LYDIARD OR DANIELS?

Great post on the training of sprinters. . . I always kind of wondered what those guys got up to when I was on the road with the boys.

Did Lydiard beleive there was any sort of benefit for distance guy's to do stuff like that during sharpening? (in terms of things like 150 meters at 95% effort or things like that).

Coaches like Igloi seemed to get great results out of very short intervals (less than 150, say). I also beleive Jim Ryun did quite a bit of fast, short intervals. . .

I believe it's Bobbi Gobb that you're thinking of.

"Gibb", not "Gobb." Can't see the stupid keynoard.

"Stupid keyboard." Not "stupid keynboard."

HRE:

You misspelled what you misspelled...

The whole idea of Lydiard helping out rugby team was, as Tinman suggested, the higher your oxygen uptake is, "the more event specific training you can do." In fact, I'm curious if sprinters, pure sprinters, actually benefit from easy jog of, say, 3~5 miles in the morning BEFORE their main event specific workouts... Gerry Lindgren's coach at high school, Tracy Walters, used to coach at UCLA (I thought it was...). He said that Lee Evans was the only "sprinter" to come out and ran upto 6 miles over the golf course.

Yes, Kathrine was NOT the first woman to run the marathon and she knows that and she acknowledges that in public as well. But it would still be very difficult to find any other woman who has contributed to the movement of women marathoning as much or more than her. She's married to Roger Robinson, the Englishman who moved to New Zealand; one of the toughest masters runners.

As far as I'm concerned, Lydiard was one of the first distance running coaches to include sprint work to distance training. He used to have his distance men, including marathon runners, to participate in the sprinting events at the club level. He would include some sprint drills; some sharpening work that involves "full speed" (though I don't like to use this term because I know some technical terminologist would jump all over it). Sprinting, or running VERY fast is very important to the Lydiard's overall program.

Thank you Dr Daniels for your thoughtful and kind reply to my queries.

Nobby wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, Lydiard was one of the first distance running coaches to include sprint work to distance training.

Sorry Nobby but I have to disagree. Big time. Many of the earliest coaching systems included sprint work even going right back to the days of Newton and Shrubb et al. Prior to 1900.

I've never read anything about Newton or Shrubb doing sprint training. Where did you find that?

I apologize in advance if I'm making an assumption here but I said "sprint" training; not simply "speed" training such as repetitons or intervals.

Bob:

Upon reading Snell's comment about "doing some repeats" during conditioning, Lydiard said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about..." A typical Lydiards reply; and, of course, I said, "Yes, sir" (you don't want to argue the Old Man, believe me) but I don't think Arthur quite uncerstand what Snell meant either. I believe (and I'm assuming here) Peter was refering to mere "leg-speed" work. Regardless of what you might have heard from Lydiard himself, his runners sometime DID do some easy fartlek once in a while; plus all the hills they ran. Bill Baillie (and, Kim, you can confirm) used to do some 200 leg-speed even during conditioning (because he liked to race almost year round).

They liked doing repeats with equal distance recovery jog because, that way, you can maintain good speed because you'll be better-recovered; plus you can do a volume of fast work--you can do 20 of them instead of, say, 15. At that point of the program, it is important to do a volume of anaerobic running and, if you take short recoveries, you may end up finishing the workout prematurely. Some people may argue, but cutting recovery shorter, you'll be better equiped for races. Well, there are time trials at the end of the program so I guess there's no need to do that with the Lydiard program.

Running at 7-minute-pace is an interesting topic... I would argue Peter that it's not so much of 7-minute-pace but the effort. The point is to deplete glycogen in your working muscles. If the effort is too low, you'll only tap into fat-burning metabolism. So you need to do it at certain level of effort; but that effort would not be measured by minutes per mile pace. The level of speed that you run at depends on multiple factors. Once going through hill training phase, for example, you may be running the regular long run almost 1/2 minute per mile faster at the same effort because your legs are stronger and more supple, that doesn't mean you'll be running anaerobically as opposed to aerobic previously.

Both of Bob's comments are about things Peter said in the interview I did with him for Marathon and Beyond.

When Peter brought up the 7:00 pace thing, I was surprised and asked him if he was referring to ALL runners or just those for whom 7:00 pace was a modest effort. I asked if slower running at corresponding heart rates (to what a fastish, young runner would experience at a 7:00 pace) wouldn't have the same effect and Peter said he wasn't sure but thought not.

This surprised me and I followed up on this with him quite a bit, but he kept saying that while he wasn't sure, and didn't think 7:00 on the absolute nose was the pace at which the fast twitch fibers are activated, he was convinced that going much slower than 7:00 pace for ANYONE won't activate those fibers. I specifically asked about some geezer who might be able to run a 6:55 mile with an all out effort and Peter held to the 7:00 idea suggesting that the geezer should do intervals at around that pace.

This all surprised me, I'd always learned that it was level of effort that activated whatever fibers, not speed. I mean, what if you're running up the side of a mountain at a 9:00 pace and gasping your lungs out? But Peter holds to the 7:00 pace and he does know a lot more than I do about physiology.

I've made inquiries of others knowledgable about physiology on this point, Hadd for one and have found that Peter is about the only one of them who thinks that the 7:00 line is something of an absolute. Everyone else has agreed that recruitment of fast twitch fibers happens but that it's effort level, not pace, that makes it so.

