Lydiard Build-Up Question

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So-called "multi paced training" is nothing new to Lydiardism. Greg McMillan somewhere mentioned that he first heard about (the concept of) multi paced training from Lydiard. I'm talking about during the Marathon Conditioning. You'll have 1/4 effort (easy aerobic pace), 1/2 effort (harder) and 3/4 effort (close to threshold). You also have one day of fartlek if you really want to follow the original schedule; and lots of hills if you consider geographical aspect of what Lydiard did. "It isn't all that jogging." However, you should still start out with whatever the pace you can manage. The important thing is balance. You need to balance when you start pushing the effort and when you need to take it easy to build up initial strength.

Finn pointed out another important element: Since Lydiard talked about "blocks" in the overall program, some people misunderstand it as a chunck of a block where you do "nothing but" certain exercise. Lydiard program is all about smooth transition. That's why we have a hill training phase before we move on to track training. Even before you move on to the hill training phase, you should start doing some easy hill exercise or run hilly terrain to get your body accustomed to the next stress. You don't jump to hard running before you can handle it; but too many people do. Nothing can be truer than what Ron Daws used to say: "Don't run hard till you can run easy."

Lydiard´s "multipace" is not the same as Horwill/Coe multipace. Lydiard´s "multipaces" are all at or below threshold pace.

It´s also incorrect that Lydiard invented something entirely new that had not been used before. My father was a decent national-standard 1500 runner in the mid-1950s. He was coached by Gösta Olander who had coached Gunder Hägg when he set a number of world records. His training was divided in 4 blocks:

1. Endurance: Hard distance running in the forest and strength training with weights. Occasional light fartleks in the forest.

2. Uphill fartlek: Hard runs up the mountains with easy jog downhill.

3: Short, hard fartlek sessions on flat road. Form drills.

4. All-out speed and time trials on the track.

This was way before Lydiard´s says. He had used a similar system with Hägg in the early 1940s. The main difference between this training and Lydiard´s training was that they didn´t do long runs and their distance runs were generally shorter, but they did 2 (and sometimes 3) sessions each day during base phase, so the mileage was reasonably high anyway.

I've thought that a lot of what Arthur advocated was stuff that people had already done and what Arthur did was organize it into a particular pattern. But I think the one "innovation" he brought to the sport was the importance of long runs for everyone. That weekly long run that is a standard part of virtually everyone's training now was not anywhere nearly as common before Arthur came along.

I guess I'm sorry if I offended some people by telling what Lydiard training is or what I know it is. I'm not saying Lydiard invented multi paced training or it's the same as Howill's. Lyidard quite often refered Olander or Holmer and their contribution of creating "fartlek" training. He loved fartlek but never claimed that he "invented" it. I really don't know how else I can explain what I know about Lydiard trainig other than how I have said.

To back up HRE. I have said this on other threads. I have always felt that the most important part of Arthur's training was the long runs, especially the long Saturday or Sunday run.

I know in myself that I always felt that my training started to "feel right" once I got those runs out to 2 hrs plus. That is a purely personal thing but it worked for me.

I also have mentioned this. I Coached a masters Runner in the late 80's to a 1:08 half marathon. I doubt if our mileage was much over 50 miles a week at the time. BUT the key was a Waiatarua every weekend. Don't take the 50 miles week as what he did normally or as something special. It was just how we balanced the training during that period. This was a guy who had 20 to 25 years CONSISTENT running behind him.

Possibly 500 plus Waiatarua's behind him. I must check one day !!

I´m certainly not offended. I just wanted to clarify a few things. I´m glad that there are people who has a balanced view on Lydiard and his contribution to running training. Some people seem to think that there was all darkness in the running world and down came Lydiard and said "let there be light".

"No man is an island".

Steffo:

I'm glad I didn't offend you. I have to be careful because it seems that sometimes all I'm trying to do is to explain Lydiard method and some people get hostile, saying that Lydiard wasn't God or he didn't invent everything, etc. I don't mean to emphasize any of that; as a matter of fact, we are trying to even clarify some of the myths created by Lydiard himself.

Anyways, you have posted some priceless information in fact. As I said, Lydiard spoke very highly of Orlander and Holman. He often quoted Holmar about youngsters training. As you might know, while his loyalty to his home country of New Zealand was so strong, Lydiard considered Scandinavian countries as his second home. His second wife, Eira, was from Finland where Arthur spent 2 years, working his butt off. Greg McMillan can tell you; the day Arthur died, he was sitting behind the headquarter of SunMart Ultra Trail race in Houston, looking over the lake where he explained as the scene that "reminds him of Finland" for hours. Most likely remembering his years, preparing to go...

