Lydiard Imitations

Possibly. Lets test it. (with the abnormal heat and rainfall here, this particularly aggressive weed on the farm has flowered early. So many hours each day is presently being devoted to its eradication.

Race pace methodology appears to follow a three phase periodisation throughout the training period. The order of these three phases is set and cannot be changed. So we have evidence of linear periodisation.

FUNDAMENTAL>SPECIAL>SPECIFIC

Within this periodisation we have a few processes that are followed. INTENSIVE>EXTENSIVE and its opposite, EXTENSIVE> INTENSIVE.

INTENSIVE>EXTENSIVE is where RESISTANCE is applied to an intensive situation of,using your example, 12x600/90sec @ target race pace. This is then EXTENDED in VOLUME @ SIMILAR INTENSITY in order to increase RESISTANCE and therefore STIMULATE a TRAINING ADAPTION.

Then there is the idea of maintaining the SAME INTERNAL LOAD, whilst applying the PROGRESSION of RESISTANCE, so we see the next session of 7x1000m/3 @target race pace. The loading of 7km of distance at the same pace, requires an INCREASE in the DURATION of the RECOVERY INTERVAL, so that an INCREASE in DURATION of the WORK INTERVAL can occur. (*this is a deviation from tradition training methods which 'fix' the the two durations of work and rest and allow pace to determine itself)

Of course this process of INTENSIVE>EXTENSIVE is not new. It is a mainstay of any technical development process and it can be seen to appear whenever we see a higher intensity activity in preparation periods. For myself something like 6x60m technical run can become 10x150/wb with no loss of technical capacity, as long as it is developed progressively.

So this is all good by me except for the INTENSIVE>EXTENSIVE process when it is applied with fitness qualities in mind. I should make a distinction here. For me this short process i use from about 6x60m to about 10x150m i is all about the development of two fitness qualities, local muscular endurance and the endurance of the ATP-PC system. I do see these as being developed throughout the same period that aerobic capacity is developed. Whilst i allow for the fitness development of these areas i steer clear of fitness development of aerobic power and anaerobic lactate based systems. I have never seen a clash between concurrent development of these qualities (AC and ATP-PC) like i see when anything to do with lactate is thrown into the mix. It just doesn't really go with anything very well. It is like the child who cannot play with other children.

ok hows that?

Micro is the smallest repeatable cycle above the recovery cycle and is usually 1 week in length.

A Macrocycle is a set of Microcycles, usually 3-5. It seems swimming uses a longer Macrocycle than track and field. Traditionally it was 4 weeks and corresponded to a month but it seems that 3 weeks has become more of the norm, probably because the 4 weekly Macrocycle was developed in an environment which involved systematic PED usage.

A Mesocycle is a set of Macrocycles and forms its own distinct cycle. They are also called Phases and traditionally corresponded to a season, 12 weeks. With double periodised years these cycles would be reduced to 6 weeks each.

so 1. would be the recovery cycle, 2. the microcycle and 3. the mesocycle. It's the macrocycle i'm still looking for more evidence for. That easy week every 4 would fit but is it true? Also the weekly long run adds to one development that Tattu raised earlier, cumulative fatigue over the week. For Lydiard this was about finishing off the training effect he wanted on the full systemic glycogen depletion. There is another aspect i believe he knew about, but it is difficult to define. It relates to the awakening of dormant muscle beds and fibres. From my perspective this is what occurs when psychologically you are at your end-point, yet the training session requires you to find 'more'. The physical aspect of this mental reaching for 'more' so it find within itself something 'more'. Funnily enough there always seems to be 'more'. Some athletes have developed their mind so powerfully they can go beyond by so much they break themselves physically. Was it Salazar that was read last rites? And this guy in my home country springs to mind. I think it was a 10km race on 43 degree day and he hammers it. He goes so hard that he 'melts' his leg muscles. Now he plays wheelchair basketball. Somehow he was able to ignore that pain as temperature control was lost and effectively he destroyed his legs. So the mind can be taught to override the body and keep going, but most aren't so capable as that crazy guy. The long run at the end of the week certainly must require the development of some serious willpower, and some serious balls. The very idea freaks me out. But yesterday over a 4 hour period of stop start weed pulling, i hit the wall. Walking back up this 45 degree slope i literally couldn't lift my leg for the next step and had to stop. So the experiment of 'what is total fatigue' is on. :p

