Does Lydiard training not work for some people?

Because training has come a long way since them. Most people need to work on speed year long. Race specific workouts are the most important aspect of training not mileage. Mileage provides you will tools necessary to run well but means very little on it own. As a 10k guy workouts like 10x1k and 6 by mile should be staple workouts. Along with shorter reps faster than race pace and some tempos slower than race pace.

That is not a Lydiard approach. Running tempo runs and fartlek are not part of a base building phase. Also, I do not see any hill work to add strength to your legs prior to getting serious about developing your anaerobic capacity.

Mr. Miles,

Good for you for putting in solid commitment at the age of 20 and now at 23 have looked back and considered your training.

You have posted enough info to go on, but the basics.

First off Glen is correct about the lack of hill work indicated and tempos and fartleks, although Lydiard did have gentle fartlek on Fridays for many....

Tempo is a loose term - the definition is vague, so you would want to clarify what tempo means to you.

You do not want to work on anaerobic training all year round.

Human physiology has not changed in the last 50 years, nor the last 10000....etc...so Lydiard applies as much today as in the 1950s and 60s, 70s and 80....oh heck and the 90s and last decade, absolutely.

What I would wonder is, do you have an annual growth to your mileage or is it always 80 to 100? Effort vs pace. When you run those so-called "tempos" what effort are they run at? "Easy" is a term that Lydiard used that was relative. Meaning there was easy running ....say...in comparison to a 1:50 800m runner when he ran 2:00:00 over hill and dale, but it was not easy for 2:00:00. So are you getting enough stimulus in your various long runs?

Are you recovering enough in your very easy runs on soft surfaces?

There are a few questions right there that need to be answered before one can look at your training versus your results.

Patience is key and it takes (depending on who said it ;o))

up to 10 years to see your full potential.

The Quenton Cassidamius wrote:

Because training has come a long way since them. Most people need to work on speed year long. Race specific workouts are the most important aspect of training not mileage. Mileage provides you will tools necessary to run well but means very little on it own. As a 10k guy workouts like 10x1k and 6 by mile should be staple workouts. Along with shorter reps faster than race pace and some tempos slower than race pace.

Yes.

Clarification:

DID NOT put in enough information to go on.....

Speed is a relative term.

With Lydiard speed meant actually fast running, like strides on a pitch. Not anaerobic mile repeats.

The former, you want to incorporate all year round, the latter NOT!!

Now cruise intervals are fine if they are aerobic in nature.

A slightly more detailed look at my schedule:

Tempo for me means 4-6 mile runs that stay in the 5:20-5:30 range. The cruise intervals are definitely aerobic in nature - I make sure that I stay in the 5:20 range, though I occasionally pick it up on the last repeat to ~5:15 pace. And I often do 1:45-2:00 long runs where I run the first hour around 7 minute pace and gradually pick it up so that the last mile is around 5:30 pace. However, in examining my running logs and failed attempts at PR's, I have noticed that I do very little extended race-pace work in the weeks leading up to the goal race. My workouts seem to follow a pattern of either being 30 seconds slower than race pace or 30 seconds faster. I was beginning to wonder if that is why the beginning of 10K races feels so easy (b/c I am running much slower than my fast training) but then I quickly fall off the wagon and revert to my "comfort zone" of 5:20 pace due to lack of pace-specific training.

I haven't read Lydiard's book, so I don't know how relevant this is, but if you continue to subject your body to the same stimuli, you'll only get adaptations to until they plateau. I think it's important to vary those stimuli, to get different adaptations. I try not to do the same kinds of workouts for more than 3-4 weeks at a time, then I shift focus. I think if the bulk of your efforts are slower and faster than race pace, then it's reasonable that you have not adapted well to race pace, and you should adapt your training accordingly.

You need to periodize your training. You have a high quality base, so look at your goal races and set workouts to work your anaerobic system in the months prior to them.

You've got some "Lydiard" elements here but there are, as Chris and Glen mention, parts that are missing. And one of Arthur's ideas was that after you've done a certain kind of training for a while you max out on its benefits and should move on to something else. Anyway, here are some thngs about your training that I wonder about.

There is, as I mentioned, not a lot of variety throughout the year if this is what you do 80% of the time. I'm not sure if the switch to things like the 12x400 is part of the 80% or if that's part of what you do during the other 20% of the time.

I assume that you know that you aren't following the "classic" periodized approach, i.e., there's no specific base phase, hill phase, interval phase, etc. That's OK, when Barry Magee was coaching me we didn't follow the classic phased approach either. But we did have some hill sessions, fast relaxed strides and time trials in the mix. I think you could benefit by switching some of the tempo runs or cruise intervals to hill sessions.

I also think you could benefit from a base phase, where you just do the miles, even if you aren't going to follow a phased approach during the rest of the year. Barry had me do a 10 week stretch like that each year and it always seemed beneficial.

Another thing I wonder about is whether you've become sort of a slave to the watch and are wearing yourself down. When you're hitting those 5:20s in your tempo runs is it because you're consciously aiming for those paces or are they by-products of just having a run at a respectable effort? Is the latter part of the run feeling harder to manage than the earlier bit is? On the long run, do you run faster in the second half because that's what happens normally or because you're "making" it happen?

There's a lot of information in your posts but there's also a unstated. With not anything more to go on, I would suggest the following:

1. Toss the watch. Just cover the distance but let the pace find you. If you run by time and not miles check the clock on your wall or in your car at the start and end of the run just to see how long you're running.

