Lydiard Almost Got it PERFECT! (by John Kellogg)

That's great, Optional. Thanks! Bookmarked.....

That's weird. Barry Magee actually coached me for a year or so and said it was BOUNDING up the hills, not just running up them that mattered. So, different advice, but for two different athletes.

I've got more to reply later to Canova as I believe he is fundamentally wrong about Lydiard...I would say that the Canova fundamental period and Lydiard's marathon conditioning period are very similar.

Well, maybe it was just me that got the "bounding" exemption.

The thing that seems to be missing from Lydiard is long intervals. 1000s, 1200s, miles, 2000s, etc., repeats with short rest. I believe that's the biggest change in modern programs and is the main reason why 13:40 is no longer a world-class time for the 5000. It was a world-class time in Lydiard's day.

Even Bannister did 3 x 1.5 miles in 7 minutes, not sure what recovery period he used.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

The thing that seems to be missing from Lydiard is long intervals. 1000s, 1200s, miles, 2000s, etc., repeats with short rest. I believe that's the biggest change in modern programs and is the main reason why 13:40 is no longer a world-class time for the 5000. It was a world-class time in Lydiard's day.

Even Bannister did 3 x 1.5 miles in 7 minutes, not sure what recovery period he used.

if you look at his Race Week/non-Race Week schedule you'll find them. I don't think there were many long reps in his original schedules but I don't recall many of us doing long reps in the 60s and early 70s. By the late 70s I knew more people doing that sort of thing. But it's certainly the sort of adjustment that can be made.

HRE wrote:

SlowFatMaster wrote:

The thing that seems to be missing from Lydiard is long intervals. 1000s, 1200s, miles, 2000s, etc., repeats with short rest. I believe that's the biggest change in modern programs and is the main reason why 13:40 is no longer a world-class time for the 5000. It was a world-class time in Lydiard's day.

Even Bannister did 3 x 1.5 miles in 7 minutes, not sure what recovery period he used.

if you look at his Race Week/non-Race Week schedule you'll find them. I don't think there were many long reps in his original schedules but I don't recall many of us doing long reps in the 60s and early 70s. By the late 70s I knew more people doing that sort of thing. But it's certainly the sort of adjustment that can be made.

I also think that a lot of people, including Canova, are forgetting that training evolves. Lydiard 'started' this, it doesn't mean that it was the dead-end to it all.

Hi HRE:

I found "1500 x 3 or 800 x 6" in the non-race week cross country schedule, but no suggested pace or rest interval. For a 13:00 5000 guy there's a big difference between 1000 repeats under 2:30 with 6+ minutes rest (like Moorcroft did) or running them in, say, 2:48 with a 40 second to 2 minute jog.

My contention is most modern programs are doing something like the 1000 repeats in 2:48 with a short jog pretty early in base phase. I don't see that combination of long repeat/short jog interval in Lydiard, but maybe it's there and I'm not looking in the right place. The exception might be the 800 repeats mentioned below.

I also found suggested workouts by Lydiard like 5 x 1000 but no suggested pace. Lydiard did say jog equal distance recoveries. In the stuff on Bob Hodge/Hodgie-San's site, there are some sample workouts in late June/early July getting ready for a September race of 3000m. The workouts are 3 x mile in 5:20 with 800 jog, 5 x 1000 in 3:15 with a 600 jog, and 6 x 800 in 2:30 with a 400 jog. Obviously that's not jogging equal distance recoveries. The 400 jog between the 800s could be around 2 minutes or even faster, but 800 is on the short end of "long repeats" in my view.

That's weird. Barry Magee actually coached me for a year or so and said it was BOUNDING up the hills, not just running up them that mattered. So, different advice, but for two different athletes.

I've got more to reply later to Canova as I believe he is fundamentally wrong about Lydiard...I would say that the Canova fundamental period and Lydiard's marathon conditioning period are very similar.[/quote

Ali McMurran coached Dick Tayler and never got deserved credit. Tayler was way on the upswing by the time Lydiard arrived late. Unofficial advisory capacity. Read Golds Aren't Easy.

As you probably know, Arthur was not big at all on specific paces for reps of any length. Time trials were where he got a bit more specific, but you probably have seen the quote about "I do 440s, you do 220s, another guy does 880s, it's a lot of eyewash" and he thought that as long as you created oxygen debt it didn't matter much how you did it. That certainly is out of step with a ;lot of modern coaching but I have seen no evidence that either way is demonstrably better. I think it's an athlete by athlete thing. The length of the recovery depended on what you were looking to do with the session and it's where actual coaching would have come into play. Hodgie-san did a lot of his reps with Bill Squires who was generally, from what I recall of a couple conversations with him, more of a believer in short recoveries than Arthur was. A lot of what people now do with long reps and short recoveries was stuff Lydiard did with his Steady State Runs.

