Peter Snell Interview and his thoughts on Lydiard training

what a great guy.

Can anyone translate what the two-hour run thing was about?

is he saying a 2hr+run is good, or that a 2hr+run at a fast pace?

overall, he sounds like there are no secrets, just have a base and practice running fast.

It's always a great day when we read the wisdom of Peter Snell.

It's even better when it gives us an excuse to watch his races. The king of the mzungu and one of the greatest runners of all time. Marvel at the magnitude of his dominance in the 64 OG 1500 final....especially from 2:14 to 2:34, before he begins coasting in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz7srBZL5ps

anything goes if it shows wrote:

A runner can’t train slow like an ultra marathoner as they rely on fat as a fuel.

That gives total credence to Lydiard’s method of distance training.

Hilarious

I went through Lydiard's schedules long ago, and talked with him several times during some seminars that he gave.

A friend of mine mentioned Jackie Hansen and Mikki Gorman who were top marathoners at the time, and asked Lydiard what he thought of Laszlo Tabori's training methonds. Lydiards reponse was, "is he still coaching." He liked to belittle the competition to his methods, that he pieced together from others.

So it occurs to me, the competition for his method at the time was anyone who did anything differently, specifically Bruce Kidd in Canada, and Igloi in the States. But Kidd beat Halberg and the rest of Lydiard's runners more often than not. And Lydiard bragged about wearing Kidd out on the practice track, more a result of deception than of having a better method of training. Bob Schul, trained by Igloi, won the '64 5000m, and Lydiard's runner Bill Bailie was out of the medals.

So, I think Lydiard's method was not any better than Kidd's, Igloi's, Buddy Edelen's, or any other top program. In fact the top marathoners today train more like these, and less like Lydiard's. What I did not like about him at all was his arrogance. To me, a top coach especially has regard for all people, all runners, and a commitment to share with the rest of the world, not having some policy of exclusion and making a profit. I hope to not be too harsh to Lydiard, but more thankful to the rest, for they have contributed much and what they have done has great merit as foundation for today.

I don't understand your last paragraph. What top marathoners today are training along Igloi's lines? Are you saying Lydiard, who spent his life touring the world and explaining his method and wrote several books doing the same was excluding people from what he knew? Igloi was the one who was very secretive about what he did with his athletes and never wrote anything down for fear that his competitors would find out.

Do you think Lydiard made a lot of money from his coaching? Do you know that when he died there wasn't enough money in his estate t get his body back to New Zealand? An admirer picked up the tab.

Sorry if I've misunderstood what you wrote.

The problem with these debates is that there are rarely counterfactuals. Look at Webb...Raczko, or no?

Lydiard's method may not have been ideal for the true LD runners like Magee but I think it worked well for Snell. And there's no question that Snell was much greater than any of the Igloi-trained athletes. He routinely whipped all of them... "the team running tactics of the LATC" as Snell himself called their approach. Even so, he left them for dead.

To somehow insinuate that Igloi (or Timmons, or whomever) was a greater, more transparent and magnanimous coach than Lydiard stretches credibility too far.

A cursory search of internet bibloigraphy reveals that Lydiard did a lot more than simply train the giant NZ athletes of the 60s. His legacy is gigantic and that's why most people on this board acknowledge him as a great figure in the history of T&F.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1077892.ece

"Lydiard had done his Olympic coaching as an individual on the fringe of the team and, in a country hidebound by amateur attitudes, was forced to go overseas to earn employment as a coach. His first appointment was in Mexico, but it was during a three-year engagement in Finland that he found the appreciation — and the readiness for hard work — that his own commitment required. The splendid renaissance of Finland’s runners in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics owed much to Lydiard.

Once back in his home town of Auckland, however, Lydiard made what is perhaps his most far-reaching contribution. He had become increasingly interested in physiology, and, encouraged by progressive-minded cardiologists, he encouraged post-coronary patients to take up running. He preached running to sedentary business executives, and from that came, in February 1962, the first outing for an Auckland group of “joggers”. It was a quaint name, but it caught on. A visiting athletics coach from Oregon, Bill Bowerman, took note, and jogging soon began to spread across America;"

savagesquid wrote:

It's always a great day when we read the wisdom of Peter Snell.

