Here is something that I find curious: Lydiard was famous for liking mileage for his runners. Why is it then that Lydiard's best guys (at least among his original guys) were better the shorter the race was?
Peter Snell: 1:44.3, 3:54.1
Murray Halberg: 13:38.2
Barry Magee: 2:19:04
1:44.3 is better than 3:54.1. 3:54.1 is better than 13:38.2, and 13:38.2 is better than 2:19:04.
What's up with that?
Not much difference in the 3 shorter distances. The marathon wasn't normally run on a flat track like the others which is why it would be slower.
Also Magee wasn't as fast as Snell, hence the difference.
As a Bronze Medalist, Magee was clearly near the top of the marathoning game for the time.
Very few track guys were doing the sort of mileage Lydiard's track guys were doing so it gave them an advantage over other track runners of their time.
Those times, were Olympic Medal contenders at the time, Snell and Halberg won Gold, Magee bronze. Few runners trained as much as Arthur's boys in those days. They were able to win with work. Those runners were all from a small area of Aukland in the 50s who trained with Arthur. Can you imagine taking a handful of kids from your town and end up with 3 Olympic medals? Once Arthur's boys won their medals, other athletes began incorporating his concepts. Snell's 800 time is STILL the NZ National record for the 800 (though run on a grass track), the 5 km time is a good, not great collegiate time and Magee's marathon time would barely get an expenses paid trip to the US Olympic marathon trials. Just goes to show the world wide influence that Lydiard's marathon training has had on athletics.
OO
Peter Snell: 1:44.3, 3:54.1
Murray Halberg: 13:38.2
Barry Magee: 2:19:04
Interesting observation
2.19 is pretty soft for an olympic medal
gold and silver - 2.15
bronze - 2.19
Winning OG medals in the 800,1500 and 5K means making it through rounds, which is different from being able to run a single fast race. Lydiard's approach prepared his athletes for this better than the approach of others at the time.
Lydiard was a great coach, but take away Snell and he is merely very good. Which of course still puts him ahead of Cerutty minus Elliott.
Coaches help the athletes, but it is the athletes that make the coaches.
The times weren't soft for their era.
I knew you'd defend you buddy, HRE. And you didn't let me down.
"time" , not "times" - 2.15 was good for the era.
Correct HRE. Let's look at what Barry Magee really did.
He ran a time trial on the 1960 Olympic Course before the games in 2:29.
He won a bronze medal in that games with a time of 2:17:19. The World Best before Bikila broke it in Rome was Sergey Popov's 2:15:17 which was set on August 24, 1958.
As stated earlier he ran 2:19:4 in Fukuoka in 1960.
He ran 2:18:54 in 1961 which was the fastest time for the year.
Also in 1961, I believe he ran 28:50.8 for 10,000 meters and 13:39.2 for 5,000 meters ranking him first and second for the year.
He went on to set several masters records and ran 2:29 for a marathon at age 49
he ran 2.17 a the Olympics?
ok, i stand corrected.
Oh yes, Barry Magee was also a member of New Zealand's 4 x 1 mile team that broke the World Record in 1961.
Magee was also ranked #1 in the world at 6 miles/10,000 meters in 1962 or '63. You probably know the year.
I was talking about this with Bill Squires a few years back. He was commenting that it was odd that he'd been a middle distance runner but his greatest coaching successes had come in the marathon while Lydiard had been a marathoner and had his greatest coaching successes with track guys.
The real answer is that training has evolved.
We are better at training the distances now then before. Middle distance training hasn't evolved as much. Lydiard was the big evolution there.
Canova has written about this on other threads.
Mileage isn't the key to running a fast marathon. Lydiard's original programs missed out on the longer repeats, long fast runs, the in between tempo/threshold stuff and the long intervals with fast recoveries that are present today. We also don't "sharpen" before a marathon because we know that changes fuel use for the marathon.
Same kinda thing for 5k/10k.
OrvilleAtkins wrote:
Correct HRE. Let's look at what Barry Magee really did.
He ran a time trial on the 1960 Olympic Course before the games in 2:29.
He won a bronze medal in that games with a time of 2:17:19. The World Best before Bikila broke it in Rome was Sergey Popov's 2:15:17 which was set on August 24, 1958.
As stated earlier he ran 2:19:4 in Fukuoka in 1960.
He ran 2:18:54 in 1961 which was the fastest time for the year.
Also in 1961, I believe he ran 28:50.8 for 10,000 meters and 13:39.2 for 5,000 meters ranking him first and second for the year.
He went on to set several masters records and ran 2:29 for a marathon at age 49
I think some of the confusion about Magee's comparative excellence is that the marathon WR dropped as much in the decade of the 1960's as it has in the last 40 years. Magee was only two minutes off the WR at the time -- Bikila set the WR of 2:15 in the race.
Reality Bath wrote:
Lydiard was a great coach.
The more I go to clinics and hear speakers speak on training aspects that Lydiard wrote about, the more I know that Authur was truly a genius. The more technology refines his theories the more they prove him correct.
Reality Bath wrote:
Lydiard was a great coach, but take away Snell and he is merely very good. Which of course still puts him ahead of Cerutty minus Elliott.
John Landy and Betty Cuthbert.
Don't know about Cuthbert, but Landy quit him after a short while and hated how Percy tried to take credit for his success (read: "The Perfect Distance")
Curious Lawyer wrote:
Reality Bath wrote:Lydiard was a great coach, but take away Snell and he is merely very good. Which of course still puts him ahead of Cerutty minus Elliott.
John Landy and Betty Cuthbert.