Lydiard Philosophy

Sorry Wellnow, Been bogged down with work.

Auckland is really not the runners paradise it once was. The club system has changed hugely over the last 25 years (Lynndale and Owairaka are but shells of their former selves).

NZ society has changed as have peoples sporting choices .. eg many who would have come to running 30 years ago .. now do triathlon.

Yes ! Cornwall Park and Auckland Domain are still awesome places to run and the main section of the famous Waiatarua (The Bush) Run has not changed massively. But the early sections are horrific .. one word .. TRAFFIC.

People wanting to run Waiatarua do so much earlier in the morning or they run other similar roads in the Waitakeres. They have to drive there to run.

I have not lived in Auckland fro 22 years and now I live in Rotorua (Jack Foster Country). The running scene here is unreal .. we just need more Runners !!!.

One of the last converstions I had with Arthur was along the lines of, if he had his time over again and could set up a place to have a training centre for running it would be Rotorua. We have hundreds (possibly into the thousands) of miles of Forest roads complete with great hills. really good natural surfaces.

In 2005 I took HRE and his son on one tiny section of those roads so he can verify.

The climate here in Rotorua is not as humid and of course we don't have the traffic problem.

To give you another Idea of the excellent roads (the normal ones !!) we have some of the best cyclists in the world living here.

Julian Dean .. Garmin Chippottle Team and Tour De France Rider and Sam Bewley .. Olympic Bronxze medallist in Team Pursuit, plus another young guy Clinton Avery a Pro Rider in Europe.

All these guys do all their "off season" work here. Exactly as Arthur would have done !!

As for your other comment about being influnced and the atmosphere around Snell, Halberg and Magee ... Unfortunately .. by the time I got to Auckland as an 18 year old .. those guys had "retired" although Barry was still running and Arthur was away overseas... the bubble had burst.

But as a Kid ... we fed off all the successes they had ..I can still hear the commentary on the radio of Snells *00 and 1500 in Tokyo as though it was yesterday .. No live TV coverage here back then !!!

Wellnow: How come you're likeable on this thread? Are you in love or something?

I cannot wait to wade thru the rest of this thread and see what happens.....sigh.....

troll alert wrote:

weIInow wrote:

In a nutshell, my opinion of Lydiard Philosophy is that most runners can, through proper training become awesomely competitive, and that there is no limit to how well trained we can be in endurance capacity.

This phiolosopy is what marks Lydiard out as a unique figure in athletic coaching because it is an unusual concept. Most coaches place immaginary limits on what they think the average runner can achieve. They have a lack of vision.

Discuss.

Has somebody stolen wellnow´s name?

1. This goes against everything wellnow claims (aerobic capacity can be maximized in only 8 weeks).

2. Several words are misspelled. Wellnow rarely does that.

3. Wellnow never ends his post with "discuss".

HRE wrote:

PS. I did get the "discuss" reference.

Me too!

PS: You don't "get" much though. You embarrassed yourself on the other thread, and hopefully you won't do the same here. And yes, I'm still angry.

NobbyH wrote:

Now here's a bit more civilized and intelligent "discussion"!

Yeah....so far so good on page 1. You and/or your friends haven't made any false accusations/slander yet.

weIInow wrote:

In my observation, the best runners definitely are the ones who believe in themselves the most. Would it be true to say that that was Lydiard's belief too?

Yes. I think he did. And I think one of the reasons he believed in himself and his runners was that he was sure they were better prepared than anyone else was.

I also know that the Rome Olympics had a big effect on his belief on himself and his system. He told me once that despite telling himself and everyone else that he'd created a very effective system he did have doubts. (Back to the difference between telling yourself that you believe something and actually believing the thing perhaps?) But the successes at Rome erased any doubts.

I know that Arthur drove Jack Foster to the stadium prior to the 1974 Commonwealth Games marathon and wrote something about the real value of a coach like Arthur was that he made you feel like there was no one else in the race as good as you were.

Wellnow:

I was asked to do this translation right now--it's basically about spiritual healing (it's 120 pages!). It's rather timely, I was working on the section where they were saying about how today's modern medicine only talk about things that are measureable, quantifiable and reserachable (if there's such word). If they can't explain things scientifically, they dismiss it.

This summer, we invited Lorraine Moller to work on some of the athletes from Mitsui-Sumitomo in Flagstaff. She (Lorraine) does what they call Dawson method. Basic idea is; we all have the ability to cure illness/injury within us. We just don't know how to get that out. She basically cured my 7-year-long Achilles problem. She also worked on HRE's knee as well. Now Mitsui-Sumitomo swears by it that they brought 2 other girls to her when we were in Tokyo in September for a seminar.

I'm glad you started this thread because I feel we talk too much today about physiology and not talk enough about the power of inner self. When it comes down to it, even premier exercise physiologist, Dave Martin, said: "It's not just bones and muscles that run; it's the heart and soul that runs."

Thanks Kim, grat post. Right now I am enjoying a beautiful Autumn here in England, and every time the light changes I wish I had a camera.

But soon the long nights of Winter will be upon us and I will be wishing I was somewhere much further south. Rotorua sounds perfect. I love running in forests, but we only have a few trails through the woods here and there. Maybe I should re-locate to NZ. I hear that immigration to your country is very strict, would they have me? What if I showed them this thread?

