Lydiard's marathon long runs

Come on, Lydiardites. I thought you loved this stuff.

How about some input?

Sorry, but you need to give more context or at the very least the page that you're looking at and hope someone is ambitious enough to find the book and read it.

HRE wrote:

Sorry, but you need to give more context or at the very least the page that you're looking at and hope someone is ambitious enough to find the book and read it.

The quote comes from Chapter thirteen "Marathon" in Running to the Top in collaboration with Garth Gilmour.

It is on my kindle, so page numbers will be of no help.

The rest of the paragraph, which describes base training in the first 3 to 5 months:

"Allow three days a week for long runs - what you consider long depends on your level of fitness - but the aim eventually should be 90 minutes on tow days and about two hours or more on one day. That extra-long run could be increased every four or five weeks to take you near to the actual time you would take to run the marathon distance."

Why on earth are we talking about Lydiard and the marathon? Who did he coach in the marathon? Do you want to learn about marathon training?. Study, Canova

Starting at 2 hours increase long run every 4-5 weeks. Assuming a 2:30 guy....

2hr

2hr

2hr

2hr

2:15

2:15

2:15

2:15

2:30

2:30

2:30

2:30

That's already 12 weeks. If you go 10min increments that's 16 weeks.

That's a lot of base. What does the rest of the schedule call for? If I recall the marathon schedule post-base includes a lot of longer time triala...even a full marathon time trial with a 2-2:30 weekly long run. Again...schedules are in the book. Just follow them.

Alan

Starting at 2 hours increase long run every 4-5 weeks. Assuming a 2:30 guy....

2hr

2hr

2hr

2hr

2:15

2:15

2:15

2:15

2:30

2:30

2:30

2:30

That's already 12 weeks. If you go 10min increments that's 16 weeks.

That's a lot of base. What does the rest of the schedule call for? If I recall the marathon schedule post-base includes a lot of longer time triala...even a full marathon time trial with a 2-2:30 weekly long run. Again...schedules are in the book. Just follow them.

Alan

whodidhecoachinthemarathon wrote:

Why on earth are we talking about Lydiard and the marathon? Who did he coach in the marathon? Do you want to learn about marathon training?. Study, Canova

I'm 56 y/o and have found over the last year or so, after several years of mounting injuries, that steady volume running seems to be working for me. So, why not explore the philosophy of 'the' guru of that approach?

From that, the "extra long run" would be the two hour run as all three are classified as "long." So I'd take that to mean extending that two hour run until you're running for about the time you're likely to need to finish your marathon. BUT, Arthur really was not thinking of 5-6 hour marathon runners. He changed his method from running miles to running for time because slower people using his system were telling him it was taking something in the neighborhood of four hours or more to do the 20 mile run and he didn't think that was a good thing.

If I can find the book I'll re-read that chapter and see if any other interpretation strikes me.

As I posted on another thread, we were taught on the Lydiard 1/2 training course that anything more than 2.75 to 3 hours can be detrimental.

I never tire of saying this but: "Weekly total mileage is more important than any single long run" - which is why you see the elites and other successful runners touting the value of doubles. A specific example is Bill Rodgers. His logs show numerous runs of 16 and 20 miles, but a more typical day for him would be 10 am/ 16 pm. He occasionally ran a 23 miler but that was the exception. As stated above, longer duration runs are not necessarily productive- you're just beating your body down, getting dehydrated, and making the next workout/recovery harder.

The only number to worry about is the weekly total miles number.

A friend of mine suggested to check this one out. Been a while but sure is interesting as ever…

If you are asking a "Lydiard" question, he believed a long run of 2-hour or more is absolutely important (with a good reason). His original runners DID do some runs longer than 3-hour at times and there's nothing wrong with it. Now-a-Coach; yes, we would cap the long run at 3-hour. The comment about longer than 3-hours being detrimental is actually from Dr. Jack Daniels but we felt that's about right. Of course, you can't generalize it and say; Toshihiko Seko was "wrong" because he did a 50-mile run.

