Lydiard or Cerutty

I think what Lydiard meant by you can never run too slow was something to the effect of any running is better than choosing not to run. Clearly he had athletes trained easy, medium, hard, full on where appropriate.

I have seen Living in the Past repeat a few times 'V02 max' and 'Long Easy Running'.

Living, I hope to goodness you mean easy as in not super hard! Lydiard long runs were Long and Steady. In his words: we were not fooling around out there.

Many of the aerobic or marathon phase training was sub-AT and AT, yet you mention V02 max often. With Lydiard everything was important, but from what I understand the training if anything was more AT than V02 max.

I just read through thisentire thread. Priceless! Did anyone ever interact with "Old Memories" personally from this thread? I'd love to hear some more stories. Seems like he really had a great perspective.

You've pretty much nailed it. There's a difference between saying a pace is "too slow" and saying it might have been better to have gone a bit faster.

Think in terms of distance for a minute. If someone says they did a 15 mile run today and asks if it was too short a run what do you tell them? Fifteen miles is a good long run and was likely very beneficial. Maybe 20 would have been more beenficial but even if it was the 15 was still beneficial.

Same with pace. Maybe 6:30 pace was ideal for someone on a particular run. But that doesn't mean they won't get fitter by running at 7:00-8:00. It just won't happen as quickly as they'd have done by going faster.

I get the feeling that the biggest difference between these two blokes was in the way they motivated their runners. Some like Elliott thrived under Cerutty, or Cerutty pressed the right button, both I guess, and others like Ron Clarke thought Cerutty was a ratbag. On the other hand, would Elliott have even bothered training under Lydiard? Who knows.

Not only is it nice to bring this thread back to life, but there hasn't been much worthwhile posted for a while. Summer doldrums?

In any event, count me as a Cerutty supporter (which of course does not equate to a Lydiard basher)

I have been fascinated by the various accounts of Elliot's training, most notably in Noakes Lore of Running.

It seems like Elliot trained very hard 4-5 days a week without even accounting for the swimming and weightlifting.Percy was ahead of his time with hard tempo running. However, there is the distinct possibility that Elliot was so gifted that only he could withstand that training and would have won anyway.

I use some of Percy's methods-specifically, mixing speed with lots of 2k tempo runs as part of a workout and have had pretty good success these past couple of years.

anyone else trying some of Percy's training?

What are you using as a model for incorporating Ceutty's ideas into your coaching? I ask because I know that he was never very specific about what his athletes actually did on a daily basis. There was the one response he had to someone who asked him about Elliott's training and he said he had no idea what Elliott did, that he was interested in making the man. And I know that Albie Thomas has said that the advice he got from Cerutty was mainly inspirational rather than instructional.

I am not using a model at all,more the philosophy of not being tied to a hard-easy approach, and in particular, more short tempos than is usually advocated,i.e. for my 800m runners they might do 2 or 3k tempo before a specific speedworkout like 5x300@race pace.

For an 800/1500 runner it seems like Cerutty liked 8k hard as a regular workout. I am not quite there yet!

Thanks HRE.

Any running is still running and benefitting, eh!

It would be great to dig up that old man and his memories again. I don't know enough about Cerrutty - although I have read a couple books, one on him and the other was a fictional story of two guys very much like Elliott and Cerruty, with other names and were English instead....I think it was an unauthorized attempt at something biographical....fascinating character...I mean who could get away with building the man, not necessarily the athlete per se, today?

Well to answer the question, I would want Lydiard as a coach.

Gonna try one last bump and hope old man comes back. pretty interesting stuff and would love to hear more.

Old man in your view what were the basic tenets of Cerutty's training system/philosphy that you could apply to today's runner to be succesful on the international stage?

Wet Coast

why dont you go and discuss about Lydiard in the Lydiard foundation board as you advised in the deleted thread ?

Does your own advise is only for the other and not for you ?

On occasion I discuss Lydiard at Lydiardfoundation.org site, but thanks for reminding me, I should go there more often as the discussions are solid. I also discuss Lydiard with Nobby Hashizume and many other coaches, athletes and interested people all the time. I also discuss Lydiard on other forums too. Additionally, if you would like to join the Facebook Group 'Arthur Lydiard's Legacy' please feel free.

I have the distinct privelage of discussing all things Lydiard on the phone with Nobby from time-to-time.

Check out Flotrack, where I have discussed Lydiard in interview format with the following highly knowledgeable people on this very subject:

Nobby Hashizume

Greg McMillan

Rod Dixon

Lorraine Moller

Kelvin Broad

Keith Livingstone

Jon Brown twice

Kelly Liljeblad

Ian Torrence

Amongst others.