Perhaps repeat the experiment if it seemed to work so well. A few comments: it may be hard to do 60 at 3/4 snappy on the Monday of your fallback week, as it is still close the the suppression you've undergone in the preceding weeks. With wed off an fri also a faster run it is difficult to see where else to place it. I would just be wary of over estimating ones capacity and forcing a 3/4 pace here which may require strain to complete, which would then mess up later in the week. This would only apply if you weren't good on the self control side though, which i'm feeling this is a problem you don't suffer from. I think i get around this problem because i consider the 'harder' days to be tues, thurs, sat with sun long run yet i would keep wed as the day off. So we have three potential days to work on intensity this way. Three only works out properly after two is stabilised though.

Thanks, that is great. My mind is naturally critical, so when i read something, my mind gets stuck on where an element is wrong. This never happens with Lydiard.

All good from my perspective, especially so because of your insertion of increased intensity. I wonder how this may fit with Lydiard though. Nobby would know.

One final point on this -

if x is your present capacity for volume

then the work weeks would intend to reach minimum x+1

and the recovery week would intend to reach maximum x-1

and he reverse is true for intensity

Alan Bennet wrote:In another post Renato talked about the difference between a runabout and a formula one car. This is a perfect analogy IF the car refers not to the runner, but to the TRAINING. On current knowledge, as I am sure any mechanic would agree, I would have NO HOPE of maintaining a formula one car in running condition. So, the suitability of linear versus non-linear periodization is determined not by the current or even the goal fitness of the runner, but by the knowledge and active involvement of the coach.

For a self-coached runner such as myself, the choice seems to be between a runabout that runs continuously albeit slowly, and a formula one car that alternates between streaking down the track and being parked in the garage while I flip through the manual.

If you have a good coach, though, non-linear periodization should work out.

You raise some wicked points here. I always just dismissed that analogy of Renato's as an elitist view that whilst correct in one way disregarded the fact we are all using the same systems, just at different efficiencies and not different systems. Yet you didn't reject it so you've come to a modification which is quite brilliant in its simplicity. Now i am with you. But how to extend this?

I read zen and the art of motor cycle maintenance and then began self maintaining my car. What i remember most clearly from all of this is that a car is made up of different systems that all interact with one another. Electrical from battery to starter motor or distributor which leads to spark plugs which allows for interaction with the chemical system which starts with the petrol and involves the fuel pump and fuel filter and so on. And the dual interaction of these two systems with the mechanical one creates movement. This began to inform my understanding of the human body and its application to training.

So how does this apply to what you said. I think it works out if the 'systems' you are using are the same, independent of which car you are in.

Runabout mode and forumla one mode

I knew what you intended but i get in trouble if i correct too many things. My point still stands but let me re-clarify. If you want a career of 3 seasons or less race-pace methodology is for you. It will usually guarantee better results earlier and worse results later on.

A non answer to my only specific question. I don't know what you mean so perhaps i'm stupid or perhaps you aren't being clear.

If i think i understand you here then there is no problem in what you say for me. Although i would like to know what 'shape condition is' and how to determine 65% to 80% has occurred. But if conditioning shape has been continuously developing and the season is 'upon us' then there is definitely no room for further 'aerobic capacity development'. But it is quite easy for aerobic capacity maintenance, and the bigger and longer the capacity has been developed for, the easier it is to maintain and the longer is can be maintained before decline.

What are these normal conditions you are talking about? If you are talking about the season already upon us then no there is no time to go back there. It would be silly or otherwise only occur if an injury or burnout situation had occurred.

But if the athlete is already past multiple years of training and is doing a few years in a row with a double season, then he will require more than one training cycle for those years. Each training cycle of say 26 weeks can easily have the first 6 weeks of aerobic conditioning with no problem at all. It can even have 12 weeks of the same if this is still a weakness for the athlete. Of course this idea might clash with the coach that wants their athlete to run near peak performance for a 12 week season, so as to maximise their earning potential. And even further clashes if the coach wants to do this twice a year, or more.

