Lydiard quiestion relating efford

HRE,

Always felt that Lydiard's time trials were very similar to what is now called tempo, threshold, AT. Just figured Lydiard was ahead of his times, as usual.

Recall that in his marathon schedule he went up to 20k time trial, and even suggested a 26 miler a month before the race.

You're right -- as I said I didn't do the simple math because I didn't see the need. Spot checking a couple values, and I see that my "easy" formula gives slower times than the table -- which doesn't look like a bad thing, if I can say so myself.

bw wrote:

RE: the previous post. if you do some simple math, you can see that 1/4 effort for 10k is nowhere near MP. I don't think they vary too much from distance to distance. Remember, lydiards guys trained together, so it's not like Halburg and Snell are going to be training at vastly difference paces because 5k is 6x longer than 800m.

Thanks for the historical link to Holmer. It gives a little perspective.However, contrary to what I said before, now I'm applying some math, and I have a little trouble with your example. If I apply the percentages to a 60 second 440, I get 63, 65, and 67 seconds, respectively. 63, 66, and 69 seconds works out to be 95%, 90% and 85% of speed. Sometimes speed calculations can be tricky, knowing when to divide or multiply, but I think I got the math right.Nevertheless, it's clear that Lydiard "adapted" the concept when constructing the tables, and not in a uniform way over all distances, or abilities. For example, 880 yard efforts are about 95%, 90%, and 85% of speed, while 6 mile efforts are more like 97.5%, 95%, and 92.5% (and 220 yard efforts are as low as 92%, 82%, and 71%). The values change for elite runners compared to slower athletes. Lydiard's adaptation seems to be somewhat simplified in that the relative efforts are predictable patterns of additions of whole seconds (e.g. for 6 miles, the differences are always 40 seconds, for every ability), rather than any strict or loose percentage equation.I have a personal impression that Lydiard's tables are a little aggressive, but using Holmer's percentages are much faster, especially at the lower distances, and a little slower at the longer distances.It's interesting your comment about Gilmour. It makes me wonder how much of what is in Lydiard's books come from the co-author Gilmour. Wasn't he just a sports journalist or something like that?.

Tinman wrote:

Lydiard adapted the Effort Tables of Gosta Holmer. *Holmer developed the table before WWII. It goes like this:

For any given distance,

Full effort = 100% speed

7/8th effort = 97.5% speed

3/4th effort = 95% speed

1/2 effort = 92.5% speed

1/4th effort = 90% speed

-------------------------------------------

Example:

A 4:00 miler wanting to run 440 repeats:

Effort Speed Per 440 yds

Full 100% 60 sec.

7/8 97.5% 61.5 sec.

3/4 95% 63 sec.

1/2 92.5% 66 sec.

1/4 90% 69 sec.

------------------------------------------

Remember, the co-author of Lydiard's books was Garth Gilmour, who knew Holmer's methods well.

No, why would they be too hard for a 4 minute miler? He could run 10 440 yds in 59-60 with 60 seconds rest, and 20 or more in 63 with the same recovery.

coachkritter wrote:

HRE,

Always felt that Lydiard's time trials were very similar to what is now called tempo, threshold, AT. Just figured Lydiard was ahead of his times, as usual.

Recall that in his marathon schedule he went up to 20k time trial, and even suggested a 26 miler a month before the race.

Lydiard´s time trials are not the same as "threshold". The classic definition of "anaerobic threshold" is the pace you could hold for an hour (I know that the concept of threshold is under debate, but that´s a different story).

The pace on Lydiard´s time trials will be different depending on which distance you have on the TT. The purpose is to work on your weaknesses during the "coordination phase". If you run a 5k TT and feel strong but slow the next TT will be shorter and faster. If you feel fast but lack stamina the next will be longer and slower.

Lydiard's Time Trials were hard but not all-out efforts: they were supposed to align with 7/8ths effort, which more or less means about 1.5-2 seconds per quarter mile slower than all-out.

Bill Bowerman learned of the concept of Time Trials from Lydiard in 1961, when the Univ. of Oregon team traveled to New Zealand. Bowerman used TT thereafter to set training paces, but like Lydiard the TT was not all-out.

Not sure where the comment about Garth Gilmour knowing Gosta Holmer's methods came from. Yes ! He was Journalist and became a close friend of Arthur's. Hence the Co - Authorship. But as far as I know all he did was take what Arthur said and write it down. Arthur was a "student" of the Sport in his early days and probably looked at all sorts of ideas (and tried them !!). I would say that he was the one who had an idea of what Holmer was doing.

An aside : I recall asking Bill Baillie who he looked up to in terms of top athletes and he said .. Emil Zatopek ....

I know the guys (Arthur and the "Boys") looked at his training in depth.

I concur with HRE .. Arthur's effort tables have caused more controversey than they should have. But it is as HRE said .. The publishers wanted all that stuff in there !!!