LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Interesting info about the genealogy of the word base, really.

However, I would guess it has much more prozaic origin: base as a foundation to build upon.

In any instance, the meaning is the same.

I'll take Bowerman. He coached people not just bodies.

Marathon conditioning phase:

I'm not quite sure what your question is... I guess HRE answered it anyways???

Lydiard was inspired to come to his training program mainly by two things; (1) when he started running marathons, his track times improved, and (2) even though he ran more than anybody else and he was basically fitter than anybody else, he got beaten by others because he wasn't peaking correctly.

For (1), he figured, if it's good for me, it's good for others. He experimented on others; they started running more than ever before, basically like a marathon runner, and they got faster than ever before in the shorter distacnes. So he figured, that works!

When asked about the training mileage depending on the racing distance, Lydiard used to say that it (racing distance) doesn't matter; whether you are an 800m runner or a marathon runner, they both need high oxygen uptake level; so they all trained together during a certain perioed of their training.

As far as terminology is concerned, as I said somewhere before, Arthur sucked at terminology. We (=Foundation) will try to clarify that as well. As long as you understand what you need to do and why you're doing it, you'll be fine.

If you look at the distance running world when Arthur took up the sport, soon after WWII, you see that track runners and marathon runners were in completely different worlds. The only overlap was at the Olympics when the marathon was run as part of the Games. But guys like Arthur Newton, Clarence DeMar, Old Kelley, etc. didn't run track and track guys didn't do marathons very much. Occasionally a Nurmi would consider doing one or a Kohlenainnen would dabble.

But the events were very separate and training was very different.

Track guys rarely did long runs. They stayed on the track and did repeats at race pace or did short to mid-length crss country orr oad runs. Marathoners didn't do "speed" work.

Arthur's "revolution," in my opinion, was showing each group that the other group's training was beneficial. When he used the term "marathon training," he meant that he had trained as a marathoner and found that it improved his track and cross country times. So he advocated having track guys do marathon training which we now call basework. He also had his guys do "trackwork," i.e., the sort of training track runners traditionally did, but it was very often not run on tracks.

It was interesting to read (or hear) Peter Snell saying in your interview, HRE, that "once the track season was over, we pretty much all became a distance runner..."

Last line is also quite interesting because I have a hard time, when asked about the Lydiard training, just saying "track training phase" for "anaerobic phase". Still quite "scary" and "stay-away-from-that" sounding to most majority of runners. Yet if I call it "speed training phase" which people like to hear, it's misleading to the true Lydiard meaning...

Dick Quax claims he invented the term "tempo run" when he was coaching at Athletics West. Any comment to that, jtupper?

Not sure if anyone saw the definitive "non-Lydiard-approach" to training column that Craig Maskback posted on RWD yesterday? A throw back to "if you run slow, you race slow" mentality. It is little wonder that distance running in the US has been so poor when the head of USTAF says (and I paraphrase) "if you want to race fast, you do not run slow". Of course Masback was fast enough to be on his HS 4 x 400 team, so he comes with the speed attitude. Just think where he might have gotten had he developed his endurance.

Glenn

I second, Glenn. I did send that to some of my colleagues. Well, after all, you've got to eat lion's heart to be brave and strong... While at it, how about eating cheetah's legs to be able to run fast?

Some years back, Masback wrote a little article, I can't recall where it was published, where he said that really, everyone who runs wants to run the 100 meters.

Craig and I share a common coach, Larry Ellis. Larry, who coached me three years of HS, I was told at one time held the world indoor 1000 yard record. He had been able to use 50 second 400 speed to be a national caliber 800-mile runner in the early 50s. One wintery day we had a 400 trial to decide which of the distance runners would get an 1/2 mile leg on an indoor 2 mile relay team. A friend, who was a 16 year old junior won the trial in 54 point. Larry's comment was, "he'll never make it as a miler, he is not fast enough". My friend's shattered ego was left there on the track. I have read where Masback thought the world of Coach Ellis. I always wondered how many distance runners he chased away from the sport.

