LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Guys:

I'm back and I'd like to use this space to thank all those who sent me a message concerning my dad's health; HRE, Spider, Kim, Glenn, Brian, Tinman...and all the others (it was a bad choice to name some names...I know I've missed some!). Thank you. Surprisingly, he is doing well and even recovering. He should have been dead 15 years ago and has had several scares over the years yet he just keeps on going, and going, and going... It really shows that you never know. My landlady's father (while in college) had a massive heartattack and the doctors told his family that he would not last over the weekend. 90% of his heart tissues were dead. He lived 2 years with only 10% of his heart functioning.

Interesting discussions while I was gone (and some pages gone...I was wondering what happened to "hottest female runner" thread as well...!). I'd like to chip in a bit again.

Dr. E:

I would not necessarily say that specifics for anaerobic training as "missing" in the Lydiard program. In fact, I think the way he put it (that ambiguity) is a beauty of it. I would be curious to know which "elite" athlete and his/her specific training you were referring to but I wonder if that's the case of "driving with rear-view mirror". He/she did certain workouts (reps) and when you timed them, they were in such-and-such times in such-and-such numbers. And because he/she has been doing that for many years, he/she can predict certain level of performance from certain level of intensity or specificity of the workouts. How Lydiard put it "run one fast and jog one till you had enough" is the best way to describe how anaerobic training should be done for each and every individual. No one, as far as Lydiard was concerned, can tell you exactly what to do in anaerobic training. One might had enough with 12X400 while another would have to continue 25X400 till he "had enough". Some react better with faster reps in less number (Walker) while others might prefer slower but more reps (Dixon). You can NOT pick the individual and say, "Because your mile time is such-and-such, you should do so many of 400s in such-and-such time." NO ONE can do that. Lydiard said that anybody who comes out and give you the explicit workout simply guesses; and when you as an athlete or your coach does that, you're in trouble because more than likely you'd either do too much or not enough.

Also in terms of hill training, Lydiard NEVER neglected, or thought any less of, hill training. If he had a choice, he most probably would have prescribed 4 to 6 weeks of hill training for 6 days a week. He cut down the days from 6 to 2~3 simply because (you should know, Glenn) when he was in Laten countries, he noticed people there were very emotional and easily got tired of same workout day in and day out. He noticed they got adequate benefit from 3 days a week of hill training so he just kept it that way. One of the questions I asked to the original "Arthur's Boys" was why NZ has lost its edge. Most of them said that even some runners/coaches follow the Lydiard program, none of they were doing the kind of marathon conditioning and hill training that Arthur actually gave to the Snells and the Halbergs. They were simply the toughest guys in the world. As Snell said (presented by HRE), the secrets weren't in the track workouts; the secrets were the conditioning phases (marathon conditioning and hill training) that they did; the way they did it. I believe that.

Well the Ambiguity of it is what is attractive to me. Or I visualize developing and having the keen ability to feel and know that I have done enough or really did what I needed to do, thoroughly. This, without the help of HRMs, much time keeping etc.

The athlete(s) in mind run some exacting stuff...I'll let you know.

Thanks

For a track runner to be in their peak condition, it is necessary for them to do very fast repetitions in the final weeks before the most important races.

These very intense workouts - which come after months of steady build up - and years of gradual development.

Yes Bekele's training is mostly aerobic, but without those very intense workouts, he would not be able to run as fast as he does.

Steve Ovett's coach Harry Wilson, told a story to illustrate this point in his book "Running my way". Wilson was asked by a West German (as was) magazine in 1973 to describe Ovett's training before he won the Junior European 800m Championships.

Wilson wrote the article, but the magazine editor wouldn't publish it because he thought that Wilson had deliberately understated the training schedules.

Five years later another West German magazine editor refused to publish Ovett's training schedule that Wilson had supplied, because he didn't believe that Ovett could train so intensely.

