Wow, Lydiard training seems ridiculously hard

I've done a reasonable amount. That's a large part of why I said what I did. Until we know what "talent" is any answer to this is pure speculation.

But as you seem to know more than I do, why don't you explain to us what talent is as it applies to distance running, how we can measure it and then identify if, for example, Keino had more, less, or the same amount if it than Snell or Jazy had?

Or have you not done enough coaching to have a clear answer?

Pure speculation, fantastic sir! I'm done with you.

Years of Coaching wrote:

Pure speculation, fantastic sir! I'm done with you.

Thank heaven! I'll take that to mean you have no answer.

You know what? I'm going to throw one more card on the table and see if you can play it.

Lydiard's original runners was a group of 15-20 guys who lived in his neighborhood in Auckland. In his neighborhood, not from the entire city.

Today's Africans come primarliy from two countries on the east coast with some add ons from some neighboring countries. Which do you think is the larger talent pool?

Actually the neighbourhood would be lucky to 3 sq miles !!!

Some of those "old" guys still live in the area !!!(eg Magee and Baillie)

malmo wrote:

khadaffi out of power wrote:

About the long run, as you don´t trust me at all, and you trust on Malmo, i advice you to do SEARCH on this board and read Malmo´s ideas about the long run subject, and you might read Renato Canova as well.

Hey Looney tunes, I don't think that HRE is the one who needs to read my opinion on long runs, he understands me perfectly. You do not.

I´m atonish. Do you have any special talent to read the mind of the other person ? To read my mind ?

Did you test me on my understand of your opinion about long runs ?

How do you know that i don´t understand you ? One thing is to be against the long run, another thing is to be against the long run by the same kind of reason that you do, that i don´t.

I was right after all. Despite the evidence of your argument against the long run, and you say HRE understands you, he doesn´t trust you on that point. Ok, i did a wrong move while name you, because HRE is one lost case relate to some training evidence.

Finally it´s me that i don´t trust on him. The man denies facts just to attempt to be right when he is wrong. Both Peter Snell and Ron Davies did the same training.

malmo

I forget this one.

For God sake. Let me know what i don´t know about your long run argument. The thread is open. What i don´t understand about your long run argue ?

Khadaffi, I am disappointed in your answer to my comments, I thought you would come back with some good 'information'. Can you also clear up the "Specific" definition.

I am also disappointed that you keep attacking HRE saying that I said that I backed your argument that John Davies did the same training as Peter Snell. I thought I was quite clear that John did do some workouts with Peter but that he lived in a different town and did the majority of his work there. Running the occasional workout with Peter Snell does not add up to the same training.

HRE has interviewed Peter on numerous occasions and probably has more knowledge on what he "Actually" did than any of us.

In addition, I too have huge respect for Malmo and the contribution he makes here and I have no problem with the fact he does not put importance on the long runs as I do. It is the bigger picture we are all interested in not picky little detail

I note we still have no idea who you are and yet there is quite a few of us who can be contacted to our home e mail, not some pseudonym .. I have also told my friend Barbara Ann to "come clean".

Let me try to address your "SPECIFIC" question.

In one of Renato's philosophical threads, he defines SPECIFIC as "all the Training including speeds between 95 and 105% of the speed of the race".

An example of progression might be, at first running the speed in intervals, and over time, working towards something like a time trial.

For a good runner, a workout of 1 hour run at 3:15/km pace, would be considered differently depending on your event: "speed for Marathon, specific for HM, special for 10000m, aerobic support for steeple and 5000m, general for 1500 and 800"

With this philosophy, you can see why long runs are considered so "disconnected" to short events like 800m/1500m, that they provide general support, but not "SPECIAL", or "SPECIFIC" support.

At least that's how I understand it when I'm talking about it here. Lydiard's time trials and development races can be considered SPECIFIC in that sense, while something like windsprints and long runs cannot, because they do not simulate race conditions.

I don't want you to comment the training itself.I was just wondering, if I draw a line between Lydiard's "classic" method, and a representative modern method, do you think de Castella's training is somewhere in between, because he rejected the classic periods, or is it completely unrelated, suffering from the other problems?In other words, if my goal is to drag myself into the 21st century, would I be wasting my time investigating de Castella's training?

khadaffi out of power wrote:

I read some information about Robert Castella but i don´t want to comment. I consider myself one modern coach and i´m not attach to any training methdology, be Renato Canova, Lydiard, Kostre, or Pat Clohessey whatever. My training is my own training, point.

As George Harrison song says "everything must pass".

khadaffi out of power wrote:

I´m atonish. Do you have any special talent to read the mind of the other person ? To read my mind ?

Did you test me on my understand of your opinion about long runs ?

How do you know that i don´t understand you ? One thing is to be against the long run, another thing is to be against the long run by the same kind of reason that you do, that i don´t.