Thanks HRE, I was hoping you would say something like that because I feel the same way, and it's the reason why I post so much on Lydiard threads, even if my posts often seem controvesial, the philosophy is what is so important to me.

Thanks Nobby. I am trying to find the right words to say what I feel about this subject. Maybe in a few days, I will be able to put my thoughts into words.

One of Arthur Lydiard's most important messages was that sometimes you don't need to train hard, just keep things ticking over. That is how I feel right now, I'm starting to get somwhere after months of hard work, and now I can race well and recover quickly. I wish I could get this mesage across to my club mates, I think they are addicted to regular hard running and don't know any other way.

That addiction to regular hard running seemed to me so much a part of the character of British runners that I knew decades ago. It was as if every run was an opportunity to prove your character and toughness. I don't know if that's changed over the decades or not. Looks like it's still around.

weIInow wrote:

One of Arthur Lydiard's most important messages was that sometimes you don't need to train hard, just keep things ticking over. That is how I feel right now, I'm starting to get somwhere after months of hard work, and now I can race well and recover quickly. I wish I could get this mesage across to my club mates, I think they are addicted to regular hard running and don't know any other way.

Athletes are always worried before the competition. It's like pulling a plant out of the pot to make sure it's "rooting". Of course, it is; and by doing so, you're most likely to kill it. Arthur sometimes the term "homework" by saying, "You've done your homework now (you don't need to kill yourself trying to prove yourself any further...)" And he also always said; "You can't train hard and race well at the same time." Having a coach like Arthur means to have someone on the side, telling you; "Wow, you're doing great! Now knock off that workout (of 400 repeats) with 5 instead of 20. You're looking like a million dollars..." I think Pat Clohessy put it in terms of "relaxation". If you know you've done the work, you can knock off the hard work and relax.

Years ago, Atsushi Fujita attempted a come-back run at Fukuoka. He sank to something like 9th place (in 2:10). Later it was revealed that he did the PR 30k run 2 weeks before and thought he was better shape than when he ran 2:06. I had a talk with Yoko Shibui's coach about this. I said I would have stopped him after 15k. I think I posted this somewhere else and I was criticised that 30k 2 weeks before is pretty standard. But the thing is; how fast. I should have either been shorter and fast; or 30k and more solid pace (no faster). In retrospect, THAT was his race. I think Seko said something like if he knew his conditioning is coming up and sharpening before the final time trial, he might throw some long jog of 40k or something before (the final TT) to leave him with heavy feeling (so he won't blast off). That's a typical Lydiard; checking how your speed is coming back and play around with stamina-sharpening work. It's not just simply following the schedule. Now I've digressed a little...

Wellnow, Depends what you do job wise if you want to come out to NZ. Crazy postings on websites is OK.. we only have to look at our politicians for crazy !!

The Brit "hard running" I thought had disappeared long ago.

just an aside but relevant.. an old mate of mine Chris Pilone (ex Lynndale like me) Coaches a young Brit (Nicki Hamblin) who emigrated out here.... Coached her "Kiwi Style" and she ran a World Champs qualifier after just running Hills and "Effort( Tempo) Runs".

She made the Final in Berlin.

But point here is to show that you don't need tp pound the work on the track to get an athlete to run fast.

2 years ago I had a young guy recovering from injury, we ran easy runs, hills and a few "Effort' runs .. ie 2.5 km in 10 mins .. He came straight out and ran 50.4 over 400.

9 months earlier he ran a half marathon on a Sunday in 1:33 in our forest .. HILLS and then on the next Saturday won the Provicial Secondary School 800m in 1:58 (Windy condtions) beating a guy who had run 1:52 and then he came back later in the day with a 50.9 400.

HRE wrote:

That addiction to regular hard running seemed to me so much a part of the character of British runners that I knew decades ago. It was as if every run was an opportunity to prove your character and toughness. I don't know if that's changed over the decades or not. Looks like it's still around.

Yes, it's a common trait amongst many in all forms of training and sport. I think that in running, many runners don't realize how good they could be if they changed their habits. Maybe they don't want to change?

Nobby I'm interested in Seko's training. I think he was the influence behind my best Marathon training. I think what Wanjiru is doing is a combination of the best ideas of Seko and co. and the shorter sharper stuff, so that he is covering every pace, but with plenty of easy days, so that he really peaks at the right time. It takes a lot of confidence to do this. Wanjiru is very special in the way that he thinks about his training, which is radically different from most other Marathon runners.

Wellnow:

If you haven't seen it, I posted a thing or two about Seko's training on our website (http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/Forum/ForumTopic.aspx?TopicID=128). I can say, with good confidence, there's nowhere else talks about "real" Seko's training in English site.

Wanjiru is truly special and interesting. He was at first coached by Morishita who is Soh brothers school; then now by Claudio who is Rosa school. When you talk about the mind-set of an athlete; here's an interesting insight; with the exception of Ndereba on women's side, the ONLY Kenyans who had ever won the Olympic medals had ALL been trained in Japan (and theie names all start with "W"! ;o)).

PS: Here's trying to make it easier (I think...)

http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/Forum/ForumTopic.aspx?TopicID=128

weIInow wrote:

Right now I am enjoying a beautiful Autumn here in England, and every time the light changes I wish I had a camera.

Wellnow:

Also, here are some photos of mine that I just recently posted on flickr website. You might enjoy them. ;o)

Thanks Nobby, reading through all that, will post more later.