Who Is The Best Lydiard Coach In The World?

Jonas Holdeman, of course!

Provide some track record info with the names of these coaches.

Lydiard, who else?

Um wrote:

Lydiard, who else?

The question was who IS not who WAS. You would be right a few months ago.

I know, and he still is.

it matters if they're alive and what their track record is because I want to identify the 4 more individualistic living running coaches. A True Lydiard coach, Vigil, Canova, Daniels.

Oh, have fun with that then.

pay enough, bring them to the masses with aggressive marketing selling a service that they post their ideas on.... I will have fun

miles wrote:

(Please take into account that in Every one of Lydiards speaches and letters he said that he Did Not do long slow distance running and that he did anaerobic threshold during his build up period, using the 90min runs for recovery)

I'm curious about this--Lydiard's books say just "very easy slow running" during phase I build up (I guess in order to go from 0-100 in 9 weeks). Are you saying he said to do the 3/4 (anaerobic threshold runs) in Phase I as well as phase II? Just wondering, I plan on doing lydiard type training this summer. Also by "very slow running" does he mean jogging, or steady state pace?

He's a letter from the man himself. After talking with him more it was clear that his MWF 60min runs were AT and his 90min runs were jogging building into AeT. They often did easy 60min jogs in the mornings on top of the 60/90/60/90/60/120/60 schedule. If you read his running for young athletes, you will see all of his codes. His athletes did N-strides throughout there base work also to maintain leg turnover. Never once, in all of my readings BY Lydiard, not one of his followers, or during any of our conversations did he ever talk about 0-100 mpw in ANY span of time. He advocated running Everyday of the year for years on end because it takes Years to develop, not one 10week period. In David Wright's, the swim coach from New Zealand who worked with Lydiard on a swimming approach to his philosphies, book Swim To The Top, he quotes Lydiard saying something like, 'The athlete who trains everyday of the week has trained 56 days more than the athlete who takes one day off a week. Who do you think is going to win?'

the letter:

Dear Nicholas,

I think that the first thing to remember is that your performance are governed by your aerobic threshold and that your anaerobic development is a limited that can only be developed in incur an oxygen debt of between 15 to 20 litres. Yet American coaches refuse to recognisees that this is so and invariably destroy the great potential of your country.

I do not believe in using a monitor and rather the runners try to run at a good pace within their capabilities finishing feeling tired, but knowing that they could continue.

Conditions change daily so does the runners; my runners never jogged their long runs. I.E. 22 miles each Sunday we would run aerobically in 2:30 mins. (6:55 mile pace) if it was the competitive season. Otherwise we would run it in about 2:05 (5:40 mile pace) to 2:10 not slow running as some people believed.

The important aspect is to get the pressure by the high aerobically as possible to bring about the necessary development of the blood vascular system for the time-spent training. This development can continue for several years. I coined the phrase years ago. “Train don’t strain”.

As you get fitter so the runs become faster without and increased effort. All my runners did most of their training together as it does not matter what the distance are being trained for 800 mts through to the marathon, endurance and a high aerobic threshold is required by all as well as the resistance work outs and anaerobic capacity to exercise. all that is needed is to coordinate the speed training for different distances.

I do not know any fast way to the top. It all takes time with gradual improvement. It took me three years with John Davies and Pete Snell to get them Olympic medals. I do not think it could be done any faster. With Halberg it was nearly five years because the distance required more endurance.

Regarding the difference in the 5k & 10k schedules [in Run To The Top the 5k schedule has more mileage than the 10k schedule]. I can only say that it could be some mistake by the printer, as we always run long runs.

They are to gain muscular endurance through the development of the capillaries and mitro-condria. We always ran 30 mins on a Friday as years ago the shops in NZ closed weekends so we had to shop for weekends of starve. That was to allow the runners to do whatever shopping that they had to do. Also we found that it fitted into our schedules nicely as a consolidation period. So we kept doing the same later on.