Oasis,

Typically, this phase (race/non-race) is no longer than 4 to 6 weeks. Although with some modifications runners have kept "near" racing peak for up to 12 weeks. Obviously, not all those weeks are as "peaked" as someone who uses a 4-6 week phase.

Glenn

Glenn has partly answered the question for me, however, I have pushed the scedule out even further, particularly if there are less races.

Don't forget that this schedule was designed for a kiwi athlete who belongs to a club and would have club runs throughout the year. Some races, some not.

The best athlete I had on this schedule would have been Reg House, He was a 4:07 miler at 19 and NZ Junior 3 mile champion in 1965 having run "classic" Lydiard under Murray Halberg.

By the 80's Reg wanted to "crank" up again (he had really never shut down, just ran everyday). So he asked me to help.

About this time of year (January)we would work out what he wanted to do Race wise over Cross Country and Road and about July we would work out what he wanted to do on the Track.

As soon as Track season finished (early March) he would go straight into a "Build up" . He would average at least 80 to 85 miles week. After 8 weeks of that then he would run 4 weeks of hill work (Only 2 sessions a week as he had delicate Achilles tendons .. A legacy that lives with him now). We would then run the Race week/non race week schedule.

By August we maybe running a race every 2 to 3 weeks so the mileage in the nn race week could be quite high.

Around late September we would then run some more Steady mileage (How long for depended on what our aims for the season were) and then another hill section.

Back onto the RW/Non RW for the summer. I used to tweak the schedules quite a bit. But Arthur knew that as he had known Reg as a youngster.

Interestingly Reg could only handle the uphill part of the hills but had always did stride work during and afterwards.

His legs just could'nt handle the downhills at 40+ and it did not even enter our thoughts when he turned 50.

What sort of times did he run at age 40 +:

50:10 for 10 miles .. when he did this the previous 10 weeks averaged 50 miles a week.

1:08 for a half Marathon .. did this straight after track season and had barely started a build up.

29:20 10k .. right at the end of Road season and probably after close to 3 months on the RW/Non RW schedule.

The key for Reg is he ran a long run EVERY week regardless of the schedule. Nothing under 2 hours.

Hope that gives you some idea.

If you get to the bell

feeling like hell

you won't do well.

No matter what your best 200/400 is.

Dogma, I don't think you have looked with the utmost care at Nobby's paragraph that you quoted. I know that Ovett and Geb and all must do the intense stuff. But without that base, the intense stuff won't happen.

Those Germans looked at Ovett the same way. "Wasisdas, 2x600m in 1:20?" But what about the very unsexy 10 miler that morning, or the next day or whatever?

Hey Kim,

This is slightly off topic but I noticed it from your last post, which like this thread is very cool to be reading. You mention the athlete had very tender achilles tendons. I was wondering what was done (if anything) besides limiting the hill sessions to keep your athlete healthy? My achilles tendons seems to be injured very easily and I've tried many things, but they just really seem to be my "achilles heals."

Thanks for any help and sorry I really can't post anything to contribute this thread except, great stuff guys!

GS

A lot of ice was used !! No seriously, he iced his Tendons after every work out.

Also to keep everything under control he rotated 3 pairs of shoes and kept another pair for racing only.

We did a lot of 'faster' work on a road in the Waitakere's called the pipeline (Nobby may have run on it as part of Waiatarua)it is clay road maintained by the Waterboard.

We also did a lot of running on Titirangi Golf course in the early evenings.

Reg is lucky in that he lives just off the Waiatarua course and was running those roads just as part of his normal run.

Only way out from his home was uphill !!!.

Unfortunately he had the Achilles tendon problem long before he got to me, he is a lightly built guy (not unlike Bill Rodgers to look at) and I think he did some of the damage as a youngster. When and how we are not sure.

Just last year at age 58 he still broke 36 mins for 10k with out doing any specific work at all, but the tendons were very sore afterwards.