Yeah. flexible and progressive are good basic principles to follow. But i don't know about your line of logic.

1. introduce 'specifics' early because

2. the loads must be progressive

3. or overload wont occur

2. leads to 3. but 1. doesn't lead to 2.

Then you seem to be saying that overtraining is more likely to occur because of an abrupt move from no lactate to lots of lactate in the linear approach. And the race pace approach avoids this problem by progressively getting the body used to lactate over an extended period of time. This can make sense if we view it in total isolation. But we can't as we have to consider the whole situation we are in, not just this one part of it.

We can look at this in light of the overall volume of a single training week. Volume must be reduced to offset higher intensity. 7x1000m is 7km. This is a replacement for a 60 min threshold run covering double that distance or more. So RP method increases the intensity by a little and decreases the volume by a lot, when looked at this way.

We can also look at overtraining itself. I am trying to remember a case where overtraining was caused by overvolume and cannot. It seems that it just causes the need for sleep. But overtraining from volume at intensity is the common one, that seems to cause of of the overtraining issues.

Not sure if you guessed correctly here but you are on the money. The entering of the age of Aquarius may well be next year and it is a period of transition from what came before to what is to come next. Right now, since 2008 there is a specific influence that is aiding this process that is called Pluto in Capricorn. Pluto moves slowly in relation to us and so spends a lot of time in each sign, but reaches each new sign infrequently, every few hundred years. Pluto represents the hidden, the secrets and the subconcsious whilst capricorn represents material structure and had a no bullsh!t clause attached. So pluto in capricorn is about exposing the secrets in material structures like the world economic structure. We can see this with wikileaks and with the exposure of wall street/government relationships and how the central banks fit into this. And in the world of sport this would lead to exposure of training structures. A bringing to the light of all the relevant concerns and applying raw honesty to them in order to put them into some new, more functional hierarchy.

I don't think the word stupid refers to anything useful except maybe as a self desctiption. When learning a trade, an art or a craft there are distinct phases of development and these can be seen to date back beyond fuedal times. There is the apprentice, the journeyman and the master.

1. the apprentice is best served by having one master - this is facilitated by staying in one place during the apprenticeship.

2. the journeyman has now served his apprenticeship and gained a broad understanding of all the fundamentals of his craft. Now he travels around to see how everyone else does things. he is ready for this because he is already grounded in one speciifc methodology already. This phase is messed up if it is entered too early. Just ask Luke after he left Yoda too early in Empire. Trust me its so true it even applied to the Jedi. ;)

and how do you propose this might be true? Please discuss!

Renato Canova wrote:

when in this thread we read something from people speaking about what is working with joggers or normal athletes, we continue to explain we are speaking about two different worlds.

When we speak, for example, about the effects of blood doping (EPO), and I assert the top African can't have any benefit with the assumption of this kind of doping

it's not difficult to understand that, if I want to increase the performances of a runabout, I can do it easy changing, for example, the exhaust pipe ; but the same system doesn't work if I want to increase the performances of a Formula One, already at the top, and their development depends on very deep and fine research, so the solutions are not the same.

There are 2 different issues, (1) does it work and (2) are people doping.

My contention is that #1 doping DOES NOT WORK and therefore I don't care if anyone is doping, as it does not matter to me.

It is true, if you change the tailpipe on a runabout, maybe it will improve the performance, maybe also just kicking the tires, but with a formula 1 can cause a decrease of performance, the same with people.

I gave the example several times of my dad who was having a hard time before he died, oxygen levels very low in the blood etc, so the doctor would have him come in for an epo shot once a week to raise the oxygen in the blood, a very temporary effect, that had ZERO benefit for the his physical condition, in fact he kept getting worse died while getting those treatments.

So, did they help????? No, they did not help, and what they did was to keep my dad from doing what he should have been doing to improve his physical health and condition, by improving his diet, exercise, personal habits etc, none of which were ever helped by any medical person or shots.

