Lydiard or Cerutty

Thanks for your contribution old man, I am a 24 year old aussie and am just 3 months into solid training and loving every minute of it. The feeling of flying along at a good speed on a thin trail through the beautiful aussie bush is one that only us runners can understand isn't it. I was visiting Vic recently and ran up Mt Erica, Baw Baw and along the Alps trail for a while. Did you and Perce's lot run those trails at all?

Thanks again, it's great to have a real live connection with an era that I've only read about.

Aussie Bloke.

There are many Canadians here too - the old Commonwealth brotherhood.

West Coast of Canada and Vancouver Island are little like New Zealand I understand.

I run, therefore I am.

Bump: if there is any possiblity of John Landy posting here, e don't need him searching through the whole of the Site to find this !!!

yes! the old aussie and kiwi fight. we always had halberg to contend with it seems. he was an extraordinarily tough bloke. i should say that he didn't have much the sense of humour either. very nice gent to say the least. my lasting opinion was that he was always very cordial. i haven't the energy to pursue the current athletic situation of how we currently stand against the bastards, but we all toast mottram and the young fountain. i only know what i see on the telly at newstime.

to answer the lad who asked about baw baw and the like, we never went there specific to train. it was more of a time to make camp and have a bit of fun. are you competing then?

Mate : Check the Rugby score from last night !. Us Kiwis have got to get a few up on you Aussies !!!!!!.

On running matters; I am one of the Guys posting on the Lydiard thread. I have trained a lot with Bill Baillie (years ago !). He spent some time with Perce back "in the day". A few good stories of course.

Bill still running but does crazy things like Hawaii Iron Man.

I forgot to say: We have got a young guy Nick Willis. Won the 1500 at melbourne Comm Games.He also blew Mottram off the Track here back in January !

Don't mention the Netball !!!!

I like the Aussies but the New Zealand crowd ran you guys off the map.

media coverage wrote:

I like the Aussies but the New Zealand crowd ran you guys off the map.

Nope. I just checked an atlas and Australia's still there.

It's a thrill to hear from someone who was there with Cerutty.

Inspiration is a torch, not meant to be passed on, but rather to be used to light other torches. Thank you for sharing, old man - your words do indeed light fires within other hearts.

So who was the better coach? Several have said that Cerutty was the better coach. But they didn't explain why.

Who is the better coach is just a matter of personal opinion. It really doesn't matter.

Hay, some of us don't want this to fade away. How about it troops.

I would hate to see it fade away so soon also.

Old Man and his Memories mentioned that he had not read "Why Die" he lived it. As far as I know, it was a very good book. That said, I don't think any one book ever captures all the interesting stories about its subject.

Since Old Man and his Memories knows John Landy, I have a question. I've read that Perce favored heavy weights with low reps and that John favored the opposite. Is there any truth to that? Did John feel that lifting was of any great value in his training?

Some of us of hoping that you will continue with your memories. Maybe get John Landy to post as well.

John seemed to have some bad luck at crucial times like the cut foot prior to the showdown with Bannister.

I get the impression from reading "Why Die" that Percy was learning how to coach the mile when he worked with John and that Elliott got the benefit of that a few years later when Percy began coaching him.

I will throw in my pennies worth.

In talking with the 'old timers' here I got the impression that Elliot was an amazing talent with a mind of steel and that Percy learned how to 'get to him' to extract the best from him. Is that true ?

An aside : I have mentioned this before but I recall a conversation with Neville Scott many years ago when we asked Neville who was the hadest or best he raced. Snell or Elliot.

He said Peter would just 'explode' away from you and have 20 metres before you knew it.

Herb, he said, would 'grind you into the ground' just taking a metre at a time and that he would leave you with the feeling you could do nothing about it.

I was only 11 years old but I still reckon that 1500 in Rome in 1960 was one of the 'greats' in terms of Olympic 1500's.

Also a great Olympics for Australia and New Zealand with 3 golds and 2 bronze medals.

This was a great thread but didn't fulfill its promise.

Anyone with some insight about Percy Cerutty and/or his training methods please post.

Agree Bob, this thread had/has the potential to be amazing.

C'mon team some of us are right into this stuff.

Interestingly today the aspect of training over "Natural" surfaces came up during our of our sessions and one of the kids said "I don't know if I could go to a track and run reps and such like when we have these great tracks through the forest and heaps of grass areas". I immediately thought of those old timers like Lydiard and Cerutty and wonder what they would say to a 16 year old kid who came up with that comment.

Kim,

I'm afraid old man and memories might be gone by now. But in the spirit of keeping this alive, I'll ask you if Bill Baillie ever told you much about his time in Oz when he was with Cerutty. I believe he's quoted in "Arthur's Boys" as saying that he didn't see many differences between what Percy had guys do and what Arthur did.

It's slipping again so I'll bump it back once more.

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life. I missed it the first time. I had to read the old man's accounts at least twice. Amazing.