Lydiard Imitations

They said so ?

What a bunch of ignorant people !

I understand I cant discuss about methodology with people thinking every interval is anaerobic and long run is the only aerobic way. Do you think, for example, that a race of 10000m in 27'30" is aerobic or anaerobic ? And 27'30" means 25 times 400m in 66". So, if after one month of preparation you put in the program of an athlete already having this PB, a training with 20x400 in 66" with 1:00 of recovery, this is aerobic, or anaerobic because the distance is only 400m ? If you go for 20 x 200m in 31" do you think this is anaerobic for this type of athletes ?

So, I'm tired to speak with people ignoring completely any fundamental of physiology and methodology.

And, about Gypsy, really I don't understand his mentality.

So do you prefer that an athlete able to move from 13'20" to 12'50" in 3 years (and, of course, able to stay at this level without improving for other 6-7 years) can move more slowly, reaching the same top after 7-8 years ?

For example, Bekele (starting running in 1999 and already able winning 10000m in WCh in 2003 with the second half in 12'57") didn't have a good training, because after 2005 he never broke again any WR ? Or El Guerrouj, his best was in 1999 and he won Olympic 5 years later, without improving, so did he had a wrong plan ?

And, about the fact I move the athletes because with my program they lost their speed, what about Vaatainen, Finnish record holder while junior of 100m in 10.8, after 3 years able running 800m under 1'48", and finally winner in 1971 of the best emotional race of 10000m in European Champs ? It was better for him to remain all his life in 100m, may be running 10.6 ?

Do you understand that, if you can become the number one in the marathon, is completely stupid to be the number 10 in 5000m ?

When I moved some athlete to different distances, as Paul Kosgei, is because his previous event was not the best, according to the type of talent he had. But I never moved Shaheen from steeple, of Kimwetich from 800m, and of course I don't look for going to long distances, for example, with the current World Youth Champion of 800m Leonard Kosencha (1:44.06), that is type 400/800.

May be really you don't have any idea about what it means to be professional. For the athletes, the only way for having money for their life is to win competitions, and in a period where running 12'58" in 5000m in Diamond League it means TO PAY 300 USD FROM YOUR POCKET (if you are number 9 such as Leonard Komon in 2010 in Oslo), if you are not stupid, and have the talent for running something longer, you do it. Winning a Major as Chicago, beating the WR on track of 25 and 30 km, debutting in Marathon in Boston with 2:03:06, means something as 400,000 USD in one year. Running 7'33" in 3000m and 12'50" in 5000m (that for Moses could be very much more difficult) could mean at least 50,000 USD.

So, tell me : if you were Moses (may be you are a rich person, so you don't understand the èproblem of normal people, especially Africans), which type of choice could you do ?

And try to be honest intellettually. You can go against the evidence that the most part of my athletes had a very long career, because this is a fact. So, please, stop to accuse when you don't know, and stop speaking about cosmical phylosophical principles for justifying position that, frankly, are completely out of the World.

The facts still stand Renato, as i outlined them. This requires serious consideration for anyone choosing your path.

And yes of course it is better to move Mosop out to the marathon early if his talent is more suited to the event.

As for money, it should never be the primary interest. Training should not be managed around constant competition. It just leads to the situation of your athletes, they stop improving after 3 years.

It just leads to the situation of your athletes, they stop improving after 3 years.[/quote]

Why do you keep saying this Gypsy? It's simply not true.

Keyword improvement Douglas. Can you find one example?

Douglas Stuart wrote:

It just leads to the situation of your athletes, they stop improving after 3 years.

Why do you keep saying this Gypsy? It's simply not true.[/quote]

Renato already posted a list of a dozen athletes of his with long, successful careers, any one of which would be a superstar in the Western world.

If your goal is improving every year, well, show us an example of ANY coach in the world who got someone to Diamond League level and THEN continued to improve every year for more than 3 years. Once you're at the top (and Renato has had more people at the top than anyone), the best you can hope for is to stay there for a decent time.

Come to think of it, which decathletes - or indeed athletes in ANY event - have shown steady improvement for a decade once mature? Give us a couple of examples...

gypsy,

Do you have some examples of elite athletes that have followed an ideal path development towards a long career at the top? Geb and Carlos Lopes come to mind, but I'm hard pressed to find many others.

I need to put this in perspective. Who do you think are ideal "development" coaches, and if 3 years is too little, how many years of development is possible?

If Renato scores low, which coaches score high? Who is the running equivalent of Yelena Isenbayeva?

gypsy

ryun peaked after two years, then declined

snell ran best in '62, then maintained, then dropped out

elliott couldn't go on after 2 or 3 years

walker peaked after a couple of years then matched that time many years later, but basically stopped improving

same with coe

same with ovett

same with cram - actually cram best was 85 then a gradual decline after that, his last couple of years were disappointing

vasalla - very briefly graced the international scene

cruz - same as others

bayi - same

morcelli - superstar fell away badly in the final years

bile - two or so years at the top

bekele , geb, komen, all slowed

as renato said - elg peaked then maintained

why focus so much on renato when it is the norm.