It is the same in athletics. Maybe some people take some pills or shots and think it helps them to improve, but I think it is meaningless. There are many natural ways to do one's best, but not by taking some pill or getting a shot. It is all propaganda, nothing else.

I think probably what Renato says is correct, that epo doesn't work for top runners as they are fine tuned, and any drug could make them run worse.

For less than the best (runabouts) I still think doping does NOT WORK - except if in terrible condition, and it would be better to get healthy and in better condition then to take any drugs anyway, the same as with my dad.

Again, therefore I don't care if anyone is doping, because it is not important. It is sad though when people think taking some drug is good, as they are harmful and is not good at all. I feel the SAME way about smoking or drinking the nights away, instead of being rested for training - AND LIVING. Sure, I like having fun, but I don't like being worn out or running terrible, would not like throwing my life away. Anyway (1) drugs don't work, and (2) drugs are not important for athletic performance.

It would be and Renato for example does it. He has three meso-cycles and a two week microcycle. Antonio is now trying to think that micro cycles are a stupidity but he should inquire with his personal guru in Renato to see that maybe they are not.

No it's not. Micro- weekly, macro- multi weekly, meso- multi monthly all can fit easily enough. So we are agreed so far.

So this fits pretty closely. The complete elimination of volume from these intensities typifies Lydiard's ideal situation, so that would still differ i assume.

Just don't overlap here. Allow volume to build before intensity can begin to come in safely. That is the essence of it. But you raise something which needs opening up. There is a 5th phase in Soviet Periodisation, the active rest phase. This follows the end of the competition phase and preceded the general preparation phase. For me this involved the beach a lot. So i swam, surfed, played beach cricket and volleyball, scubadived and did some rocklclimbing combined with hiking. No specific track and field stuff at all is the general idea.

I agree with you and that it is very difficult to get into an overtraining state from purely volume. On your other point, when using a micromanaging approach you are always required to make adjustments. Sure the adjustments might be minor and infrequent during normal training and so not require much effort from an expert coach like Renato. But what about if we have a non-expert coach? Now it becomes a lot more difficult for that coach to micromanage all the different variables. And what about if there is some serious problem occurring like injury or overtraining or some other disruption to training? Now the micromanaging goes into overload attempting to take into account the myriad of different and changing variables. I find it easier to just do what my coach did. If you start to miss lengthy periods of training you go on a different program. When you return to normal training you slot back into the standard cycles so you are in tune with the rest of the training group. And you continue the process allowing levels to catch up as they are able to. First step is get back into the rhythm of the program, because once on the rhythm some of the work is being done for you, in terms of momentum of habit.

Exactly. How about during each day? We have periods of time broken up by meals. Latino countries even break their day up into two periods with the siesta.

Very good question and the one i ultimately stumble with. But i am resurrected by the understanding that organic growth and development of anything is not done like this. Ask the prize winning rose gardener whether there are different approaches depending on the different phases of growth. Whether he is maximising overall growth of the plant so it has a higher total energy potential, to whether he is trying to maximise the growth of the actual rose during the flowing period, when all the plants energy is redirected into the flowering. If he puts energy into the flowering process too early it will detract from the previous process of building total potential energy.

So i see running like this. Aerobic conditioning is about building total energy potential like the early stages of growing the rose bush. And the flowering stage is the peaking process that hopefully occurs at the end of the training period. How to build total potential energy is the initial focus and is an undistracted one. How to transfer that energy into the flower is the final focus and it again is an undistracted one. I prefer the undistracted approach, because then all my energy can be spent on refining, refining, refining.

gypsy:

Have you checked this out? It is the training of Rui Silva, 3:30 guy who got bronze in the 2004 Olympics and 2005 World Champs. He kicked faster than El G and Lagat in the Olympics and had a messed-up abdominal to boot that needed surgery after the season.

http://www.mariusbakken.com/training-corner/portuguese-training-rui-silva.html

I'm not by any means a Lydiard expert. I'm guessing Lydiard would not be in favor of the "intervals in the winter" approach.