Glenn

Glenn, your story brought back another interesting side of this sport. I remember this occasion when I visited Bill Bowerman with Dick Brown. Bill was telling us very confidently that, by working on the athlete's mechanics, he could bring 2 or 3 seconds down from his/her quarter mile. When I was at Hitachi our head coach was a tyrant (he was okay at first but got worse). He "fired" this girl because she didn't make the time he expected by 2 seconds in 5000m! That's when I decided to leave this "dream job" and get the hell away from him (to make me feel better, though, he was fired 3 years after I left and I still keep contact with my athletes after 15 years). When the athletes don't reach their potential or their goal times, that's coach's fault. That's because he didn't do a good job.

On the other hand, Arthur was always positive. I remember this run I had with him. We were going over a farm land in Auckland and, as he climbed over a fence, I just jumped over (remember, I'm the springy and bouncy one). He looked at me and said, "You know, the way you're so springy and bouncy, you can be the Japanese national champion in steeplechase." I never did. But that coming from Arthur Lydiard, that's my claim of fame. He never turned down anybody. He never said anybody's too slow to be a champion.

The problems with John Anderson's training program are the inability to peak, and stay healthy. Moorcroft was seldom healthy for Olympic, Commonwealth, or European Champs, when it counted. The year round anaerobic training in the schedule is the main culprit.

Recall the Brazilian marathoner who held the world record for a year or so. He had lots of year round anaerobic training. His training method was touted as a breakthrough, but you just knew that it was a hit or miss thing, and he would be injured soon. Same for the Santa Monica TC woman, Jenny Spangler, who won the OT marathon, after many years of injury.

Nobby wrote:

And these were guys who could run sub 1:45, or sub 1:44, for the 800 m., without natural blazing speed

I take exception with this, perhaps because in an all-out sprint for 100m I probably couldn't hit 1:44 800 speed unless I was going down a steep hill. To run 13.0 for 8 straight 100's, you probably must have at least 11.0-11.2 speed. How is that NOT "blazing speed"? I am also curious about what you think of in terms of ways to improve basic speed by large margins. I've tried and I think this is what is holding me back in running. Lots of base, lots of threshold, some sharper work near to the races, but my 100 time is perhaps 13.7-13.8 all-out, in spikes, wind at my back, and with a lot of drills and sprinting I never get it faster.

Nobby your comment from Peter Snell was so true

"once the track season was over, we pretty much all became a distance runner..."

In the early seventies a group of us decided that we would celebrate the end of track seson by running a Marathon and then to celebrate the onset of track season we would run another.

Without checking my Diaries we managed to do that for 4 years.

When I say run, that is what we did, just ran along at the pace that was comfortable as we would on a Sunday run.

Sometimes the competitive juices would rise, but only over the last half or quarter.

Our little group of mates would run anything from 2:40 to 2:50.

Inevitably, we always picked a marathon that had a good Party afterwards !!.

BSM a lot:

All due respect, I copied that line from RonB from Skuj's thread. Well, I'm just trying to blame it on someone else...

In terms of Lydiard's basic speed; that's what he used to determied best suited racing distance for the athlete. The reason why not 100 is because the reaction time (start) plays too big of a part; in 400 endurance already comes in. In your case, with a 13.7-second-100m speed, you can probably hit 200 perhaps slightly under 26 give or take??? (I was 12.5 and 24.5 in high school)

As Bill Bowerman said, you can work on sprint drills (technique); something like Canova's uphill sprinting or Lydiard's hill exercises to develop power and flexibility in your legs; and also work on your nerves with downhill leg-speed exercise, using--what do you call it--catapult rubber band to run faster than your body can go, or even have a car or a bike pull you to run faster. There is a limit to how fast you can run. But most of us overlook how to make yourself faster to that point. Join local high school's sprinting squad a couple of times a week and work on your technique (unless you've already done that). You'd be amazed!

Again, unless you've already worked on it, your potential (for a sprinting speed) is most probably still underdeveloped. You cannot, and should not, say you are "slow" until you work on those.