Douglas Stuart wrote:

It just leads to the situation of your athletes, they stop improving after 3 years.

Why do you keep saying this Gypsy? It's simply not true.[/quote]

When has Gypsy ever bothered with the facts ("truth")?

Hi Renato:

Great post, especially about aerobic vs. anaerobic.

Would you mind posting some of the training of Leonard Kosencha? Thanks!

A few questions for the Lydiard experts:

1) On page 17 of the Lydiard training pdf found here

http://www.runbayou.com/ArthurLydiard.pdf

John Davies says "It is a fallacy that anaerobic training develops speed. It in fact, counteracts speed" in #15 of his 21 training considerations. What does he mean by that?

2) If I were to see "time trial" on my workout schedule, I would get a little tense because mentally, it's like a race to me. If I see "tempo run" on my schedule I am more relaxed, because it's just another workout. What are Lydiard "time trials" like in terms of pace and in terms of how to approach them mentally?

Damnation, why sometimes does the accidental hitting of the backspace not give you back the text when you come forward a page again!!! I was almost done as well.I'm seriously uncoordinated at the moment with one hand and 'now' a thumb i can use. I know it was questioned about my hand operation, however, it is true. I have what is called Viking's Disease or Dupuytron's contracture in both hands. Google will reveal. There are some horrific pics so beware. I have the milder version which only affects the hands. The severe one also affects the feet and penis :s. Lucky me. They did my left hand first so wiping my ass and other right hand based activities can still be done normally.

I think it is important to get past starry eyed thinking. It doesn't help understanding and only ever serves to block seeing what is really going on. What is really going on is this three year limit to improvement. It is a ceiling.

I think it is testament to Renato's skill as a coach that he is able to extend his athletes career beyond this fourth season sticking point, even if actual improvement of the personal best isn't occurring anymore, remaining in range of it to remain competitive is a skill in maintenance.

A decade is stretching it a bit don't you think? But we should establish some parameters. When does this time frame start? I'm going off when they first appear internationally, for example the IAAF website stats pages. I'm thinking 5 years is a good minimum standard. This encompasses consecutive olympics plus probably a year at lest before or after. So we can say 5-6 years.

This site for decathlon is pretty good.

Starting with the americans

Dan O'brien - meteoric rise - 1990 appears, 1992 WR, 1996 Olympic Gold and almost WR

Dave Johnson - appears 1986 peaks 1992

Chris Huffins - appears 1993, peaks 1998, near peak 99 and 2000

Bryan Clay - appears 2001, PR 2008, OG 2008

and the greats

Daley - appeared 1976 OG, gold 80 and 84, WR 84, near WR 86

Jurgen Hingsen - appeared 1978, PR/WR 1984, near PR 1986

Erki Nool - appeared 92, OG 2000, PR 2001

Roman Sebrle - appeared 1996, WR 2001, OG and near WR 2004,

Christian Schenk - appeared 1984, OG 1988, PR 1993

This isn't a totally fair comparison though. I may be wrong but i think it is possible to continue improving longer than in distance because there are so many elements available to modify in training.

What is fair is that in decathlon the preparation periods are longer and competitions less regular. It also seems common to see at last one year out of four give a single peak (Daley took 1981 and 1985 off 'all' international competition to do a full base prep year).

1. To Lydiard, speedwork was sprinting; very fast, short runs, runs so short that no lactic acid was produced (yeah, I know we have a whole different take on lactic acid now but Lydiard thought it was a bad thing and was the reason you could only sprint so far.)

In his way of thinking, a session of hard 440s, 880s, etc. lead to the production of fatigue by-products and those by- products eventually slowed you down. He thought that you needed that sort of work to simulate the pace and breathlessness you'd encounter while racing. But he thought that ultimately that sort of running decreased your absolute top speeds even though it enabled you to run at a fast pace for an extended time.

2. Time trials were not always the same thing in Lydiard's system and didn't always serve the same purpose. If you were to do one during the Race Coordination phase it would be pretty much like a race, though you'd avoid a fast finish and would pretty much just maintain your overall pace to the end. At other parts of the cycle a time trial would be much more like a tempo run but you would run it over a measured course, or at least over the same course repeatedly, and keep track of times. You'd be hoping that overall you'd be able to cover that course a bit more quickly, though not necessarily on each try.

Thanks, HRE.

Elliot's although short would have to be the most ideal example i think. Although short it was unbeaten in his prime distance and surely if he hadn't retired so early would have continued to improve. His Rome win is worth god knows what if we shifted him forth in time to now and paced him through 1200m. I feel Snell had quite an ideal situation with gold and then consecutive and double gold. This is a significant development from Olympiad to Olympiad. Neither retired after their peak. What would they run today? And were they just freaks, or were they freaks with freak coaches. Finding Ideal situations outside this might be harder but i will look up a few. De Castella came first - he seems to have appeared in about 1976 and his marathon PR is in 1986. There are more which i will examine in response to the guy with the next post.