It's even better when it gives us an excuse to watch his races. The king of the mzungu and one of the greatest runners of all time. Marvel at the magnitude of his dominance in the 64 OG 1500 final....especially from 2:14 to 2:34, before he begins coasting in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz7srBZL5ps

That 1500 is nuts. What a classic race.

savagesquid wrote:

there's no question that Snell was much greater than any of the Igloi-trained athletes. He routinely whipped all of them... "the team running tactics of the LATC" as Snell himself called their approach. Even so, he left them for dead.

Johnny Gray was much faster than Snell. And Bob Schul was much faster at the 5k than any of Lydiard's runners. Schul was trained by Igloi.

To somehow insinuate that Igloi (or Timmons, or whomever) was a greater, more transparent and magnanimous coach than Lydiard stretches credibility too far.

I knew Bob Timmons quite well, and he was absolutely a much more genuine person than Lydiard. There was NO comparsion whatsoever. I have the greatest respect for Bob Timmons. I never met Igloi but it would be hard to compare Lydiard to him, as Igloi welcomed almost anyone to train with him and his group, any time. I did run with their group later on after he'd gone, but thought their training was too mild and not suited for me. I was probably wrong about that, and think Igloi probably trained the athletes harder than whoever took over the program from him

HRE wrote:

Are you saying Lydiard ... was excluding people from what he knew?

I never said that. Yes you apparently misunderstood what I said.

I didn't even notice the two hour thing when I read the interview but I did an interview myself with Peter several years ago and we got into it.

In my interview he pretty much drew a line at around seven minutes a mile (it was a wavy line, 7:00 wasn't ironclad) as a pace at which optimal things happened on a distance run. Essentially if you run at that pace or "a bit" faster for a long enough time you deplete the glycogen from your slow twitch fibers and your fast twitch ones are forced to go to work. So you develop speed, through the development of fast twitch fibers, by running long enough at moderate paces. If you go much slower than 7:00 pace you burn fat, not glycogen, and the depletion of slow twitch fibers and subsequent recruitment of fast twitch ones does not occur. Run too much faster than that for too long and you exhaust yourself and damage your muscles, risk illness,overtrain, etc.

So, yes, a two hour run is good and to some extent a faster two hour run is better than a slow one but you need to avoid going either too fast or too slow.

What was hard for me to understand when he told me all of this is that he saw that seven minute pace (or thereabouts) as pretty ironclad regardless of circumstances, i.e., if you're sixty and can barely break 7:00 for a single mile can you get the same depletion by running for two hours at a pace much slower than 7:00 but one where your heart rate will be at a similar per cent of your max as it would be if you were twenty five and running 7:00 pace? The answer was "no" though he was clear that he wasn't sure about that answer. Similarly, if you're running uphill on a hot day do you still need 7:00ish miles to get this depletion? "Probably."

Peter and I talked in 2001 or 2002 so maybe he's looked into this more than he'd done at the time. Maybe he still sees 7:00 pace as a real dividing line.

And to the physiology types here who want to tell me the physiology I've just described is wrong and that I don't know what I'm talking about I'll mention again that I'm repeating what Peter told me. I don't claim to know anything more.

you sir, are a tool.

Johny Gray was faster than snell, decades later under entirely different circumstances, and was weak in big competitions. Play the devils advocate if you wish, but you come across like Trump post Birth Certificate.

I don't want to turn this into another crazy anti Lydiard argument or an Igloi V Lydiard by line. However, as I have said on here many times I knew Arthur well enough to know he did not suffer fool gladly and was quite dogmatic in his views. BUT when it came to giving his time to anything related to the Sport he would do so. He would Coach anyone, from an Olympic Champion to the local Jogger. I can still see him advising an overweight (But keen) man who told him he wanted to run a marathon. First day Arthur had him jog to a Lamp post and back.

He gave of his time freely, I know because I called on him many times. At no stage did he ever refuse or say he did not have time. In addition, as HRE said, there was literally nothing left in the coffers when he died.

As for saying he was arrogant, I disagree, he just believed that he was right and stuck to it.