Thanks HRE, great stuff!

Thanks. I was thinking about this a little more specifically and remembered Barry telling me that they sometimes did a ten mile run where they went "out" in 30 minutes and came "back" in 26. If you talk to the Lydiard Foundation people about this they'll tell you that a run like that might be too hard for some people and that they'd do something like 5 x 1 mile in 5:10-5:15 with maybe a quarter mile jog between reps and get the same effect. That would be more along the lines of what Bill Squires would do but you'd get a very similar response.

Curious why Lydiard didn't produce better results in the marathon? I never understood this or am I missing others except Magee? Do you think his idea of aerobic running was still too fast? I say this in comparison to Shorter aerobic paces.

You're missing Paul Ballinger and his 2:10:15.

Some context needs to be added to the era of Snell, Ryun, Mills, etc. Those guys primarily ran on cinder tracks with very long spikes made of leather. What would those time equate to today on an engineered for speed mondo track with synthetic spikes weighing much less? Given their abilities of that time (no training change), drop them into any race today and they would still be very competitive. Ryun 3:51.1 mile on cinder, no rabbit, won by a lot Snell 1:44.3 800 and 3:54 mile on grass, no rabbit, won by a lot Mills 28:24 on mud in Tokyo (this might as well have been a cross country race), no rabbit

Renato Canova wrote:

I think that Peter Snell, if athlete of the present days, in the current athletics, with his talent, could have the possibility to run under 1'43" and under 3'30", and of course his training had to be different.

.....

NotConvinced wrote:

Some context needs to be added to the era of Snell, Ryun, Mills, etc. Those guys primarily ran on cinder tracks with very long spikes made of leather. What would those time equate to today on an engineered for speed mondo track with synthetic spikes weighing much less? Given their abilities of that time (no training change), drop them into any race today and they would still be very competitive.

Ryun 3:51.1 mile on cinder, no rabbit, won by a lot

Snell 1:44.3 800 and 3:54 mile on grass, no rabbit, won by a lot

Mills 28:24 on mud in Tokyo (this might as well have been a cross country race), no rabbit

Renato Canova wrote:

I think that Peter Snell, if athlete of the present days, in the current athletics, with his talent, could have the possibility to run under 1'43" and under 3'30", and of course his training had to be different.

.....

Interestingly, Walker reckoned that Snell might have been able to run sub 1:44 pre-synthetic tracks, going by some of the speed work that he did at various stages. Somebody did publish on here a session where Snell did 20 x 200 starting with 27s etc and worked his way down to 22-23s (but don't quote me).

NotConvinced wrote:

Some context needs to be added to the era of Snell, Ryun, Mills, etc. Those guys primarily ran on cinder tracks with very long spikes made of leather. What would those time equate to today on an engineered for speed mondo track with synthetic spikes weighing much less? Given their abilities of that time (no training change), drop them into any race today and they would still be very competitive.

Ryun 3:51.1 mile on cinder, no rabbit, won by a lot

Snell 1:44.3 800 and 3:54 mile on grass, no rabbit, won by a lot

Mills 28:24 on mud in Tokyo (this might as well have been a cross country race), no rabbit

Renato Canova wrote:

I think that Peter Snell, if athlete of the present days, in the current athletics, with his talent, could have the possibility to run under 1'43" and under 3'30", and of course his training had to be different.

.....

Until the day he retired Edwin Moses ran in full leather spikes. The spikes of that 60s era were not bad at all.

Roo leather wrote:

The spikes of that 60s era were not bad at all.

But still not as good, and as already said the synthetic tracks are better too.

I can vouch for the "Ultimate Training Wisdom" being a fantastic resource. I downloaded it when someone posted it a couple of years ago, followed most of the general principles and stole a few specific workouts, and managed to turn myself from a guy who couldn't crack 29 mins for 8k XC in college to a low 27s guy on the roads.

Renato Canova wrote:

This is true when we speak about beginners [...] This was correct for a certain period of time, but, after 2-3 years, we can't increase the number of vessels if we don't do long run at more intensive speed.

I know that your writings are nearly always focused at the elite athlete, and I love to read everything you write about this level of training. However, I would love to hear about what you think comprises good, but serious (with the aim of becoming elite), training for the beginner. What does that 2-3 years look like (assuming one has had an active, physical childhood - but perhaps they have not been a runner)?