I have read a number of Lydiard books and they are often tough to get through due to the writing style. So I got HIT from the library because it is supposed to be a new, updated version of Lydiard. Problem I have is this book reads like an infomercial or sales brochure. is this just how folks from New Zealand talk and write?
Seemed ok to me. I focused more on what was good, interesting, and educational... of which I found plenty.
Maybe you can look past that particular thing that is annoying you, and find some miniscule piece of helpful training information in there somewhere.
I mean, Lydiard's books were tough for you. THis is too salesy. Do you normally complain so much?
Matthew Jones wrote:
Seemed ok to me. I focused more on what was good, interesting, and educational... of which I found plenty.
Maybe you can look past that particular thing that is annoying you, and find some miniscule piece of helpful training information in there somewhere.
I mean, Lydiard's books were tough for you. THis is too salesy. Do you normally complain so much?
don't think I was complaining so much as being critical of the writing. when I say Lydiard was tough that is meant to show that he had a hard time getting his point across in a simplified manner. Obviously this is true since there are constantly threads discussing/asking what Lydiard meant.
IT doesn't help that Lydiard wrote completely different things than what his runners actually did.
The book is so easy to understand that you can forgive some stylistic shortcomings. What he is selling is a modern approach to Lydiard training. If that is his aim, then he has achieved it.
I have the book and I think that Livingstone does a good job of explaining Lydiard's methods and more importantly the physiology that Lydiard could not explain so well.
Very easy to understand but it is not a cookbook approach like DRF. If you expected complete training plans, that is not he intent of the book. It is about why such a simple training method works.
I loved HIT. I think it's just about one of the best books available. It's written from a camp of guys who were once just school kids themselves out running fartleks and it shows how guys (and girls) like them became good. Primarily, by doing a lot of aerobic running. We all know this is a key ingredient, but most books talk about so many aspects of running that the simple focus on doing a lot of running gets lost in the noise. This books is concise and mostly focused on aerobic running, so the importance isn't lost on the reader. It's one of the few books where 90% of what we should be running comes close to taking up that percentage of the pages in the book. I think most other books by the end make it easy for a runner to have some kind of denial, as if including all the ingredients to good running can short cut them to success. When you finish HIT you understand that to be good you still need to put in serious aerobic volume.
I could have done without the parts about being a chiropractor; that seemed very self-serving for the author. Some of the other chapters lose focus a bit. All-in-all it's a great book, though, as it clearly breaks down the relevance of aerobic running and how it fits into a system of training.
jungle jim wrote:
don't think I was complaining so much as being critical of the writing.
Oh, I see. You were criticizing, not complaining...
com·plain
kəmˈplān/
express dissatisfaction or annoyance about a state of affairs or an event.
synonyms: criticize, find fault, ...
Got it.
adsfasfd wrote:
IT doesn't help that Lydiard wrote completely different things than what his runners actually did.
Are there any Records of what his runners actually did?
want to know the A wrote:
adsfasfd wrote:IT doesn't help that Lydiard wrote completely different things than what his runners actually did.
Are there any Records of what his runners actually did?
Lots of hilly 22 mile runs.
want to know the A wrote:
adsfasfd wrote:IT doesn't help that Lydiard wrote completely different things than what his runners actually did.
Are there any Records of what his runners actually did?
Read Peter Snell's book "No Bugles, No Drums". I've not read Murray Halberg's book "A Clean Pair of Heels", but perhaps he also describes the training he actually did.
The Daws's books have Lydiard based plans in them.
I thought the HIT book was great. It covered the gap between Arthur's "do this it works" and the scientific reasons why it works. Arthur's books, co-written with Garth Gilmoure, were written the way Arthur spoke. Lots of stories to support his point, lots of getting off on related and unrelated tangents, never to get to the point. Having worked with Arthur, his books were entertaining, and never completed his training program so one could develop their own plans, HIT gives a knowledgeable person enough information for them to build there own plans if they have some understanding of what the objective is.
want to know the A wrote:[/b
adsfasfd wrote:IT doesn't help that Lydiard wrote completely different things than what his runners actually did.
Are there any Records of what his runners actually did?
Fred Wilt's "How They Train" books had a few samples from Bill Baillie, Jeff Julian and Rex Maddaford if you want to count him as a Lydiard guy. He was coached by one of Lydiard's athletes. Someone mentioned Ron Daws' books and they have some actual samples. Joe Henderson's second "Road Racers and Their Training" has a week of Joan Ullyot's training from when Arthur was coaching her. I have a description of Ray Puckett's training from 1962, I think. You're asking about stuff from a long time ago when there was much less communication and obviously no Internet. It would take some digging to find those samples now but there are a few out there.