I was right after all. Despite the evidence of your argument against the long run, and you say HRE understands you, he doesn´t trust you on that point. Ok, i did a wrong move while name you, because HRE is one lost case relate to some training evidence..

You have very poor reading comprehension. I have never said that I am against long runs. I has made my opinion known many times on their value and I have done so in great detail. Since you do not understand what my opinion is, it would be a better learning experience for you to research exactly what I've said about them. Obviously, by me repeating myself over and over again you are not absorbing what I've actually said, rather you are hearing what you want me to say.

I'm willing to bet that I've put as many, or almost as many long runs (20+ milers), as anyone who has ever posted on this board. That's not the same as 'emphasizing' them, and it is not in contradiction to anything I've said about them.

I've said very explicitly and many, many times over, that the long run is the least important aspect of training. So unimportant that that you could do completely without them if you wanted to. The long run should be appropriate and proportional to your overall training mileage and to the events you are training for. Long runs are for people who have already gotten all of the other pieces of the training puzzle in place. They are not the starting point. They are the icing on the cake. They are not the cake. The emphasis on one day of the week, rather than the other six days is misplaced.

I've made each and every one of those points in clear and simple language a thousand times. You might have another opinion, but how or why you can't understand my position is baffling to me.

I think it would be more productive to focus on the differences, rather than trying to conclude which is right or wrong, or trying to get HRE to agree.

You take for granted that it's a matter of fact that modern methods show that Lydiard's outdated methods are wrong.

While Lydiard followers still think it's a matter of opinion, that modern techniques, just because they are different, are better.

I think your only hope of convincing others to change, is to highlight the differences, and let them see it for themselves.

Maybe you'll bring this up later, if we ever get that far.I understand most of your comments about interval training, but I don't understand why you think he recommends "short bouts with short recovery" during "anaerobic training".Some "evidence" produced in another thread (the "New England Runner" article) indicated "taking longer intervals of recovery and doing longer repetitions" were "the way to do it".If Lydiard ever specified interval details at all, it was something vague like "Run one, jog one, until your tired." I think "equal length" recoveries are considered long.

Kadaffi out of power wrote:

The wrong prescription of INTERVAL TRAINING. Basically Lydiard considers the interval training of short bouts with short recovery, anaerobic training kind, what isn´t either. From that wrong interpretation Lydiard refuses to use that kind of interval training during the early phases of his season periodization, when this Kind of short interval training is aerobic really indeed and not anaerobic as he says.

You've got Lydiard's quote about intervals pretty well nailed and it's not something I recall him ever saying or writing about extensively.

In practice, what seems to have happened, and I got this indirectly from Bill Baillie and directly from Snell, is that "short rep/long recovery, long rep/short recovery" was the most common approach.

Snell said that each type of interval work is meant to accomplish different results. Long reps are still basically endurance sessions so you want the short recovery because you're more or less simulating what's going to happen in a race or time trial.

Short reps were supposed to adapt the neuro-muscular system to going fast and hard. You wanted to run the reps as fast as possible while remaining in control, e.g. 10 x 400 averaging 62 was preferable to 10 x 400 averaging 65. Longer recoveries

allowed you to do the reps faster.

Well, thanks, and excuse me if my quote of you in the case of long runs is inappropriate. I did imagine that if HRE reads you it would be easier to understand you and your arguments than mine. I really don´t see what i don´t understand. I will continued to read.

I profit to say something more about the long run. My ultimate prove that the long run is useless(except for the marathon) is very simple and basic but it´s factual either, and don´t require physiology knowledge or methodology discuss, conceptual training or so.

I write in one paper the top class runners that i know very well their training method, their schedules and each one Pb´s. Hundreds of top class runners, olympics, WR, titles, top in the word rankings. Then i sign what from all that runners what are the ones that do long runs and the ones that don´t. The conclusion is that, with one or another exception, for same distance event, most of the top performers don´t do long runs and they are on the very top of rankings.

Might be that the top performers do best because several training approaches, but obviously it´s not for the miss of long run.

Apologies Malmo, I was trying to point out to Khadaffi exactly what you have written. I just did not do it that well. That is why I said it is the bigger picture we are dealing with.

Thanks for the answer on "Specific". I was really wanting to see what Khadaffi was meaning by "Specific" ... Part of the problem of the schedules in the book is the "generic" nature of them.

Regarding the nature of the long runs .. and I am going back to a culture that has been lost a little here in NZ. The Long Sunday run still exists but it tends to be just one or two groups heading out and running 2 to 2.5 hrs.

Example : Back a few years I can recall groups leaving the Lynndale club rooms to do Long(ish) runs on various courses in the Waitakeres. Those runs could be anything from 12 to 20 plus miles. Who did what depended on what was relevant to the athlete.

Keith Livingstone calls one of the 12 mile courses (it was Shaw Road) the poor mans Waiatarua.