By the way, the article is written by a guy who posts here quite a bit!

gypsy wrote:

I think it works out if the 'systems' you are using are the same, independent of which car you are in.

The systems are not the same. On a descriptive level they are the same, e.g. they have the same or similar parts. On a functional level they are different: the tolerances are not the same, and the formula one car is very unforgiving of slight deviations from its optimum settings, in ALL of its parts. But I don't want to pursue Renato's analogy anymore. Let's talk directly about running.

If you are doing a non-linear periodization, then in the general phase you will do aerobic runs, of course, and intervals, probably a tempo run, and maybe a long run. All at carefully prescribed paces. But what if you do all those runs just fine, then show up at your next interval session and run like crud? What went wrong? Well there is crud and there is crud. An experienced coach could look at your running and just KNOW, "wasn't recovered from the tempo run when they did the long run". Maybe they've seen exactly that particular crud in a different runner. So they postpone the intervals until the next day, and adjust the schedule for another recovery day after the tempo run. That's just a hypothetical reason and adjustment, but in fact it could be any one of a number of things, and how would I know? I wouldn't, because I'm not a coach!

If you are doing a linear periodization, then in the aerobic conditioning phase you will do aerobic runs. So if you feel fine after the long run but a couple days later you are running like crud, there is precisely one adjustment possible. As Lydiard said, run easy until it comes right. So simple even I can understand it.

That's awesome SFM and thanks too Antonio for the article.

So Portuguese distance running was fundamentally influenced by Lydiard, because his own success combined with the Finnish success was enough evidence to convince them.

But later the one main difference that surfaced was the use of longer intervals at race pace. Almost everything else seems the same except there is a three phase approach, which may be the simplest holistic approach - a preparation phase, a competition phase, and a transitional phase in between. But the use of long intervals in preparation is the problem. I feel constantly seduced to add them in, even rarely, just to keep them rolling. Then i think what for? I want all the available time we have right now to expand capacity and don't want energy being used for other purposes.

I do like the idea they have that the slow continuous warmup and cooldown are essential components of their endurance training.

It is interesting that in general Portuguese runners don't believe in the need for external strength work, and that the resistance provided by hill running is enough for their strength gains.

And they avoid pliometrics, which always seems to be the first element of Lydiard to be avoided.

but those long intervals, all with 3 mins or longer and even out to full recovery. All recoveries aligned to anaerobic training and for lactate clearance. This is where things go away from how i feel about things. The question for me is - is this training directly connected to having this capacity during the competition period or not? A second question would be - if it is directly connected, then how much benefit does it provide and when we weigh this against how much training benefit was lost due to a reduced overall volume, do we come out ahead or behind?

A final question would be about the longevity of his career.

Alan Bennet wrote:

[quote]gypsy wrote:The systems are not the same. On a descriptive level they are the same, e.g. they have the same or similar parts.

yep thats what i was meaning, same systems just different levels of utilisation, but yes lets drop it.

If you are doing a linear periodization, then in the aerobic conditioning phase you will do aerobic runs. So if you feel fine after the long run but a couple days later you are running like crud, there is precisely one adjustment possible. As Lydiard said, run easy until it comes right. So simple even I can understand it.

Ha! at your self analysis but this is all it needs to start from. We push past our comfort zone edge and need to recover by staying within that comfort zone edge for a while. Was it Halberg that started to run flat in training so the advice was to run Waitarua on three consecutive days. It worked and most interestingly it appeared to work that quickly. How did Lydiard know it would work. He had probably done it with himself already.

I'm looking around and it doesn't seem to me at all that Lydiard avoided the long fast run. I am wondering how fast his athletes got over a flat 10 miler. Was it 52mins or was it 48 mins? I also wonder if he had a course like Waitarua, in duration, but a lot flatter, so it would have promoted a faster overall pace. But sub 2:10 for 22 miles still sounds pretty quick to me. 5:40/mile pace; 3:55/km pace.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

gypsy:

Have you checked this out? It is the training of Rui Silva, 3:30 guy who got bronze in the 2004 Olympics and 2005 World Champs. He kicked faster than El G and Lagat in the Olympics and had a messed-up abdominal to boot that needed surgery after the season.

http://www.mariusbakken.com/training-corner/portuguese-training-rui-silva.html

I'm not by any means a Lydiard expert. I'm guessing Lydiard would not be in favor of the "intervals in the winter" approach.