When Lydiard first came to the US, most people were interval-trained. He told them that his runners did 100 miles a week of training. Some people tried it but, because they weren't as well-conditioned as his runners, did it slow (just to survive). They figured running this slow would not make you a fast competitor. So Lydiard training is no good. For decades, Lydiard had to fight against such thinking by telling them also that "Snell and Davies did 20X400 in 60 seconds or faster. How much speed to you need?"

Marathon conditioning, or aerobic base building phase, is merely prerequisit to more exacting training phases. Because his runners were so much stronger than others from all the miles that they ran, they could do much more faster or more race specific training than other runners. This is the whole principles of the Lydiard program that has been applied to other sports like rugby or kayaking--those who have developed their stamina can do more competition-specific training than others. While others might practice "passing of the rugby ball while running as fast as you can" 20 times, if you developed adequate stamina, you do that 40 times.

Kim:

Always enjoy your "real-life" stories of application of the Lydiard program. I think Glenn was talking about using race-week/non-race-week program to continue racing after completion of the cycle. Whereas you talk about race-week/non-race-week application for almost indefinitely (like Deek did)

Nobby,

yes, my comment was in response to Oasis' question about how long could a runner keep doing "race week/non-race week" BEFORE they would go back to building a base.

Glenn

Nobby -- great to hear you father is doing well. Thx for the update, and I hope the good news continues.

A couple observations (I find it easier to phrase them as observations than questions) from my own running. So this is germaine to a 40-something slowpoke for whom running is an active hobby, done in the context of job/family and so forth. But I was curious if many of you have run into things like this.

1. In retrospect, I think I had the classic anti-Lydiard story as a schoolboy runner when my high school coach fed me constant intervals and wondered why I couldn't just string together 64-second quarters for a whole mile; I seemed to run races slower and slower as the season wore on, and was really no faster as a junior than as a freshman. I just made the coach mad. When I read Ron Daws's "Self-Made Olympian" I was struck that he'd had almost the same high school experience. I wish my coach had read Lydiard (Daws probably did too). I read Lydiard in my late 30's as I returned to the sport, and things started to work better.

2. I think my aerobic build-up has probably built year-on-year for a few years. I've aimed at certain marathons and taken time off after it was done, but whenever I start back into it, it seems I start at a slightly better level. It seemed to work this autumn when I ran a marathon, for various social reasons, when I'd only had about six weeks of running back from an injury, and yet ran a pretty good marathon ( . . . for me, anyway).

3. I run a lot of runs early morning before work. And I just can't run fast in the morning, so I run them to effort. But later, when I do a race or tempo run, it seems like my morning 8-minute miles are "worth" 7-minute miles in terms of what kind of shape they build into me.

4. I find at my age I can handle only small amounts of anaerobic work, so Arthur's approach of putting it into a short, focused phase (after hill training) works will. Hill training, however, being slow (uphill, anyway) is something I can handle.

Anyone else have experiences like this?

Apologies, I miss read the question but I guess we hit it right Glenn.

Spider,

I know what you mean by the 8 min/miles being worth 7 min miles. There are plenty of guys in my Sat. run group who run faster than I do in training, but because they don't have a sufficient aerobic capacity they can't keep up with me in a race.

An interesting thing I noticed during my second cycle of Lydiard training is that during my second build-up I was running about the same speed (even a bit slower) as during my first build-up. The difference was that I felt stronger, I was running about 60 miles per week as oppose to 45miles, I could handle running 7 days a week instead of 5-6, and I was feeling fully recovered from my long runs in about a day. Despite having the same speed during my aerobic runs my 5k time had dropped from 19.30 after the first cycle to 17.42 after the second cycle.

Tom Osler once wrote that it seemed as if slow runners responded better to slow training than they did to fast training. Lydiard always acknowledged that people have different levels of aerobic fitness naturally. If you put those ideas together, you can picture a high school team where you have some people whose natural level of aerobic fitness is fairly high and some whose level is quite low turning out for the distance events.

The first group will be able to turn in those 64s and get faster. The second group will struggle with the 64s or whatever they can manage, exhaust themselves and never get much of anywhere. That's the group Osler is referring to. Send them out for some comfortably paced, extended runs and you'll see huge improvements.

