Would Dixon have won a medal in 76 if he had done hill bounding?

The overexplainer to the rescue. If it sounds like I'm a mental patient then I certainly have come to the right place. And sadly my friend, you are the worst in this thread. Dixon's first coach was his Brother (John ??) but because he was traveling with Walker, who was having great success with Jelley, he no doubt started to get training programs from him. When this occurred I am not sure, but it wasn't prior to mid-1974 by which stage he was already an Olympic bronze medallist and a 3:33 man. The reason why the OP has discussed this issue comes down to the fact that Rod Dixon himself said several times on NZ television over the years that he had gotten his training wrong, his form, he was carrying 'a bear on his back,' and that he didn't do enough speed work. It looks like he did too much mileage when he moved up to the 5000m in proportion to speedwork, so the thread's question is relevant.

Also, Arch Jelly says in his book page 23 that, "John does not do the 'Lydiard' type hill work."

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Also, Arch Jelly says in his book page 23 that, "John does not do the 'Lydiard' type hill work."

That's because his Achilles were totally seized up, not because they were against hill bounding per se.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

[ Whereas, Walker, Dixon and Quax are pretty open about it, they had no idea how you do it and they would not have access to the medical equipment needed in New Zealand in the 1970s. Blood doping on masse (non-Finnish) was in two eras, 1978-1986 and 2000-2008.

Pretty sure NZ medicine was on par with the rest of the civilized world back then. They could work out how to do a blood transfusion. A junkie could probably do one.

Hector. wrote:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Also, Arch Jelly says in his book page 23 that, "John does not do the 'Lydiard' type hill work."

That's because his Achilles were totally seized up, not because they were against hill bounding per se.

No, in the mid-1970s when he was on top he didn't do a hill phase, he just did a base phase then speed and racing in a bi-annual cycle. However later when he had his calf problems I read somewhere that he would do hard 30 min runs on a slowly climbing course somewhere South of Auckland (probably an old Lydiard route) as he couldn't run for over 30 minutes at a time, he had to improvise.

Doctors without borders wrote:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

[ Whereas, Walker, Dixon and Quax are pretty open about it, they had no idea how you do it and they would not have access to the medical equipment needed in New Zealand in the 1970s. Blood doping on masse (non-Finnish) was in two eras, 1978-1986 and 2000-2008.

Pretty sure NZ medicine was on par with the rest of the civilized world back then. They could work out how to do a blood transfusion. A junkie could probably do one.

Yes, you can't rule it out. But it was a novelty back then. In countries like Australia and New Zealand getting medical equipment and drugs etc was quite difficult. Trying to bring in unfunded cancer drugs for ill family members is a bureaucratic nightmare and it was worse in the old days of high tariffs etc. Again, you can't rule anything out but it was slightly after Quax that blood doping became widespread.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Also, Arch Jelly says in his book page 23 that, "John does not do the 'Lydiard' type hill work."

Here's a post from Robbie Johnston who trained with Walker late in JW's career, and there should be a link to the whole thread on this topic:

I had the good fortune (and sometimes misfortune) to train with JW in the last year of his career. He was 39 at the time, I was 24 with best times of 3m43 1500m and 13m57 5k, and when it came to rep sessions he would certainly smack me around!

Training went bit like this:

First month or so just building up mileage - for JW this was about a max of 85 pw. Most at reasonable clip. I was getting up to 100-105 at max.

Then we would start doing a few tempo runs on the Auckland waterfront over 6k every second week. For me they became more like time trials as we used to just run them hard out. Started of at 18mins or so then after a few sessions getting down to low 17mins. JW sometimes struggled on these and I was able to put him away a few times.

Also, around this time (About 6 weeks into the buildup) we would start doing 1k reps - 5 of them - in Auckland Domain. This was on the road with a bit of a rise on the course, speed bumps, etc so not super quick running. This was a stock standard JW session for a number of years 1000m x 5 with 2-3mins rec. We would start off running them around 2m45-48, after a number of sessions we would be running around 2m39-42, although JW would quite often hiyt out a few 2m36-37s. He was tough to hang with doing this work.

We also did the usual long Sunday run - JW would do no more than 15m at this time, although I did a few 2h runs.

After about 10weeks of the above the rationale was that you were strong and relatively fast - that we could run 14min 5k or close to 8min 3k off that sort of work, and JW could even smack out a reasonable 1500/mile.

We would then hit the track - basically one day longer reps 800m x 4-5 (2-3min rec), 1600m x 2 (10min), 1000m x 3 (5-6min rec)

One day shorter anaerobic stuff: 400m x 10-12 (60-90s rec), 200m x 10-12 (90s or so rec) etc

One day: steady-state type efforts 6laps, 8laps, 12laps(hated those!)

JW would generally smack me in all of this stuff - he was just so strong at any decent sort of pace, but when it came to longer steady state efforts I could handle him.

JW would always smack the last couple of reps. this was actually his final demise as we were doing 400's and he smacked the last one about 30m ahead of me and blew out his achilles for good. this was about a month before he was to have a crack at the "sub4 at 40".

I have no doubt that he would have easily done that simply because I myself ran 3m39 a month or so later as well as 13m25 5k.