I also discussed Peter's comments about doing 300-400 meter repeats year round and Arthur shouted angily, "He's just guessing!" I did not ask Peter for his reasoning behind that statement and can't elaborate anymore on it.

HRE and Nobby,

Thanks for your detailed responses to my questions. That answered my questions thoroughly.

I guess I'm one of those geezers HRE mentioned. My most recent timed mile was 6:08 or 6:09. Just two days ago I had a mile split of 7:28 at the end of a 19 miler.

That may not have activated any FT fibers, but I'm fairly certain that it burned more glycogen than fat.

I can confirm that Bill did a lot of 200 "reps". I have done many sessions with him !!

Regarding the question about workouts like 150's at 95%.

I remember in early 1972 when a number of guys here were having some great battles over 1500n in order to qualify for Munich. Dick Quax was getting beaten in all of them so evidently John Davies and he decided some 'quick' work was needed and Dick did some sessions of 150's "Flat out".

In the next race Dick nailed the field beautifully.

A year or so later I can rcall doing something similar myself. Doing a session of 4 X 150 at top speed about 3 or 4 days out from our Provincial Championship 800m.

It must have helped as I ran one of my best races.

Nobby wrote:

I apologize in advance if I'm making an assumption here but I said "sprint" training; not simply "speed" training such as repetitons or intervals.

"Sprint training" is a fanciful term meaning different things to different people. For instance 10x100 with a minute rest - this might be "sprint training" for some but not for others. Coach Canova has his runners do very short hill runs all out with a lot of rest. That might be closer to "sprint training", but ??? I think "sprint training" should mean all out running at short distances with A LOT of time inbetween multiple runs for neuro recruitment training among other aspects. Anything that lessens a sprinters ability to go at top speed is not sprint training. This could mean 20-40-60-80 with 30min in between, or even something like 1x250 as a special sprinting endurance session.

But I don't think Lydiard conducted "sprint training" per se. And he certainly was not among the first to incorporate this kind of work. l'll dig up my big book of Athletics History and quote from it letr on.

Tinman I really like your post.

Of course a sprinter will do aerobic things in order to do a season of sprint things. Warmups and cooldowns contribute the vast bulk of this. Wariner does 4k jogs after sessions. I recall Moses (Edwin, that is:) did 4 mile jogs most mornings. But saying "aerobic fitness is the key to sprinting (not an exact quote)" is a bit of a stretch. Aerobic allows sprint work to happen. And all the other work for that matter. But for a 100/200 person, or even 400/800 as I originally asked about, the aspects of Lydiard base building would usually mean something different entirely from what we see in his books. Don't you agree?

Good thread.

I was surpised to see the 7:00 comment as well. I'm in the hill phase now of marathon training. In Running to the Top (p.106) Lydiard states: "Once the conditioning period is over, for to six week can be used to concentrate on hill type training to add resistance to the leg muscles and develop muscle fibres, particularly quick twitch.Two or three workouts a week of from 15 to 60 mins., depending on hhow you feel, are enough. Underdoiong it is better than overdoing it. The othr days should see you on steady running, striding or easy fartlek according to hou your legs feel. Try relaxed downhill striding on descents that are not too steep."

The actual schedule calls for 45 to 60 mins of hill bounding. initailly, I thought that it seemed a little light, especially coming off the heavy mileage in the conditoning period but I soon learned that the hill bounding is very challenging and I think very helpful. Maybe Snell is right about the 7:00 deal but that could be done in the last 10 speed weeks leading up to the main run, assuming you can go that fast, and/or, for some, even during the "easy fartlek" during the hill phase.

My coach let me barrow a book by Manfred Steffny called Marathoning written in 1979. It talks about lydiard marathon program. Before the marathon conditioning he talk about lydiard having a

16 week cross county phase about 40-50 miles a week (800 for 16 week). race 3-6 miles, later increase to 10 miles. Days of easy running alternating with hard work. 22 miles on Sunday

8 week road training phase 70 miles a week

First week schedule

Mon 3 mile 50m wind sprints with a jog in between

Tue 3 mile time trail

Wed 2 x 800 @ 50%

Thur 6 x 400 @25%

Fri 6 x 200 @ 50%

Sat 1 mile very fast

Sun 22 miles

Then the normal 10 week marathon condtioning

6 week hills

12 track training

Does anybody every heard or know anything about his?

Matt:

It's a good book--I have it in Japanese. Quite a thorough book.

I'm not quite sure what your quesiton in regards to the chapter on Lydiard program in this book though. However, what you wrote down is only a part of what is presented in the book. The schedule is only a part of "Road Racing Season" in the original Lydiard schedule. Qutie surprising, to some, how not-just-running-100MPW this schedule is. % represents Arthur's famous (or "infamous") effort system which Steffny simply converted into % (25% for 1/4 effort) which I think makes it even more confusing.

In the original "Run to the Top", Arthur had very carefully constructed annual plan of XC, road racing, then preparation for track season. The entire 52 weeks were mapped out. As you know, the weekly schedule that you showed is only one representation of 52.

Nobby

Yes The % in the book does through you off. I guess what I'm asking is did lydiard come up with a xc and road phase because of the winter in new zeeland? What if I wanted to run the boston marathon and a fall marathon? I think my fall marathon would be more important for me because of the winter.

Does the xc and road schedule get harder as it goes?

thank

I guess what else I'm trying to ask are the xc and road training phase important or help development?