Over all, Arthur liked his runners do a long run of 2:00-2:45 once a week, usually around a hilly Waiatarua 22-mile circuit. They would run it pretty hard during Conditioning (odd 2:10-2:15) and much slower once they moved on to Hills and Track Training (2:40-ish). But that was simply because they were running that particular loop. As HRE talked about, Arthur moved on from there to recommend time-based training more than mileage-based. This is because when he went on and started coaching people he couldn't be with. They were doing 100-mile-a-week so much slower and he found that's TOO MUCH; which, interestingly, we found so many people doing right now--too much running and doing them more harm than good.

"Running to the Top" was written during a rather interesting period. I had talked about this with Arthur but, even though he started the original jogging group in Auckland back in 1960s, he didn't know what to get about those who don't want to do a lot of running yet wanting to run a marathon. The era of professional people suggesting people that anything more than 40-miles-a-week can harm you, possibly kill you, is a foreign world to him. He had his original joggers (ages between 50-72) training 7-days-a-week and many of them went on a completed a full marathon "somewhere around 4-hours". Things had changed so much since--when you look at Runner's World back in 1970s, you see people posting, saying: "I'm a hobby jogger with a 3-hour marathon PR…" Now dipping under 4:00 is a feather in a hat!

What he was talking about in that particular paragraph is:

Do 3 long runs a week with one of them being 2:00-2:30. Every 4 to 5 weeks, get that long run progressively longer to get to your expected marathon DURATION. So, if you must have a numbered example, it would look like:

2:00-2:30 (with other 90+ minutes long runs during the week)

2:00-2:30

2:00-2:30

3:00

2:00-2:30

2:00-2:30

2:00-2:30

3:30

2:00-2:30

2:00-2:30

2:00-2:30

4:00

Taper (3-4 weeks)

Something like that.

Even for a beginning marathon runner, he would have still preferred to give hills and intervals and tempo runs to get them ready for a marathon because it involved a lot more than just doing long runs to get you ready to run well at any distance even a marathon. However, the problem is, and this is something I had discussed with him in 1997 when he told me about this new book of his and more in depth in 1999 when he came to the US for his second to the last US tour, majority of "marathon participants" don't give a damn about "racing" a marathon. They just want to finish. This is a big dilemma because, with Arthur's original peaking, the longest run of the entire program would come in somewhere around 14-16 weeks out from THE race. For someone training for a 4:30 marathon, this could mean you'd be doing "only" 13 or 14 miles 3 months out from the actual marathon!! Psychologically, that's a bit scary! So for someone like that, you can do a plan such as above, and I'm not sure if Arthur would have actually recommended a plan like that without hills and other parts of his program and publish it (I highly doubt it…), and it would work just fine.

In Dr. Daniels' words, "…stress is a function of time spent doing something…" Arthur certainly would have agreed that someone pounding 4 or 5 hours week in week out, trying to fulfilling "three-20-milers" regime of a marathon plan was actually doing more harm than good. It certainly was interesting to see a man who spent decades encouraging people to "run more" to have to tell them not to do too much!!

I appreciate all the thoughtful, knowledgeable posts.

I'm presently fairly comfortable running about 2:30, probably about 19-20 miles according to the periodic pace snap shots I take on measured segments.

Perhaps I'll try 2 or 3 runs in the 2:45 to 3:00 range in the next few months leading up to my races.

Hey Nobby thanks for the insight.

I think the duration idea is important, as in Pfitzinger's book of course you can do a steady 22-miler in training in about the time it takes to race a full marathon....and it's manageable (Assuming you're a sub 3:30 type of runner).

But then the idea of reaching a point of glycogen depletion and actually "running up and into the wall" is important. For most people (regardless of pace) this is right around 20-miles. It's a work output. If you're hitting over 50-55mpw you should probably get that Long Run up to 20 miles.