At the end of the day I don't think there was anything over complicated about our training - it was just consistency and good solid work. Everything came back to being strong. JW thrived on the 2 seasons a year thing and seemed to get back into shape amazingly quickly after a break as well.

Read more:

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Hector. wrote:

That's because his Achilles were totally seized up, not because they were against hill bounding per se.

No, in the mid-1970s when he was on top he didn't do a hill phase, he just did a base phase then speed and racing in a bi-annual cycle. However later when he had his calf problems I read somewhere that he would do hard 30 min runs on a slowly climbing course somewhere South of Auckland (probably an old Lydiard route) as he couldn't run for over 30 minutes at a time, he had to improvise.

His Achilles were a mess in '76 The circulatory calf problem came later and spontaneously resolved years later.

Was that guy a smack addict? He sure liked it.

Thanks for the post. Didn't Walker go through a period when he couldn't do long runs anymore? There was something about this in his autobiography, in 1977 he started getting cramping in a calf, hence the loss to Ovett in the World Cup. The arteries (or veins or ??) in the back of the knee stopped delivering blood to (or from) his calf muscle so it would cramp-up sharply. He said it was really random. He would agree to run at a meet in advance, the promoter would sell tickets based on having 'John Walker' in the field, only for him to abruptly pull out only to race somewhere else four days later.

This is correct, he blew out his achilles when training to run a sub 4 at 40. It was big news at the time.

There was a phase in Walker's career when he had something like compartmental syndrome, not sure but it was something like that, in his calves which would start to hurt and tighten up after a half hour's running. I don't think it mattered how hard or easy he was running when it happened. So he had this routine where he'd run up a 2.5 mile long hill as fast as he could, maybe 6:00 pace. Arch Jelley would meet him at the top with his car and drive him back to the bottom. He'd run the hill again and be done. He'd do that twice each day. I think he must have sorted that problem out because he was 39 when he was doing the stuff with Johnson.

HRE wrote:

There was a phase in Walker's career when he had something like compartmental syndrome, not sure but it was something like that, in his calves which would start to hurt and tighten up after a half hour's running. I don't think it mattered how hard or easy he was running when it happened. So he had this routine where he'd run up a 2.5 mile long hill as fast as he could, maybe 6:00 pace. Arch Jelley would meet him at the top with his car and drive him back to the bottom. He'd run the hill again and be done. He'd do that twice each day. I think he must have sorted that problem out because he was 39 when he was doing the stuff with Johnson.

This sounds more like what I had heard.

Interestingly, shortly after the Games Dixon won the AAA (British) 1500 title defeating a good field, including 1500 finalist Dave Moorcroft, with a 51 second last 400. Several observers seeing this said that Dixon may well have been in the wrong event in Montreal and that he stood more chance of medalling in the shorter distance. Many 1500 runners moving up to 5000 find that their supposedly strongest weapon, superior speed, isn't there at the end of a competitive 5000.

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

HRE wrote:

There was a phase in Walker's career when he had something like compartmental syndrome, not sure but it was something like that, in his calves which would start to hurt and tighten up after a half hour's running. I don't think it mattered how hard or easy he was running when it happened. So he had this routine where he'd run up a 2.5 mile long hill as fast as he could, maybe 6:00 pace. Arch Jelley would meet him at the top with his car and drive him back to the bottom. He'd run the hill again and be done. He'd do that twice each day. I think he must have sorted that problem out because he was 39 when he was doing the stuff with Johnson.

This sounds more like what I had heard.

The problem was related to his lower back muscles swelling as they warmed up which resulted in the blood vessels to his legs getting pinched off.

It did resolve years later ( maybe due to muscle atrophy with age or less manual labor?)

He did have compartment surgery initially but that failed to resolve the issue.

His training basically was half an hour hard up to three times a day.

Later he was able to return to his conventional training and while he felt disappointed that it didn't make him much faster than he was on more limited training he did actually run his mile PR during this period.

I know that one standard workout Dixon did was Lydiard's "50/60s,' a 50 yard all out sprint followed by a 60 yard "float." It's a killer session if you do enough of them. He'd so two miles that way at times and be under 9:00 for the total distance. I don't think lack of speed was an issue in Montreal. I too have read several comments saying he might have done better in the 1500.

I read Lorraine Moller's piece in Kevin Livingston's book where she commented that she wished she had kept up the hill bounding and springing throughout her career because of the work on the flexing of the ankles which she felt was the key to maintaining speed. Lydiard also mentioned that the flexing of the ankles was the key to speed.

Maybe it is as important to have the strength to maintain form as actual speed?

On the other hand, when I started getting advice from Barry Magee he told me NOT to do hill springing or bounding but just to run up the hills normally.

I got coaching from Barry as well ( by email). He was cautious about the bounding/ springing but said to go ahead if I was healthy and responding well to it.

I think Barry is a great coach. I had him write the training schedules for the high school team I was coaching in Washington State. Within two years there were two state champions.

When I was a kid growing up in British Columbia, I attended a rural high school with no coaching available. This was in the mid 70's and there was an ad in the back of Runners World for coaching by Arthur Lydiard and I sent a money order for coaching. I remember the typed schedules (with typos). I practically killed myself trying to bound up a half mile hill 6 days a week for 4 weeks.

He's mentioned you to me though not by name. He did tell me about writing schedules for a high school team in Washington.