Clarification of a couple of Lydiard's ideas...?

I believe Lydiard would prioritize by first running the miles, and then working on pace, and doing so by running faster several times a week, and slower on the other days. He said you will accomplish more by tunning 12-8-12-8 etc. then by running 10-10-10-10-etc. You will probably not race well in the middle of hill training. One "flaw" of Lydiard's system is that it takes a while for good results. It is not for the impatient.

Run for time, then run for speed. Fast during the aerobic portion, but not so fast that you can't do it again the next day. That all depends on your experience but you should get to a point where you can go "marathon effort" during a large portion of your run each day, sometimes even faster. But, know when to run slow. You should be able to run 4-5 days a week at pretty uptempo effort with the other couple of days a slower steady pace. Above all, vary the pace, vary the distance, vary the terrain during your aerobic development.

Lydiard's only flaw with the training schedules is that you train for only a couple of races. Lydiard's system was based on running well only a couple times a year: national championships, conference championships, Olympics, etc.

Alan

Thanks. That helps! It's interesting that I do not see anything in his training that would indicate doing say, 30x400 or something similar. I've seen all over the place great runners doing very high count of intervals, etc, but Lydiard doesnt seem to advocate anything besides a very large amount of aerobic mileage.

Is this the case?

It just seems to me that there are no sessions/weeks/periods stressed by Lydiard where the runner really gets into very hard workouts.

Also, from what i've studied there are these periods:

-Aerobic Development

-Hill Resistance/Leg Speed development

-Anaerobic Development

-Coordiation Training

-and Sharpening/Freshening Up

In which of these phases would fast, 20-40min hard tempo runs be implemented? Looking back on last track season ya, I did the 2's, 4's, and 8's. I did a good amount of mileage. I did the strides. But I think the one component I was missing was the tempo run.

Anyway, hopefully after a little clarification my training plan will be complete and I can reach my high goals...but I think the next stage will be to study another prominent coach like Lydiard and try to semi-quazi mesh some of the theory to fill in a couple of weak spots.

Thanks!

fflyer

The reason why you don't see 20 x 400 in Lydiard's program is that runner's who do such high volume intervals only run intervals once, maybe twice a week. In Lydiard's program you are running intervals THREE times a week during the anaerobic development.

Lydiard was much more than just hard aerobic running, much, much more.

During the hill phase you are doing hill work 3 days a week. During the anaerobic development phase you are doing three days of intervals. Just enough to make you tired....but knowing you'll have 3 of these workouts per week I doubt you'll do more than 3 miles of volume total per workout. The goal is to go fast for 800m or more, recover, and go fast again. You should not be struggling and you should be pretty well recovered between efforts. Lydiard suggested run one, jog one, but I think that would be too much rest. Then again, if you are also pushing the aerobic days and getting in a day or two that includes sprints (as he prescribes) then the same distance recovery may do you well. The key to understanding Lydiard is not in the individual workouts, but in the total density of training in the week and in the phases.

Then, during the coordination phase you are doing two days of "time trials" and one day of short anaerobic work (2-4000m of sprint 50m float 50m or 100m/100m). These "time trials" are not meant to be all-out. They are meant to be run at 7/8th effort. Your first time trial determines your second and so on. So, as a 5k runner it would be wise to start with the 5k time trial at 7/8th effort....go hard and steady but not all out and no sprinting. The next time trial would either be shorter (1500m or 3000m) or longer (10000m) depending on how you did in the first time trial and what areas you need to work on. Example: You run a hard 5k time trial but slow at the end, then you run a 10k time trial the next time. Or, if you run your initial 5k time trial at a steady effort but lack the speed in your legs then you run the shorter time trial. Basically these 7/8th effort time trials are preparing you to race. Intervals prepare you to rest every 400-1600m. So, while you gain a lot of anaerobic development during intervals you need these hard time trials to transfer that over to sustained efforts.

Alan

Alan. Can I get your email? What you are saying is simply music to my ears.

anyway, that anaerobic phase description really makes a lot more sense now. I didn't necessarily see that it was around 800+m from what I read but it would make sense as there are a lot of faster shorter things that be does as well.

Especially during the coordination phase I will be racing. And in fact, through mid hill phase I will be. What I'm wondering is if there are different theories/plans out there for racing while training or what. I completely understand that racing is meant to be done after training but to a certain degree one must usuly race and train in conjunction lots of the time. So, like during coordination phase I will just have to use my race to be the time trial for the week and then on Tuesday do another one of the 7/8 time trials you were talking about.

Also, it seems that after say hill phase that there really isn't anymore stress put on hills. Which would make sense, to a point. Does that mean that one is to continue the hill bounding on a less intense level every once in a while during other phases or does that mean that the hills (or any other phase for that matter) simply act as building blocks to a pyramid that are left in place in order to facilitate the next phases?

Interesting...anyway, now I'm kinda worried that lydiard isnt going to fit as well as I'd like with my racing schedule, for a number of reasons including the fact that it will be hard to talk my coach out of fairly frequent races...are you familiar with any other styles that might better suit a peak in mid April to mid may? Lydiard makes the most sense to me and I feel the most comfortable with it but I'm having some doubts.