By the way, the article is written by a guy who posts here quite a bit!

Something that i try to post earlier on this same board , but since you address the Rui Silva article, I did revised this post and I post it once again.

I hope that with this Rui Silva training addenda you can have a better understand about his training.

I hope that with this Rui Silva training addenda you got a better undertand what i mean mean by "aerobic first is a stupidity". Better than my concept, we got training fact.

Once again, i´m not the coach of Rui. Since i agree with many things he did i don´t agree with everything he did. This is not my training, i don´t need to answer by what is done. I just try a demonstration how can be done with better efficiency than "aerobic first".

I have access to Rui training, because Rui´s coach until 2008 is my friend Bernardo Manuel coach, and he is generous to share with me (and with with) the main structure of Rui Silva training.

2004 RUI SILVA TRAINING ADDENDA

Rui Silva training, the way it´s easy to understand what are complex and codified interval workouts, and how Rui Silva coach used during the season in two distinct periods – EARLY/basic period/intro period/early phase – let´s say 4 months previous to peak target goal competition and LATE SEASON/specific period/late phase – let´s say 2 months previous to the peak target goal run

I say that the 1-2-3 model/structure remains present in every phase/period/season – that´s every week as 1-2-3 single workouts. 1-2-3 model is race 1/race target event; 2/faster than the target event and 3/faster but slower than the target event.

But this 1-2-3 model of workouts is just a fix plan/model. However the reality a few times dismisses the fix plans.

Sometimes, each workout done by intervals it´s focus on a single pace target pace (or 1 or 2 or 3), but it happens that it might be built “mix-up/multiple/complex pace workout designs” in just one single workout session. Ex: 1X1000m/95% 1500m race pace +3X500m/105% faster than race pace+3X300/maximum pace. Int 1min /5 minutes between groups;

Ex: 3X5X400m/first set group - race pace (int. 1min) ; second set group – faster than race pace (int. 2min) ; third second group – maximum pace (int. 5min) all 5 minutes in between each set group.

All depends what´s fits into each individual case.

EARLY SEASON INTERVALS

1/race pace intervals Rui Silva EARLY SEASON - 98%-105% Race Pace approx

race pace long sets. Ex (for Rui Silva only):3X3000m or 4X2000m or 5X1500m or 7X1000m/5K to 10k Race Pace interval recovery =.3:00min.

This kind intervals are also considered LT training and Mass Lass.

2/short intervals faster than race pace - 102%-115% Race Pace approx.

Single short sets distance mainly, in incomplete recover. Considered as “alternating the pace – fast with slow” “intermittent workouts”. EXTENSIVE interval training – the key of this short type intervals it´s PACE DENSITY with short incomplete recover. By extensive it means progressively try to run longer total distance and more sets number at the same pace, they way the recover length is reduced/shorten reduce.

3 examples of that workout intervals (for Rui Silva only, but can be used for anyone if calculate for each individual race pace):

- 20X200m/27-28sec int.30-40sec that´s going 100m ahead on track

- 15X300m/40-42sec int.35-40sec that´s going 100m ahead on track

- 12X400m/57-60sec int.30s-40sec that´s going 100m ahead on track

LATE SEASON INTERVALS

3/race pace in Rui Silva LATE SEASON.

Extensive/longer intervals, extended the total distance, with long complete recovery length stand and walk, kind of 1500m race time-trials.

This workouts can also be consider time-trails or controlled test runs.

Ex: (for Rui Silva only, but can be used for anyone if calculate for each individual race pace):

7 weeks to the Olympics: 7X400m Race Pace int. 1min

6 weeks to the Olympics: 7X600m Race Pace int. 2min

5 weeks to the Olympics: 4X(600m+400m+200m) Race Pace int. 3min

4 weeks to the Olympics: 2X(1000+500) Race Pace int. 4min

3 weeks to the Olympics: 3X1000m Race Pace int. 5min

2 weeks to the Olympics: 1200+1000+500 Race Pace int. 8min

4/short intervals in Rui Silva LATE SEASON

INTENSIVE/FAST INTERVALS with complete recover. This is speed resistance. 105% to 110% Race Pace. a few times “all flat out pace considered.