Interestingly, by the way, Lydiard often refered his "sharpener" as "Igloi training" while some people claim "Lydiard took everything for his credit."

thanks

this has been an awesome thread. after reading this and the lydiard pdf offered on the first page of the thread, and taking into account the way i respond to training(i can handle more long, continuous stuff as opposed to shorter faster) i'm going to try and structure a lydiard-style program for myself over the next couple months.

this is how i've ran my last couple of weeks

s-long run 1(56 minutes)

m-off(work an 11 hour day, 6:30-5:30)

t-long run 2(60 minutes)

w-"faster run"(32 minutes)

t-long run 3(64 minutes)

f-recovery run/if the legs are there progression(32 minutes)

s-tempo(32 minutes)

i'm running everything based on 8:00 miles. right now i'm somewhere around 35 miles a week. what i;m wondering, from all the guys who did long periods of time on a lydiard system was

1)am i going about this correctly?

and

2)if i add 10 minutes to each run every 2 weeks, will that be long enough of long runs, or do i need to start doing 90 minute runs sooner?

i'm hoping to do something like this till april, when i'll add in some speed for a 10 miler in may, which will then begin a 6 month marathon program(hopefully lydiard-style as well)

I assume you're a young aspiring athlete, say, in high school??? Critisize what I have to saya here if you want...

I'd say you should go ahead and up your long run to 90 minutes or more right away. If you're going about 8-minute pace, you're not going to kill yourself. There is a time to be conservative (like when trying to do some repetitions), but I think way too many people are being too conservative about upping the duration of the run. I remember when I first read "Run to the Top", I was in high school and I didn't think I could handle 100 miles a week but thought I could do 100km (62 miles). So I converted the schedule from miles to kilometers except for Sunday long run. I pretty much jumped to a 30km (18 miles) run which to me at the time was about 2:10~2:15 in duration. I got tired, but I managed and got stronger and stronger.

Say, if you're a fit and healthy high school kid, you're not gonna get much out of a 60 minutes run at 8-minute pace. Arthur himself told me once that, when he first tried the Waitak 22-miler, he had to sit in the gutter for a while, thinking what the hell he's doing out there. Took him a week to completely recover but then he felt great benefit from it.

We had this argument when John Molvar wrote his thesis and said Arthur recommended 6 weeks (or was it 9?) from sedentary state to running up to 100MPW. I thought it was too quick. So I asked Arthur. His reply was; "Just get out and do it." While I still wouldn't get anybody to start running 100MPW in 6 weeks or 9 weeks or whatever; I'm also against holding back too much by not letting your body go when it says "ready" and strictly following this 10-minites-per-2-weeks rule or 10-miles-per-week rule. I think that's just as silly as following some tough regime blindly.

Some tips for this jump would be:

1) Go SLOW!!!

2) If you never run this far, you may get really tired and may have to walk the last few miles--but that's okay.

3) Take it easy the following couple of days till you recover sufficiently--listen to your body's reaction!

not quite high school- junior in college, but i've only been running really for about 5/6 months, always was a swimmer/soccer player though so i'm not really out of shape(5'11, 150)

so assuming i do the 90 minute long run(which i've done before, 14 miles is my longest to date) how much shorter would the other two long runs be? and would i need to up the mileage on the other three runs, to somewhere in the one hour range?

the reason the schedule was so conserivative was i've been pretty injury prone-lately and want to not get injured too quicky.

thanks a lot for the advice. from what i've read, there are a couple people here who really know what they are talking about when it comes to the lydiard approach, and i think it's damn cool that you guys take the time to answer beginners questions.

It is an excellent point made about the gradual transition from one "phase" to the next. In the past many including myself have taken too literal ok I am done with this phase now it is time to start the next instead of gradially transitioning in. It certainly takes patience and discipline. It is also important to vary your terrain ie trails versus concrete, asphalt etc.

Nobby, or anyone else....

Can you recommend a safe build-up rate, post injury. I will be having hernia surgery on December 29th, and according to the Dr., I should be able to start light joggin 2-3 weeks later, and real running 1-2 weeks after that.

I am currently trying to hang out in the 50-60mpw range until then, and have just come out of a good Marathon cycle, where I averaged 70-75mpw.

