Would Dixon have won a medal in 76 if he had done hill bounding?

Barry's schedules worked beautifully for the high school kids. I would send Barry the race schedule with the mid week league races and the Saturday invitational races. He built the schedule around the races. It seemed as though the kids did not have a dip in performance and ran their best races at the state championship.

I wish I had Barry as a coach when I was young. I made a lot of training errors mostly by trying too hard.

Again no evidence that Viren was doping. Besides there is also no evidence that Shorter, Walker, or Quax were NOT doping. There was no OOC testing in that era, and steroids were used widely in the 70s by US athletes (Bruce Jenner etc ..). Why should they not be doping?

Accusing or bashing others while cheating yourself has gone on forever.

Look at the British cyclists such as Wiggins who were bashing Armstrong while they themselves were being administered high dose steroid injections (among other things) during their TdF races.

Walkerton wrote:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

This sounds more like what I had heard.

The problem was related to his lower back muscles swelling as they warmed up which resulted in the blood vessels to his legs getting pinched off.

It did resolve years later ( maybe due to muscle atrophy with age or less manual labor?)

He did have compartment surgery initially but that failed to resolve the issue.

His training basically was half an hour hard up to three times a day.

Later he was able to return to his conventional training and while he felt disappointed that it didn't make him much faster than he was on more limited training he did actually run his mile PR during this period.

There was also reports Walker & Jelley experimented with aqua-jogging in a life-buoy or an inflatable donut/tyre. What ever routine they worked out Dixon also claimed it was beneficial.

The interesting thing to note about Walker is that with all his problems from 1977 on, he started to sort things out by 1980 (2 x 3:33s), 1981 (3 x 3:50s), 1982 (2 x 3:49 & 1 x 3:50), 1983 (1 x 3:49 & 1 x 3:51), 1984 (1 x 3:49, 1 x 3:50). Up until the end of 1984 Walker ran sub 3:50 six times and five came after his problems and @ over the age of thirty.

Even in High School we just looked at that hill training schedule and said: "No F'n Way!" Of course, we hadn't been been doing 60 mils/week, much less 100.Lydiard as he was back then seemed not "scalable". He didn't seem to "get" how less-talented athletes had to train.

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:

I got coaching from Barry as well ( by email). He was cautious about the bounding/ springing but said to go ahead if I was healthy and responding well to it.

I think Barry is a great coach. I had him write the training schedules for the high school team I was coaching in Washington State. Within two years there were two state champions.

When I was a kid growing up in British Columbia, I attended a rural high school with no coaching available. This was in the mid 70's and there was an ad in the back of Runners World for coaching by Arthur Lydiard and I sent a money order for coaching. I remember the typed schedules (with typos). I practically killed myself trying to bound up a half mile hill 6 days a week for 4 weeks.

HRE wrote:

On the other hand, when I started getting advice from Barry Magee he told me NOT to do hill springing or bounding but just to run up the hills normally.

Barry Magee, was really wise on training. He would always analyse what others were doing and then incorporate it into a streamlined Lydiard model. I read once that he said he was discussing training with De Castella who told Magee that he did alot of his training on the local horse racing track for injury prevention, Magee claimed that he wished now that he had of done something similar instead of running so many miles on roads with Lydiard. Magee coached Mike Ryan, who having never run at altitude before, got a bronze in the 1968 marathon. This feat gets totally ignored within running circles but it is truely remarkable.

Ankle flexing is perhaps the one thing Lydiard and Peter Coe would have agreed on.

Last night I looked at what Lydiard had to say on hill springing and is it just me or does he more recommend a triangular loop circuit where you bound/spring/run up a hill, jog across the top and then stride fast down hill to get used to race pace and the stitch, before repeating again. He also claimed he got athletes to do lots of hill sprints. Lydiard also claimed that he got his athletes to do so many hill days, then they would alternate with a week of speed just for a mental refresher.

They did a hill circuit that essentially was a run around a long block. They'd spring or bound up an uphill street, hang a left and do some strides along the top of the hill until they came to another street, hang a left and go down it, hang another left and do some strides until they got back to where they started the previous rep. Keith Livingstone has a diagram of it in "Healthy, Intelligent, Training."

But I think you're confusing your Ryans. Barry coached Kevin Ryan who managed a 2:11. I've never seen anything about him coaching Mike.

Coin Flip wrote:

Even in High School we just looked at that hill training schedule and said: "No F'n Way!" Of course, we hadn't been been doing 60 mils/week, much less 100.

Lydiard as he was back then seemed not "scalable". He didn't seem to "get" how less-talented athletes had to train.

Lydiard was coaching cardiac patients as early as the early 60s. Many of them went on to run marathons in times that would put them well into the top half of the finishers in modern marathons. How is that not getting how less talented athletes "had" to train?