We do not have days off from training even if it is only 30 mins jog. I hope that this answers some of your queries?

Over all it is wise to train how you feel and not to take much notice of hypothetical figures.

Kind regards,

Arthur Lydiard

Thanks! That answers my questions. Incase you were wondering, the site where it talks about 0-100 in 9 weeks is:

http://www.jaysonjo.com/lydiard.html

Its not Lydiard himself, but someone else interpreting his main ideas.

That's correct: it's someone else's take on Lydiard. There's a lot unsaid in Lydiard's books. If you want a Great companion to Lydiard books, get Renato Canova's scientific approach to marathon training from the IAAF. Renato isn't a proclaimed Lydiard follower, but the two methods mesh incredibly well and Renato's scientific approach really open up the door to altering your training as needed to see desire results as you go. As Lydiard said, read your body. Renato goes into more detail about reading your body.

Lydiard write another letter that said 90-100mpw is ok to begin at if you jog the entire way and build into greater speed. He said this should be accompanied with strides for maintaining leg speed and hill strides for stregnth and plyometric form work. BUT, the biggest thing to note is that he isn't talking about gradually increasing speed over the course of 2 months, but rather years. as in not racing for Years and just building up mileage. This is a long term approach. I personally have done it. I'm in my 3rd year, have thrown in AT work and will be racing this summer at 5 races in the elite field. Even Renato on this Letsrun threads talks about how Africans ran slow mileage years before most americans run and he talks about slower mileage before doing specific mileage.

So, who is the greatest living Lydiard coach?

Barry Magee.

miles,

I kind of see your point, but then again, I'm not sure I do. I don't remember ever hearing Lydiard say or reading anything he wrote saying that you should put in years and years of nothing but base mileage. I've read both 'A Clean Pair of Heels' and 'No Bugles, No Drums,' autobiographies of Halberg and Snell respectively, and it didn't sound to me that they started out with years and years of base mileage under Lydiard with absolutely no racing whatsoever. I'm not sure where, but I thought I recalled Lydiard stating that, per the principles of periodization, it's not good to do years of base mileage without having immediate goals to test your fitness beyond personal time trials. This may be my own opinion based on what I've learned from Lydiard, but I doubt he would suggest anyone go a full 12 months of building a base without having some form of competition in there to keep the mind and body sharp and cognizant of why you're doing this training in the first place.

Some of not all of Lyidards books are not very clear, so it is important read what he wrote and then also look at what his runners did in there training.

Frist off, they did move no farting around! As far as the racing, or training for super long blocks. I think that Lyidard did stated that the longer that one trained over years the more they would improve. This is just do to the finite Nature of the anarobic system. What he was getting at was that it was years of cycle upon cycle that got people to the top. The longest base phase I have ever seen hem write is six months. He made it very clear that he felt that run clark was the best runner of his time. But due to the fact he only did long hard runs and did not balince his training or time it. He never got where he should have gone. My take on Lyidard is this, you can 1-2 racing season per year. With half that time spent in fast base training and around 25% spent doing hard speed training and then you can peak, be it six weeks or be it twelve. And I am not so sure that Lyidard in the base phase had any issue is doing VO2 work once a week. If you look in his books. He has a 5K time trail each week, and then a 10k time trial later. Started to get the idea anyway, that he felt base work really ment. Building all the systems so that upon doing a little sprit work, and hard track reps, you would be plush with stammina and as your legs where fresh get to use it.

I know Lyidard had great results with Barry Maggie, so if anyone can get hem to comment. Or get me his e-mail that we great. As I am trying to apply his system had have gotten things to where I am running hard but relaxed daily. Now it would just be nice to know if back in the good old days Lyiard has you mix time trails in weekly.

Worth noting is that Lydiard himself said Bill Squires is the best American coach. Who's produced more top-level marathoners in the U.S. than he did during the height of GBTC prominence?

Carl Jackson

Nobby.

Michael Jackson