I think development can and should continue to the late 20s barring anything serious preventing that. It should be an athletes right to be able to keep training that long and still feel improvement is possible. A coach should be able to make this seem open ended to an athlete. The coaching knowledge, injury treatment knowledge and adminstrative support should all be of sufficient quality to assist the athlete in pursuing this. Here i am mixing two things. One is the longer term and almost continuous development of the teenager through to around 21-23 for a later developer. The improvement rate is fast during vertical growth and slows but is still quick as the thickening of maturity sets in after this. Most development really occurs here. the athletes natural growth development has made many a poor coach look good. In fact in many cases the coach does little adjustment to a developing athlete because all they will do is lessen their potential by setting up incorrectness. Undoing these things is a small frustration when dealing with athletes with previous coaches.

I don't think he scores low at all but in fact quite high on the standard scale, but there are other coaches who belong on a different scale and should be treated accordingly and not drowned out by this tech talk, new age 'eyewash'.

You are right. However I think that Carlos Lopes kept on setting PBs almost each year at a wide range of distances until he was almost 40 years old, which is impressive at the level he was competing. Other examples I can think of are Domingos Castro who was still setting PBs well into his 30s for 1500m and the marathon, and Antonio Pinto who was still setting track and marathon PBs into his 30s until he got injury problems. It is noteworthy that all of these guys are from Portugal and thus there could be something in the training system that the Portuguese use if we are trying to ascertain the best training for career longevity.

WRT John Walker, he actually had very long career at close to the top level for a middle distance runner. I think he set his mile PR in his 30s and he was a serious threat to medal in the 1500m at the 1990 Commonwealth games when he was pushing 40. Unfortunately he was tripped in the final, and then achilles injuries cut short his veteran career.

you think about it wrote:

gypsy

ryun peaked after two years, then declined

snell ran best in '62, then maintained, then dropped out

elliott couldn't go on after 2 or 3 years

walker peaked after a couple of years then matched that time many years later, but basically stopped improving

same with coe

same with ovett

same with cram - actually cram best was 85 then a gradual decline after that, his last couple of years were disappointing

vasalla - very briefly graced the international scene

cruz - same as others

bayi - same

morcelli - superstar fell away badly in the final years

bile - two or so years at the top

bekele , geb, komen, all slowed

as renato said - elg peaked then maintained

why focus so much on renato when it is the norm.

I don't know about all of these, it seems they my not be your best examples. When Snell ran his 1500pr it was 6 years after his first international.

Elliot - retired unbeaten and still improving. Certainly not close to his peak.

Morceli - appeared 88/89, WR 95 and still 3:30 in 1999, hardly a good example

Walker - appeared 74? ran 3:32.5 in 75, mile PR in 1982, 135 sub 4 min miles - regarded as having one of the greatest longevities.

Coe - consecutive Olympic champ - say no more

Ovett - 337 in 76 and PR 330 in 83, longevity of unbeaten performance must count high as well

Cram - 1981 ran sub 350 mile, PR mile 87, 330 in 88 over 1500

Vasala - 68 OG came 41st, 4 years later gold, then retirement - i would like to know more - borderline case

Cruz - 144.3 as a junior in 81 yet silver OG in 1988 with 143.90 with PR of 141.77 in 84, borderline case i concede.

Bayi - cant find much but it appears he lost speed. meteoric rise from 339 to 332 from 72 to 74 but he is an african, yet pr mile 75, 3k 78 an steeple 80.

bile - again african so we have that effect to acct for - 335 in 87 and PR 330 in 89, yet still 333 in 96, PR 3k in 94

kenenisa - amazing - youth in 1999 2nd in 3k to 1320 5k, (cant find earlier 5k times) to PR/WR in 2004. But 10km PR in 2005 and close again in 2008. Still he exhibits some evidence of early decline.

geb - now you are joking yes? at age 19 in '92 he runs 13:36 and PR of 12:39 in '88 at 25, 10k 28.02 in '92 and PR in 1988 of 26.22 yet runs 26.29 in 2003 aged 30, moves out to marathon and pr there in 2008 aged 35. Quite a beautiful career, in contention for the best ever surely.

komen - peaked his 3k at 20 and 5k at 21 - what happened there?

el g - 333 in 94 (351 in 91 at 17) to 326 in 98 and again in 2001 and 2002 and 327 in 2004, pretty exceptional

ad one i found on the way

Marius Bakken - 1998 343, 2005 338 PR nicely, 5k 1999 13:22 to PR 13.06 in 2004.

I think it is all said in here.

rekrunner wrote:

But so far I don't know of any concise or practical way to explain how to develop a plan to follow modern training, short of finding a very experienced coach. Even if the methods are ultimately superior, this represents a very practical roadblock. Everything I've learned about modern training has come from years of reading these threads at letsrun, so that seems to be a prerequisite, and by then, the highschooler will have graduated and gone to college.

REK,

You might find Brad Hudson's "Run Faster: From the 5K to the Marathon" a good source on the "modern" training method ... it also includes "training plans" for HS runners.

Alan.