As for the athletes. Bob Schul may have beaten Bill Baillie on a number of occasions .. but did you know they were and still consider each other (In Kiwi terms) Mates. Many of the guys from that era, even though they were Coached by different people (and Philosophies!) hold each other in high regard and are (Once again !!) Mates.

J.R.

The individual character/temperament of one coach doesn´t say nothing at all about his training method. If you think that you can analyse Lydiard training method by what you name his eventual “arrogance” or every other trace of his character, you are in the wrong track. What Lydiard thinks about other coaches is irrelevant to training appreciation. What you say about Lydiard versus Bob Timmons is quite irrelevant for the training methodology appreciation.

The win of competitions, or the win of one runner with one training method over other runner that trains on other training method, and the judge and compare of both training methods by that kind of performance results is poor methodology either. Therefore Peter Snell “the champion of champions” or “Bob Schul that did best than every Lydiard runner”, all that kind of facts and results are poor to training methodology appreciation.

Best than what I can say about the meaning of wins, world records, major performances and so, attributes lead to the achievement, I quote Jack Daniels - jtuper from old thread. Might be you will understand that to appreciate one training method by the results it´s not one linear relate.

Jack Daniels, jtuper posts:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2515540&page=2

am not going to say what percentage of different attributes lead to the highest achievement, but I have always felt that it involves 4 variables (1) inherent ability; (2) intrinsic motivation; (3) opportunity; (4) Direction (coaching or a training plan you follow). It is quite simple to show that inherent characteristics are important -- how hard would Shaq have to train to race a 10k with many normal runners? Or maybe better to ask if a 5' 92-pound girl (make it a 5' 92-pound guy if you wish) could hold her/his own in the NBA. If inherent characteristics aren't important, why do we have weight classes in boxing, wrestling, judo, weight lifting, etc? Also, in some sports females are just as good as males, but not in others, and that must be major genetic factors at play. As far as motivation is concerned, it must be from within, not from some parent or coach yelling that "if you just had some desire, you could be so great;" how often do you hear coaches yell, "If you just had some ability, you could be so great;" maybe they should be. How about opportunity? How would you like to be an aspiring Olympic swimmer if you lived in a town that had no pool or no lake or no body of water; or not enough money to get to reasonable training facilities. And direction is the final factor. The question is how do you measure that -- a great college recruiter gets the best talent to start with and in some cases just hopes they run in college as well as they did in HS. Or, some great coach may never be in a position to start with great talent and improving from 20:00 in the 5k to 17:00 isn't seen as doing a very good job, but going from 16:00 to 15:30 may be seen quite differently. So let's face it there are various factors involved in achieving success, and the relative merit of each probably varies from one individual to another. Live it up trying to determine how much each one contributes.

#

To reach your potential

#1 Avoid injury

#2 Stress the body parts and functions that need improvement

#3 Know the purpose of every workout

#4 Be optimistic

#5 Learn from your mistakes and from your successes

#6 Be consistent

#7 Eat well

#8 Get adequate rest

#9 Enjoy the trip along the way

#10 Be honest

Who knows if anyone reaches his/her full potential, and certainly each season's potential is influenced by life's daily challenges

The rich training analysis of one particular training methodology isn´t done by coach temper or runner performance but investigate 2 main aspects: 1/ how the training method tries to cover the physiological factors associated with distance running performance variables at the present training knowledge 2/the training analysis of what´s the training schedule of the runners of that one particular training method, not just what was been the runner success under that training method and not to judge merely by success or results.

Renato Canova, by the way, one coach that contributes to with tons of information on LetsRun.com. Appreciate his training is done by the analysis what is his training methodology. Second, we try to look deeply what are the training schedules of the runners he let us know and the performance that runners did is just a referential not the main appreciation of Renato training.

Renato temper, Renato character, might be relate to judge the individual, coach ethics, but not Renato´s training method.

Antonio Cabral,

Yes, I agree with everything that you said.

My point is not to be harsh about Lydiard, but to say that the coaches and methods he constantly tried to run down, were in many cases much better - than what he called the Lydiard program, that he in fact pieced together from them, while at same time trying to disparage them and their methods.

As example, he was against doing repetition training all the year, while pointing to Carlos Lopes as one of the BEST examples of being a well trained runner from Lydiard's perspective. Lopes ran repetition training twice a week, every week, all through the year!