Okay, I went back and re-read your message; you said you tried drills and tail wind... I'd suggest you work with actual sprinting coach (if you haven't done that). You can continue certain exercises wrongly and you'll never improve. As I always say, it's not that practice makes perfect; it's the perfect practice that makes perfect. I don't mean to say that you've been doing it wrongly; I'm just trying to explore possibility.

Dick Quax did not invent the term Tempo anything. The word tempo running dates back to the 1800s. Dr. Ernest Van Aaken prescribed Tempo Running in the 1930s. Dr. Woldemar Gerschler used 3 hour long weekend runs in the winter, long slow intervals and "tempo" runs through the forest in the 1930s.

In 1971 a swimming coach from LSU used the termed his specialized way of improving endurance as "cruise intervals" where Dr. J. Daniels got his term from. Many of the terms used by running coaches in the last 30 years have old origins.

Working on basic speed is one of those extra things that is another piece of the puzzle. If you only had an hour a day to run, i'd tell you to go run for an hour, but if you have extra time and want to truly help maximize your performance, then sprint training is definately needed. It's funny how with distance runners it's often either fully neglected or used so much that it takes away from the true distance work. For some strange reason, most people don't find the middle ground and work sprint training into their program while still doing the necessary distance training. For example, I often do sprint training after a nice 40min easy run.

Anyways, I'd recommend finding a good sprint coach who knows what he's talking about. You'd be amazed at how much your sprinting ability can improve if you actually learn how to sprint correctly. Unfortunately, you have to know a bit about biomechanics to know what to do, or have a good coach. If your interested and have no coach, go out and buy a basic book on sprinting biomechanics. It may take a couple reads before you realize what exactly is going on, but it's well worth it.

Thanks for the advice, Nobby.

You said that "there is a limit to how fast you can become."

While I understand this is logically true, theoretically, at least for a sub-world class sprinter, isn't it almost always possible in prime years to eke out another tenth of second or so?

What limits speed from a biomechanical standpoint?

Assefa Powell runs 9.77; is his inability to rotate his legs any faster what "limits" him (if one can say 9.77 is "limited"!), or can he generate not an ounce more of power from pushing off the track, or a combination of the two?

I agree with you Steve. In terms of form, I think--but then, what runner doesn't?--that I am fairly efficient while sprinting.

I do these cadence drills sometimes after doing sprinting drills (high knees, quick feet, carioca, ankle bounding, kick outs, etc.). Essentially it is 2-3 short sprints, only taking 5-7 seconds, but I try to move the legs as fast as possible. Usually I am able to achieve a pretty high cadence; a few weeks ago I had 13 touches in 5 seconds, or 312 strides per minute. That is faster than most world class sprinters, but obviously my stride length while doing this is nowhere near powerful/long enough to be running 10.00 100m. I am training to walk on, so I don't really have access to a sprint coach, but perhaps at some point I can be evaluated as you suggested.

Thanks again for the help.

BSM:

Have you seen the Lydiard hill training video I put together for his tour last year? I apologize, I still haven't put it on at the website yet (been busy, man!). I strongly recommend you employ some of hill springing and bounding exercise.

Speed comes from longer strides and faster strides. You seem to have quick leg turn over. Sometimes limitation could be (I'm not saying this is it) as small as tight ankle which restricts certain angle during phase(s) of running action. Again, I'm just trying to explore possibility.

Go on a park or soft grassy area with fairly steep hill of about 30~50 yards. Go ahead and wear spike shoes for better traction and better ankle flexibility. Go up, not so much of forward, and land on the alternate foot and go up again. Go easy at first; just feel the exercise. Flex your ankle as straight as possible. As you get more supple and strong, try to jump up higher. This exercise really works on your ankle and develops fine speed. Again, go easy at first and feel your way.

If you can handle this and master the movement, try some bounding as well; with the image of "a deer going over a fence." This will eliminate your running "sitting in a buckett" by emphasizing the back leg extension.

Once again, it's better to do little more often than a lot at once and come out too sore to continue.