2. Have a break of about two months from any kind of "effort" running and focus on comfortable distance. Note that I did not say SLOW distance nor did I say FAST distance. Do the distance at whatever pace works but be sure you've got enough left in the tank at the end so that you could run a bit longer if you wanted to.

3. After the distance phase, go back to the mix of tempo runs and intervals but add hill sessions and fartlek. Spread that mix out over as many weeks as you need to allow for recovery from the sessions, i.e., don't worry about fitting all of them into a week or two and don't worry if you've had a couple weeks without doing a certain kind of run with the exception of hills. Get in a weekly hill session once you come off the distance phase. Continue to stay away from the watch, just run at what feels like a decent yet manageable effort.

4. Remember that this advice may be worth exactly what you paid for it.

Mr. Miles,

HRE is hitting on what I was thinking of while I was out on a run just now. That AT level stuff that you are doing is great, but perhaps you need to periodize in a more organized way.

Twelve weeks back from your goal race start doing the distinct hill phase. Or if you don't want to do a distinct hill phase for 4 weeks, run basically as you described...but, just as HRE said, up until twelve weeks out, run like HRE said...a little monotonous and tough not to push yourself, but inevitably more beneficial for the long term. Don't race or do any workouts that are fully anaerobic during that period...

Lydiard would have something like this:

8 to 16 weeks (or as long as necessary) - Aerobic base phase.

4 weeks hill phase

4 weeks anaerobic phase...up to 6.

2 week coordination phase

2 week taper for long stuff like the marathon

Base:

Three long runs, 2 x 90 minute, 1 x 2:00 or longer

1 gentle fartlek - no straining

most of the rest is easy to medium efforts stuff...run as much volume as you feel, as long as any run or day of running doesn't negatively affect future runs.

Also, you cannot race well and train hard at the same time.

So you want to be done with the volume of anaerobic work before you start racing....

Did Lydiard recommend an "anaerobic phase" if you trained for a marathon too? If no, what about the half?

Wetcoast, HRE, Glenn McCarthy:

Just curious, page 87 of "Healthy Intelligent Training" gives a typical Lydiard build up phase as follows:

Monday 10 miles at 3/4 effort

Tue 15 miles at 1/4 effort

Wed 1 hour fartlek (about 10 miles)

Thu 18 miles at 1/4 effort

Fri 10 miles at 3/4 effort

Sat 15 miles at 1/4 effort

Sun 22 miles at 1/4 effort hilly

Also, page 186 has a typical week of John Walker's general conditioning period. Tuesday has 5 x 1000 at 3k to 5k pace with 2 minute recoveries. Saturday has 5 to 7k tempo at about 2:45-2:55 per k pace. I know that Arch Jelley and Arthur Lydiard were different people, but the book is endorsed by the Lydiard foundation and the part about John Walker praises his training. What do you make of this?

Sorry, my first question is how would the 3/4 effort runs compare (as far as pace or heartrate)with long (longer than 20 minute) tempo runs?

So much of Lydiard's stuff goes back to having a good stretch of good paced aerobic base training and Walker had that. Neither of those sessions that Walker was doing were likely to have left him gasping. Quax used to do something like 20 x 440 in 70-75 in his base period according to a mutual friend but said that he never got into oxygen debt when he did that so these sorts of sessions were likely just very extreme cases of high end aerobic running.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

Sorry, my first question is how would the 3/4 effort runs compare (as far as pace or heartrate)with long (longer than 20 minute) tempo runs?

If there is one thing Lydiard wrote that I think he never should have it's those "effort" fractions. Even he never had a really good way of explaining them. Lorraine Moller once told me that he explained them by saying, "One quarter effort is 25% of your full effort, one half effort is %50%..."

Anyway, the "effort fraction" is going to be measured against your all out effort at a given distance so you'd run much slower at 3/4 effort for twenty miles than you would for 20 minutes. Lydiard never put much stock in heart rate as a measure of effort but I suppose someone who wanted to measure effort that way would have to measure against their racing (all out) heart rate for the distance they were using for their tempo run.

The whole thing really works a lot better if you just think something like "1/4 effort = easy, 1/2 effort = moderate, 3/4 = fairly hard and 7/8 = near racing effort.

Sure he did. You can run some good shorter races after a marathon too. Although I think I almost prefer Gabriel Rosa's marathon program.

It is almost the same, but there is a sort of anaerobic phase straight after the aerobic conditioning phase. Kinda of makes sense...as for middle distance having the hill phased straight after the aerobic phase to prepare the lower leg for the demands of anaerobic training and towards peaking....

You saying all that, there are a tonne of very good performances that athletes have displayed coming out of an aerobic phase - I mean they are so stacked with stamina and 5k, 10k, half-marathons and marathon are primarily aerobic. Like 85% +/- for the 5k....race pace in the half marathon for elites is right on Anaerobic threshold...

Back to the original question...

"Does Lydiard training not work for some people?"

Well, Lydiard's base phase seems to directly improve the athlete's slow twitch muscle fibers, and from Renato Canova's Marathon Training book we know that for some athlete's 90% of their muscle fibers are slow twitch, and for others 60% are slow twitch. So, developing this system is good for all. But which runner are you? Take a look at his book to see what you may benefit from most.