Yes, the runners were friends. But what I'm saying is that Lydiard tried to make it seem that what he took from others was the only good way to train, and to not train like Timmons, Igloi, Tabori, Bruce Kidd, Cerutty, or the Portuguese. Yet he copied all of their training in some ways. So, what I'm saying is that Lydiard was redundant, and tried to make something exclusive, that was not exclusive at all.

Bob Timmons had high school kids running 20 miles on Sundays, long before Lydiard became popular. And Ryun did a 50 mile run before he ran even 4:30 for a mile. So Lydiard said Timmons trained runners only with repetitions all the time, which was totally false. However Bob Schul trained only with repetitions all the time, and he beat the best of the runners trained by Lydiard.

It would be good if you had some specifics here. I'd never heard of Ryun's 50 mile run. Where did you learn of it? Are you sure you aren't confusing Ryun with Gerry Lindgren who did do those sorts of things?

I'd also like to see some actual quotes where Arthur "ran down" other athletes or coaches. I'm not saying they don't exist, I just never heard or saw those sorts of comments. I do agree that he was convinced he had the best training method so if you asked him about, say Igloi's success relative to his own, he'd commonly respond by asking you to compare the number of Olympic medallists and world record holders he coached with those of Igloi's. Maybe you see that as running Igloi down but I think he was just answering questions with his honest opinion. He did not bother trying to figure out what answer a questioner wanted to hear and then try tailoring his answer in that direction.

Yes, he thought runners other than his own generally did too much repetition work and held themselves back by doing so and again was not shy about pointing to his own athletes as contrasting examples and yes, he did think Jim Ryun would ultimately have had an even better and longer career had he trained more along his, Lydiard's, lines. Again, you might see that as arrogant and that's possibly true but when people would ask him what he thought of Ryun and his career I don't know what else Arthur was supposed to say in response other than what he really thought.

HRE wrote:

It would be good if you had some specifics here. I'd never heard of Ryun's 50 mile run. Where did you learn of it? Are you sure you aren't confusing Ryun with Gerry Lindgren who did do those sorts of things?

No, are you sure you're not confusing Lydiard with Cerutty.

I'm pretty sure Igloi's group had many more medals and WR's. However, as Antonio has said, perhaps that is not relevant.

The point as regards coaches is that Timmons focused on training, and Igloi as far as I know and have seen in print, focused on training, and neither of the wasted time talking about other coaches and how other coaches trained people.

I never heard Timmons say, for example, oh the coaches from Shawnee Mission North don't know how to train people, or the coaches from Salinas don't know how to train people... hahaha... he would never say something like that!

I'm not confusing Cerutty with Lydiard.

So where did you learn of Ryun's 50 mile run? I've read loads about him and this is new. Did Timmons tell you about it?

Don't know about a 50m run but this is from Jack Daniels (jtupper) talk last Sunday in NC:

Jim Ryan @17years old

Sun - 10M in 64mins

Mon - 2M + 1 + 800 + 400 + 200repeats

Tue - short speed work - 160, 200, 300m repeats

Wed - 50 x 400

Thu - 18 x 800

Fri - track fartlek

Sat - RACE

Daniels said the schedule looked like this because Ryans coach was a swim coach. Swimmers do repeats like this and are able to do so because of less impact on the body, cooling effect of water, and they get to rest 3 secs per lap after every turn as they coast. He said the workouts like 18x800 were done at a tempo pace and probably would of been better doing a continuous tempo run. This training didn't work as well for the other kids though, Ryan was tough and hendled it.

HRE,

It's in the "Jim Ryun Story" somewhere. It was during one of those 50 mile presidential fitness walks of the 60's; he decided to run because the first person in got a transistor radio.

Funny how we can turn a discussion of Peter Snell - a guy uniquely suited to discuss the Lydiard system both from experience and a physiological point of view - into a debate about the relative merits of coaches from nearly 50 years ago.

I love this place.

Well of course you can expect that to be debunked, because it's just nonsense. You don't train fast twitch fibers for speed by running slowly. To do that you have to run fast. Of course 7 minute miles is not slow for a 3.30 marathon runner and they will use fast oxidative fibers at that pace, but not a faster runner.