the earlier part of their careers

In the 97/98 book Lydiard says you can have beginners increase the length of their long run up to the time they will be out there running the marathon. The language is clear.

Lydiard’s point was that 160km a week or the equivalent 10 hrs it might take someone who is slower is the MAX of steady running you should do. He spent many years doing more and doing less to reach this conclusion. The amount of jogging you can do to supplement this has no limit however, as much as you can handle it until you see no return.

Leigh Daniels. definitely. younger, more energetic.

Well said!

Coming to this thread 15 years later I have the benefit of some hindsight.

I've been an avid 'recreational' runner with some street racing experience who's experimented with all training styles. What I've learned to do finally, after about 35 years of continuous running, is to put together just for myself a running schedule that incorporates the training components that work for me.

And what works for me is a long period of base running (with some hills, fartlek, easy tempo runs) followed by a smooth transition to more race-ready efforts (like reps, VO2max intervals, etc). Even if I don't race at the end, finishing that sort of cycle is very satisfying.