It appeared to me that the number of 'quality days' recommended by both men during the core non-base training periods were similar.
[ My digression : I don't like the term 'quality day'. The term is used to describe workouts that are run at a much faster pace than during aerobic long runs, or easy runs. I know Jack Daniel's uses the term 'junk miles', and I kind of agree that if somebody is running miles just to run miles believing that thoses miles will miracuoulsy make them better, then they are wasting time that could be spent training other ways to improve performance. But, a person can rack up lots of 'quality junk miles' too.]
Yes, there are differences. Here are some that stick out :
Lydaird splits his training into more specific phases.
Lydiard has a specific hill traing phase - Daniels does not.
Daniel gives specifc information on running paces - Lydiard does not.
Lydiard describes repeats as 'run one jog one' - Daniels gives specfic paces and rest intervals.
Daniels has different paces for repeats - Lydaird, as I just wrote, is'run one jog one'.
Daniels specifies difference paces for specific reasons - Lydiard ells runners to go by feel.
Lydiard hits the anaeraobic system hard for 4 weeks and then goes through a 'coordiation period' - Daniels hits a bit of everything during the last 12 weeks of his schedule.
Anyway, people may not agree with this, but here is how I compared the two.
What I've done is count the number of 'quality days' listed by both coaches for training for a 5K road race. What I found was quite interestig (at least to me.)
For my purposes, 'quality days' are hard workout days.
For Daniels, 'quality days' are repetitions, intervals, tempo runs, and mix runs.
For Lydiard, 'quailty days' are repititions, time trials, developmental races, sharpeners, and the hill days specifically called out during the 4 weeks of hill training.
Lydaird also has days desicribed as sprint training,striding, and fast relaxed running. I chose not to call these 'quality days' because they do not have a real counter part with Daniels 'quality days'. Daniel did include strides after some of his easy and long days. I've chosen to put these Lydaird days under the same category as Danel's easy days. I did this because any serious runner would do more than go to the track and do 10 x 'fast relaxed running' without doing a few miles of warm up and then some cool down. It would end up being more of a Daniel's easy day with strides. It certainly would not be the same as a Lydiard repitition day, time trial, developmental race, sharpener run, or hill day or Daniel's 'quality day' - so I decided to classify it the same as an easy day.
Daniel's training schedule is 24 weeks long. Lydiards schedules is put together a little bit differently, but if you do 8 weeks of aerobic conditioning before the begining of the 4 weeks of hill training, you get 24 weeks. (Which is also 168 days.)
One more thing, there are some days were a choice is given. For example, Daniels will give a choice of an easy day or mix day. Lydiard will give a choice of a hill day or jog day. I've kept track of those differences
also.
So, for a 168 day training period, the number of 'quality days' is :
Daniels 47 to 49 -> 28% to 29% of runs
Lydiard 48 to 62 -> 29% to 37% of runs
Lydiard has many more days where you are given the choice of doing a 'quality day' or an easy day (jogging). This occurs off and on through out his schedule, but this does occur once a week in the 4 weeks of his hill training
and once a week during the 4 weeks of his anaerobic development training. During these two 4 week periods you could do as little as 8 each or as much as 12 each.
As another note of interest, Lydiard also lists a beginners 'Fun Run' schedule. If you add 2 weeks to its initial 6 weeks of aerobic only running, you end up with 24 weeks (168 days) of training. For this schedule, there
are 39 quality days (23%). The 'Fun Run' schedule does not include hills.
You could easily take the 'Fun Run' schedule and change it into a scaled down Daniel's schedule.