HRE wrote:

They did a hill circuit that essentially was a run around a long block. They'd spring or bound up an uphill street, hang a left and do some strides along the top of the hill until they came to another street, hang a left and go down it, hang another left and do some strides until they got back to where they started the previous rep. Keith Livingstone has a diagram of it in "Healthy, Intelligent, Training."

But I think you're confusing your Ryans. Barry coached Kevin Ryan who managed a 2:11. I've never seen anything about him coaching Mike.

My mistake, no it was Davies that coached him. Nonetheless, Magee was always that sensible guy in the room for all things running related though, I know runners that would just phone him and ask him questions. Ryan's performance though is still remarkable given the 'deemed' underperformance of Clarke, Clayton and Ryun in Mexico City.

Bounding on a street, ouch, they would be sore the next day.

My understanding is that Lydiard didn't want to put schedules in his book but the publisher insisted. His personal coaching wasn't so inflexible except the aerobic base.

By my last year in high school I was getting up to 100 miles a week almost all on grass and dirt roads. No injuries. Went to college where they did a lot of intense intervals. Had a great first year then a downward spiral for the next 3.

I was pretty indestructible in my younger years but I always had Achilles troubles when I tried either one. I know Arthur regarded those things as ways to transition from distance work to track work without injuries but that didn't seem to work for me. Barry must have worked out that others had difficulties as well.

Here's a piece on Mike Ryan. I know I've read that he adopted Lydaird's stuff. Joe Henderson profiles his training in the original "How Road Racers Train" but I don't recognize coaches he lists there.

http://www.scottishdistancerunninghistory.scot/mike-ryan/

Thanks. For me, best book based on his principles was one by Marty Liquori in the late '70's/early 80's. It was well-written and had a lot of adjustments for lower-mid-range runners. I ran some of my lifetime PRs off that one.

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:

My understanding is that Lydiard didn't want to put schedules in his book but the publisher insisted. His personal coaching wasn't so inflexible except the aerobic base.

By my last year in high school I was getting up to 100 miles a week almost all on grass and dirt roads. No injuries. Went to college where they did a lot of intense intervals. Had a great first year then a downward spiral for the next 3.

I appreciated Liquori's book too. It helped to understand Lydiard. Wish I had took the Lydiard line, "when you're feeling tired or jaded, run slow, so slow that old ladies with their handbags are passing you" to heart.

Interesting link,

funnily enough I would always have achilles trouble if I didn't do a hill phase. I had been trying to get back in shape over the last two or three years but my hamstrings kept going on me. I concluded that a lack of hill work may the reason (I live on the flat). Anyhow, the transition from base to speed is always a problem. The idea of the loop circuit is interesting because I would do a 1.1 mile loop in racing season and it is a killer, 3 laps and you are sore for a week afterwards (if out of shape). Anyhow, the guy that showed me it claimed the guy who showed him it (it is located in an obscure place) also showed it to Davies, Quax and Moller back in the mid-1970s and were impressed by it, using it often. I never knew that type of course was what Lydiard actually had in mind for the hill phase I would always do 200m reps up a hill and some bounding. Last Wednesday, trying to avoid quad soreness, I did 5 x 670m in the roasting sun up quite a rise (I had hoped to do more but it was quite exhausting) and the next day I woke up and my hamstring was gone again.

Anyhow, that steady state stuff Robbie Johnston said 6, 8, 12 laps. Did Walker do all of these or just one e.g. an 8 lap time trial/race pace conditioning?

I don't know anything about what Johnson and Walker did than what's in that post.

I actually am a huge fan of hill running. The last time I managed to get under 3:00 for the marathon all I did in terms of rep work were repeats on a gradual 1,000 (or so) yard hill. We only have gradual hills here. I never had any ailments from running hills as long as it was regular running and not bounding or springing.

For hamstring trouble, the best remedy for myself was running stairs or hill springing, not bounding. When the energy was almost completely vertical with almost no lower leg extension, then the hamstring didn't get further irritated and more release.

a pain in the weltschmerz wrote:

For hamstring trouble, the best remedy for myself was running stairs or hill springing, not bounding. When the energy was almost completely vertical with almost no lower leg extension, then the hamstring didn't get further irritated and more release.

Steps do strengthen your legs without using your hamstrings, so you are correct. But coming down the steps again does wear my knees, so I have been trying to avoid them. Using the lift/elevator in a tall building may help but I no longer have access to one. I have found over the last few years steps have re-aggravated my old Osgood schlatters knee problem. The other problem with steps is that it cuts your mileage down so I always over do it and are sore the next day, further reducing milege. I do love tall building races.

People like you need to leave the planet.

Viren was an incredible runner who never cheated- can you say the same about yourself?

Probably not.

Go away and keep your stupid thoughts to yourself.

New Zealand marathoners

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7ZMDg6Q8zs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ecd4AkCCU

behonest wrote:

People like you need to leave the planet.

Viren was an incredible runner who never cheated- can you say the same about yourself?

Probably not.

Go away and keep your stupid thoughts to yourself.

Finns were dominant in 1970's (not just Viren). Why have they declined?