Again, thank you soooo much for your time. This is helping me achieve my goals already like you wouldny believe. I had an awesome early xc season, I was competing at a really high level, but I hit a mental roadblock as well as a little just physical tiredness at the end of the season and came out flat. So I've got one more week of rest and I'm determined to race very competitively when it counts this season!

thanks again!

fflyer

Alan. Can I get your email? What you are saying is simply music to my ears.

anyway, that anaerobic phase description really makes a lot more sense now. I didn't necessarily see that it was around 800+m from what I read but it would make sense as there are a lot of faster shorter things that be does as well.

Especially during the coordination phase I will be racing. And in fact, through mid hill phase I will be. What I'm wondering is if there are different theories/plans out there for racing while training or what. I completely understand that racing is meant to be done after training but to a certain degree one must usuly race and train in conjunction lots of the time. So, like during coordination phase I will just have to use my race to be the time trial for the week and then on Tuesday do another one of the 7/8 time trials you were talking about.

Also, it seems that after say hill phase that there really isn't anymore stress put on hills. Which would make sense, to a point. Does that mean that one is to continue the hill bounding on a less intense level every once in a while during other phases or does that mean that the hills (or any other phase for that matter) simply act as building blocks to a pyramid that are left in place in order to facilitate the next phases?

Interesting...anyway, now I'm kinda worried that lydiard isnt going to fit as well as I'd like with my racing schedule, for a number of reasons including the fact that it will be hard to talk my coach out of fairly frequent races...are you familiar with any other styles that might better suit a peak in mid April to mid may? Lydiard makes the most sense to me and I feel the most comfortable with it but I'm having some doubts.

Again, thank you soooo much for your time. This is helping me achieve my goals already like you wouldny believe. I had an awesome early xc season, I was competing at a really high level, but I hit a mental roadblock as well as a little just physical tiredness at the end of the season and came out flat. So I've got one more week of rest and I'm determined to race very competitively when it counts this season!

thanks again!

fflyer

Lydiard has put together a race week/non-race week schedule for those who are going to race a lot more than he would normally recommend. Ideally you should get to the end of the hill phase without racing, or if you do race realize these races are going to be slow. The hill phase includes 3 hill workouts a week so during a race week cut that to two.

You can e-mail me here:

runner_1426@yahoo.com

Read this as well:

http://www.fitnesssports.com/lyd_clinic_guide/Arthur_Lydiard.htm

Road (Non-race week)

Monday: Repetitions 1 mile by 3 or 880 yards by 6.

Tuesday: Aerobic running 11/2 hours.

Wednesday: Time trial 3 miles.

Thursday: Aerobic running 11/2 hours.

Friday: Fast relaxed striding 100 meters by 6 to 10 times.

Saturday: Time trial 3 miles.

Sunday: Aerobic running 11/2 hours or more.

Road (Race week)

Monday: Wind-sprints 100 meters by 16 to 10 times.

Tuesday: Easy fartlek 1/2 to 1 hour.

Wednesday: Time trial 1 mile.

Thursday: Fast relaxed striding 100 meters by 4 to 6 times.

Friday: Jog 1/2 hour.

Saturday: Race.

Sunday: Aerobic running 11/2 hours or more

The guide does not mention for how long you can run on this schedule. It seems like very light mileage. I would be afraid of losing conditioning after a few weeks. How long would you continue before going back to base building?

It is fairly light. Arthur did have the recreational road racer in mind when he put this together so it's not a big miles schedule.

There are versions where that Sunday aerobic run goes to two hours which would add some miles. He often had people he was coaching warm up for maybe a half hour before doing a session like 10 x 100 or 6 x 800 and then do a similar cooldown. So there would be some more mileage. If you're more ambitious than the average recreational road racer you could do a morning run of 45-60 minutes. Then you're working towards the way a lot of Australians apply Lydiard which is a version that doesn't rely on distinct phases.

Finally, if you're a high school or college runner using this schedule you could use the summer as a time to do a traditional Lydiard build up and do a mini-build up around Christmas.

HRE,

what was Arthur's view on easy running? Was he particular about pace/effort? How often (generally) did his athletes run easy?

Thanks man!

Easy running was always what you were supposed to do with the "supplemental" runs. So in my earlier post that AM 45-60 run would always be easy. So would the warm ups and cool downs from the repeat sessions.

When you're talling about the "aerobic" runs you're into more of a gray area, but true aerobic running isn't generally very hard. His main concern with aerobic runs was that you didn't get out of breath. You could run as hard as you wanted to as long as you didn't "get too anaerobic."

He really wasn't all that particular about pace and effort. I think that's the part of his system that runner's now have the most trouble with as so many of them are used to various "formulas" that are pretty specific about pace or effort.

Arthur sort of figured that if you can do your runs every day as planned you're not going too hard. If you were going too slow you'd eventually get fitter and go faster. All he ever said to me about pace was "take your time and enjoy yourself." There was sort of an assumption that the shorter runs would be at a quicker pace than the longer ones.