Of course if you have someone just looking to finish their first marathon and they train off of only 30 miles a week then 20-mile Long Run is usually not as productive as actually grinding out some Tempo runs and intervals. It would be 66% of their weekly volume in one day!! This is where the Hansons "16-mile Long Run" made its mark for the masses. Add some intensity, intervals and pace work around marathon goal pace (and try to up the mileage a bit for these types of runners) and boom you've got some strength and speed. Taking 3.5+ hours to "go the distance" on a 20-miler doesn't give you much bang for your buck when you could've done some 2-3 mile repeats at half marathon pace or an 8-mile MP goal pace run.

But for the more "advanced plans" a variety of Long Run stimuli (as well as a lot of Lactate Threshold work) is key. For continual improvement over years and years the stimuli must be changed and this is where Canova seems to know his sh!t. Add some fartlek into the long run, flirt with the LT and glycogen depletion, push the mileage envelope etc. Change up the distances, change up the quality/density of mileage and change up the velocity of the LT over time. That is how real gains are made.

But Lydiard's main principles will remain gold. Any successful distance program/coach should know that and use a lot of his tried and true methods.

Bill Squires was having his guys put little surges into their long runs decades ago. There isn't much in the sport that's totally new.

I think the appeal of those programs where 30-35 mile a week runners do single runs of 20-25 miles is that they really don't plan on doing much in the line of training during the week. The run becomes sort of like a Saturday morning golf game, i.e., an extended thing done regularly at a convenient time. For people who want to call themselves marathon runners but who blanch at a routine that requires 5-6 days of running each week that sort of training has appeal.

Back to the OP's question, I found that quote and read more of the chapter. It starts off by saying that if you want to run a marathon you need to do at least 50-60 mpw. If you're running that much and have a run of two hours and two more of an hour and a half in the mix you're doing a lot more running than most of the rest of the field has done and it's very unlikely that it's going to take you more than four hours to finish and probably not even that long And the actual advice is to run for "close to" the length of time it will take to run your marathon. I would think that at three hours, certainly at three and a half, a four hour marathoner is "close" enough.

You can find examples of Lydiard influenced athletes who did runs at beyond the marathon distance, usually around thirty miles, Ron Daws, Steve Hoag, and Rob DeCastella come to mind but they were all able to cover that distance in well under four hours.

My last few months, I've average about 7 to 8 hrs of running per week with the only variable being intensity on the daily runs(no track work or scheduled tempos) with a conservative goal of about 3:10 to 3:15.

I think you'd be fine with a long run of that duration. I also think you could do well maxing your long runs out at 2:30 or so but letting yourself run them faster, (letting yourself, not forcing yourself) thereby covering more distance on those runs. Mostly I want to point out that there probably should be a limit on how much time gets invested in those runs.

I don't know how experienced you are at marathons but even applying a specific program to your training can require some tinkering to adapt the program to your own needs.

I've run about 30 marathons, all but 4 in the last 12 years or so but the changes that come with aging make training each additional year as different and new as if I'm just starting out.

OP wrote:

I've run about 30 marathons, all but 4 in the last 12 years or so but the changes that come with aging make training each additional year as different and new as if I'm just starting out.

With this kind of background, why don't you focus more on "other parts of Lydiard training"? Hill training, both ups AND downs, and intervals and long tempo runs….all vital parts of CONDITIONING. I believe particularly when we get older, hill training becomes even more important because we lose power and range of motion.

NobbyH wrote:

OP wrote:

I've run about 30 marathons, all but 4 in the last 12 years or so but the changes that come with aging make training each additional year as different and new as if I'm just starting out.

With this kind of background, why don't you focus more on "other parts of Lydiard training"? Hill training, both ups AND downs, and intervals and long tempo runs….all vital parts of CONDITIONING. I believe particularly when we get older, hill training becomes even more important because we lose power and range of motion.

The hill training aspect is well covered - I live outside of Pittsburgh and every run is a hill run. As for the other elements, I'm going to slowly, hopefully, re-introduce a bit of those as health and fitness permit. I want to be in it for the long haul, like a tortoise Ed Whitlock.

I'm willing to sacrifice some speed for longevity.

I've also got about 7-10 pounds of extra girth that, once shed, should move things along.