2 examples of session workout(for Rui Silva only, but can be used for anyone if calculate for each individual race pace):

- 3X(600m+400m+200m)/max pace(2 to 3min in between sets) and 5 to 10min in between set groups.

- 4X(400m+300m+200m+100m)/max. pace (2 to 3min in between sets) and 5 to 10min in between set groups.

This is about intervals. But don´t get the idea this was the main training of Rui Silva. During the early season and on the late season he did daily aerobic runs runs twice a day. During the early season om a few of that run he used what we mean by “fast final” that in the case of Rui SILva is to run the last/final 20min to 30min with LT and LTp runs (2:50-to 3:05 kilo pace)

As I said earlier the workouts like 3X3000m or 4X2000m – they work also as a LTp done with intervals.

If the target goal distance that´s 1500m, the competition schedule means frequent competitions,

Don´t forget hill workouts in the transition between the periods (20sec to 1m30s uphills/maxpace int,. downhill/walking full recover) and don´t forget also basic/aerobic/easy runs mileage twice a day.

No plyos. No weight training, just flexibility exercises after each daily run.

gypsy:

On Rui Silva's longevity, I believe he is still competing, mostly at 5000 and 10000. I say "I believe" because he ran the 5 and 10 at last year's World Champs, but there is another guy named Rui Pedro Silva who is/was a decent distance runner. Their 10000 bests are within 9 seconds of each other. Sometimes just looking at results, it's hard to know who is who.

IAAF page on Rui Silva:

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=por/athcode=50437/index.html

IAAF page on the other guy:

http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=por/athcode=175099/index.html

Antonio -

3 weeks to the Olympics: 3X1000m Race Pace int. 5min

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

very tough session Antonio. pacemakers would be an absolute necessity

my go wrote:

Antonio -

3 weeks to the Olympics: 3X1000m Race Pace int. 5min

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

very tough session Antonio. pacemakers would be an absolute necessity

yes, he did. Done in groups with oather runners that are 3:34 to 3:40 pb runners. They act as pacers but the others they did just 1X1000m each one.

You see. Only 2 things did matter: his team contract and big games like the world indoor champ that he got once or the WC or the olymopics. His 1500m pb is 3:30 but he is not motivated to be a chrono runner or the 1500m european record would have been taked by him.

Gypsy,

I think that you've come to a pretty good understanding of modern methodology there ....

I accept that you might not like the race-pace approach BUT your choice to prefer a more linear (Lydiard) approach is one that we are all entitled to make.

Now that you're entering debate more as an explrer than an advocate ... I was wondering whether you had heard of Tom Osler ... He produced (in the late 60s) a more simplified and practical application of the Lydiard Methodology.

See ...

&

For the average guy (who does not have a coach) this is I believe very, very workable

What do you think?

If doping doesn't work, how do you account for a guy like Cathal Lombard who was for many years a 14:00ish/29:00ish guy until he took EPO and became a sub 13:20/28:00 guy?

HRE wrote:

If doping doesn't work, how do you account for a guy like Cathal Lombard who was for many years a 14:00ish/29:00ish guy until he took EPO and became a sub 13:20/28:00 guy?

Good article:

Thanks for that. I'd forgotten what his pre-EPO 10,000 time was and thought it was low to mid 29s. That was one big jump.

HRE wrote:

If doping doesn't work, how do you account for a guy like Cathal Lombard who was for many years a 14:00ish/29:00ish guy until he took EPO and became a sub 13:20/28:00 guy?

He ran sub 13:20/28:00, so what.

Big friggin deal.

Geesh you drug worshipers need to get a life, lighten up and enjoy yourselves.

There's a lot more to life than taking drugs, worshipping drugs, following people around who take drugs, watching drug ads on tv, etc etc etc, whatever... blah