Particularly if you've already done 90-minute once before, go for it! If you've been playing soccer and swimming, more so because you must have developed decent aerobic capacity already.

To answer your question (how much shorter should it be?), the answer would be: whatever could get you recovered adequately. You might feel fine and could manage an hour even; or you might feel dead tired, might have to crawl a couple of miles for a couple of days. Only YOU could tell...

Interesting comment you made; you have been pretty injury-prone "lately"? Is it because you tried a 14-miler? Or is it because you played a rough game of soccer? Or perhaps something else???

Training is all about evaluation of exercises. You need to figure out what has made you "injury-prone" lately. If you weren't before, say, even when you tried a 14-miler; then perhaps going the distance may not be the cause of it. There's got to be a reason for everything and a big part of it is to figure ou what's causing it and eliminate it. Could it be the running surface? Could it be shoes? Could it be other activities? Could it be bad diet (happens often for college kids ;o))... Sort out when this "lately" started; any particular change you have made? Had to stay up late for studying? Dating too much?... Don't jump to the conclusion that increased mileage got you injured. Could be number of other reasons.

Nobby:

I was just curious if you might have a respone to my previous post. I know that everyone is different, and that part of your answer is dependent upon how I bounce back from the surgery, but I was still interested in your opinion.

Thanks....

I guess if I may have to, my recommendation would be NOT to follow any set formula (I'm sure you knew this was coming...).

One of the things I've learnt over the years; you write down a seemingly perfect training schedule, each day's distance and effort and all those numbers are perfectly synchronized. Then reality hits and something may happen, you may get some nagging pain in your leg or something... Now you have a choice; you either stick with the plan because it looks so beautiful; or use what you've got between your ears and follow your own reactions.

One time, we took all athletes to Hokkaido, northern part of Japan, for a week-long training camp; we flew out there, sent all necessary equipment and all to the hotel, all the rooms booked... One of the athletes complained nagging pain in her groin. So what do you do? You've paid all the things, arranged everything, so you'd want to just go ahead and do the camp anyways... Wrong. If you have an injury, you have an injury. Basically, nothing you can do about it (well, you can, but you know what I mean?). You cannot, and should not, let the schedule dictate; you have to let the healing process to decide what and how you should do the training. She ended up walking a lot--3 times a day up to 2 hours. We did what we could do (yes, we DO have something we can do...).

My suggestion would be: go very SLOW. Remember, you can NEVER run too slowly. If anything, nice easy jog would increase the blood flow to the area and may do you good. But keep it very slow at first. Put extra jacket and pants on and start warming up by walking first. Start with half an hour jog and see how you feel. If the pain doesn't "worsen", then increase that to 45 minutes every other day (not the speed); then an hour. But forget the weekly mileage; be it 40 o5 50 or 70. If you start to target certain numbers like that, then you'll be in trouble. Go by how you feel; not by numbers.

Steffo-

Thanks for the contribution about Gosta Holmer's methods. I'll add to that Holmer was the inventor of the effort system that Lydiard borrowed (1/4th, 1/2, 3/4th, and 7/8ths).

About 20 years ago I found an old article in which a copy of Holmer effort system was reprinted from a mid-1940s paper he wrote. It was printed in an early 1960s Track Techniqe quarterly review of training.

By the way, Bill Bowerman was given a copy of Holmer's article in the 1950s (53, I think) and that article showed the effort chart, too. He even used it on runners like Peter Mundle, Bill Bailey and Bill Dellinger when they ran for U of O in the 1950s. Dellinger retained that chart and the principles of it as he began to coach. In fact, Dellinger wrote an article in the 1970s that described effort related interval training. He had runners doing 1 mile or 1/2 mile intervals at 3/4th or 1/2 effort.

The effort scale the Holmer created was not arbitrary and simply by feel. It was very specific and mathematical.

None of this takes away from Lydiard. It just shows that he was smart enough to see a method that someone else was using that could be used to clarify his own concepts of training.

running dad wrote:

Lydiard recomends three long runs per week during the build-up phase, with shorter, less intense runs in between. Is this done so that you can run longer on these days, or so that you can run more intensely, closer to your aerobic threshold. Or is it a combination of both.

Both. Lydiard was doing his version of hard/easy while still trying to keep the volume high and the intensity fairly low. He found he got better results this way than with seven identical days, so he adopted it.