Check out my review of the latest and best book written on the Lydiard subject in the most modern lexicon, written by Keith Livingstone and my review of Lorraine Moller's book On The Wings of Mercury.

All Lydiard stuff and others stuff too. In some we don't discuss Lydiard directly, but if you understand the method, you will understand where the discussion goes.

Let's Run is not the only place where I discuss Lydiard. Probably 95% of my Lydiard-discussion time is done away from Let's Run.

Sometimes I ichat or messenger or fb chat or phone discuss or in-person discuss Lydiard with athletes wanting to know more. Often these athletes are better than me - as I am slow and sometimes they are new to running and become highly fascinated by the prowess of the greatest coach in athletics history.

Fresh meat.

One time I did not discuss Lydiard, but I wasn't discussing running either. Oh wait, I did discuss Lydiard and his effect on speed skating, rowing, a figure skater's medal in the Olympics...so yeah, hey! I was discussing Lydiard that day - how about that!

I recommend you go to the Lydiard Foundation dot org to discuss Lydiard. Become a member. Membership has its privelages.

Have tried to get on for discussion several times on the Lydiard foundation site for what ever reason I am unable to get through so stopped trying.

Ok. Well there is one forum open to the public and another, bigger one for members only. Now I haven't experienced any problems with the public one, so can't address it. I will let Nobby know though....

I really dont know how notorious you are. I simply read this board often and i just know you by Wet Coast and i didnt agree with most of what you say, so poor is your training undertand.

I appreciate your propaganda as well as your attempt to let me know about LF but its not my point. Im very well documented about the Lydiard as well to the point i did official studies about training and i did teach about Lydiard training

I guess you dont imagine what i know about Lydiard. Besides i dont discuss about Lydiard. I dont intend to. I just read the LRC posts with Lydiard discuss when im in blue mood to laugh out loud with so much is training discuss nonsense.

There lets imagine that all those LFoundation contributors does the quality and the adjectives you write. I still dont understand why you keep post on LRC and i dont understand why you did advise to discuss one subject about Lydiard on the LF board and not here.

But may be i miss your point. I cant understand why you did advise to stop some free discuss on LRC board and continued the same discuss on LF exclusively.

As far as i understand you advise for the other what you dont follow yourself. Kind of "do as i say but dont do as i do" or "do as i say but i dont".

Anyhow and with all respect i willnt follow your actual advise to participate in the LF forum for 2 kind of reasons. One is that i see the LF as one George Orwell "Big Brother". The second reason is that i do not interest to discusss with all that people you name as great,champions, fresh-meat etc. All that your adjectives and considerations are overrte considerqation for me. I see things very different than you and all those members. Happily im not the only one to think the same.

Being a coach myself with legal credentials i dont think i will get profit from people that for what i did read they simply ignore the basics of distance running.

Thats why i did ask you a straight question and to be sincere i still dont understand your answer.

Dont stop to post here, but dont advise others to do so. I want to laugh.

Did anyone ever find out who "old man" was? I went to Australia in the 70's upon invitation from Perc. A young 22 year old with a thirst for coaching knowledge. As is true to form he passed away before we met. I did become friends with a few of his disciples (literally). Many of the kids I coached in sydney would do their long runs on sundays from Albie's house. I think the other gents name was Frank McCafferty. He could very well have been "old man". There really is no comparison between Lydiard and Cerutty. The actual rivalry was between Stampfl and Cerutty.

Chicks Hensley became a good friend and we would often get together to discuss his rivalry with Perc. Chicks coached Allan Lawrence.

For those who talk of Clayton deciding not to go with Perc.....Perc was pretty much done when Derek hit his prime. I doubt there was any chance Perc and he would have gotten together. As a previous post stated Perc was into golf and "preaching the gospel" in the mid to late 60's.

I too was thinking that "old man" might be Frank McCafferty. There was an article in the Aussie magazine RFYL about him and some of the stories are consistent with what "old man" wrote here. But that's just theorizing.

English?

I appreciatedCerutty more because I have always considered myself more on stressing inspiration rather than technical advise.

Particularly for high school runners.

In my part of the country the high school guys don't know a thing about the sport...today, I asked an entire team to name one guy whose set an American record this year and they could not name one person.

Yet, they are good, hard working young runners.

To instruct upon the spiritual part of the game, the appreciation of the curent events would add a dimension to their training which will improve their performance.

Some, may not need that...

It depends on the athlete which part the spiritual or the more technical advise he may/she may benefit and need most.

The technical nuts and bolts are important, but they get set ablaze by the spiritual dimension and that's what Cerutty was.