The first group would also improve quite a lot from training this way, but generally are reluctant to do so because they've had success on the fast interval work. But this group also would improve a lot more if they also did the comfortably paced distance runs. Lydiard always talked about all the wasted talent we have in the US and he was referring to these fast high school runners who train fast, never develop their aerobic fitness to its fullest, and max out on the improvements they get from interval training in their early 20s or even late teens.

Once you have developed your aerobic capacity, it stays for ages. Snell told me it could take years of being completely sedentary to lose it completely. So you have a break, as you mention, and come back stronger the next time.

jaytalo & HRE -- Thx for the encouragement. So I suppose it was okay that the hilly 9-miler I just ran took almost 90 minutes ( . . . well, it was REALLY hilly) :>) . Like jaytalo, I used to think getting up to 50 miles a week was a lot, but now if I try to run to effort 60+ minutes a day with a long run, then 60-65 is pretty easy. Of course, to some degree my reasoning is circular: I'm not so much asserting what is the best type of training; I am mainly asserting what kind of training I can actually do and hoping it is effective. 65 miles this week, and at least id didn't rain for once. -- Spidey

I met Daws at races a couple of times. He saw the light and excelled! I fit in with the other slow twitch aerobic superior guys. My experiences have been the same as those mentioned. I always said that I was a strength runner. I just never ran enough plain mileage but seem to have had a fun running career. Now I have some trouble getting in enough mileage. I note that in our Sunday running group of 48 guys that has been in existance for over 35 years a very few of those between 70 and 80+ seem to have the genes and running mechanics to continue running at a good pace. Many of the rest are slowed to walking much of the time.

Orville -- always good to hear from you. What was Daws like, and do you know of what he died (several years ago, I think)? I really enjoyed his book ("Self Made Olympian", obviously bought used). You get a sense of the times for which it was written when he talks about shoes, and doctoring them for $3.50 instead of paying for more expensive ones, or of finding an adidas-clone at Penney's for $22.

Nobby,

I need your experience. I'm on my third cycle of Lydiard training and I know Lydiard said as you run eventually your training run times will come down. Well, mine really haven't come down, but thats understandable since my mileage has been going up. However, I recently maxed out on the 10 hours/week of running. My mileage (and pace) held steady for a few weeks, then all of a sudden it dropped big time. My question is do you think I may be running too fast?

Before my runs were all about 7.40-7.55 pace. Now, I'm running 7.30 for my slower runs and 7.10-7.20 for the shorter runs (some on hilly courses). I did a marathon in October with a pace of 7.15. I figure that has to be close to my 100% aerobic pace. I credit some of the speed increase to your advice you gave me about using the Lydiard 10K base program. I feel the up tempo runs and relaxed strides along with the hilly aerobic runs allow my legs to move smoother (my legs tend to loose flexibility during the conditioning phase otherwise). In my other two Lydiard cycles I really saw improvement after 3 weeks of hill phase.

My main concern is I am running too fast to get the aerobic benefits I need during the base phase, but by what I know the faster paces seem okay for me. I run out and back courses frequently and rarely end up with greater than a 30 second difference. I feel comfortable and within myself, and I haven't had to back off on any of my runs to allow myself to recover from the faster paces. I do jog on Friday (it's on the schedule), but its at my old training pace.

I think what is happening is that my body has finally had enough time at 10 hours/week to adapt to that volume of training and can now handle the faster paces. But I could really use some reassurance that my judgement is correct and that I'm not missing any key signals that an injury is around the corner.

Thanks

I completely agree with that Nobby.

I think one of the main reasons why Lydiard is misrepresented is because he was reacting against the extreme interval training of the late 50's by Zatopek and Pirie. They took Gershler's ideas to the extreme and it was their downfall after their amazing initial success.

So people thought that Arthur was anti interval training, when in fact he was just trying to make more sense of what works and what is too much.