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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Keith Livingstone – Healthy Intelligent Training

Maidenhead: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd., 2009

ISBN: 978-1-84126-900-9

including the translation rights. No part of this work may be reproduced—

including by photocopy, microfilm or any other means—

processed, stored electronically, copied or distributed in any form whatsoever

without the written permission of the publisher.

2nd, extended Edition 2010

3rd Edition 2012

Auckland, Beirut, Budapest, Cairo, Cape Town, Dubai, Graz, Indianapolis,

Maidenhead, Melbourne, Olten, Singapore, Tehran, Toronto

Member of the World

Sports Publishers’ Association (WSPA)

www.w-s-p-a.org

ISBN: 978-1-84126-900-9

E-Mail: info@m-m-sports.com

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Acknowledgements

Foreword Barry Magee

Foreword Lorraine Moller

About the Author

Introduction – Keith Livingstone

Prelude

“Growing Up with Lydiard”

How to Use This Book

Making Training Specific

The Great Secret

The Tortoise and the Hare

Efficient or Effective?

Marathon Edurance for Middle Distance Speed

“Keep Things as Simple as Possible…but Not Simpler.”

Part 1

The Training Pyramid

Physiology of the Lydiard Training Pyramid

Running Physiology Terms

Enzymes, Acids And Chemistry

Muscles

Characteristics of the Three Main Muscle Fiber Types

Heart Rate and Training Zones “Simplified”

How the Cardiovascular System Changes

Training by Heart Rate

Establishing Maximal Heart Rate

Establishing VO₂ Max Heart Rate

Establishing Anaerobic Threshold Heart Rate

Establishing Your Resting Heart Rate

Establishing Your Heart Rate Reserve

Establishing Your Training Intensities

Heart Rate Monitor Tricks

Nic Bideau on Heart Rate

Cardiac Drift

Training Terms

Steady Stuff

Aerobic Runs

Sub-Threshold Runs

Threshold Runs

How Lactic Acid Builds Up Exponentially Above Threshold Speed

Relating Running Speeds to Threshold Running Speed

Relating Running Speeds to VO2 Max Running Speed

Fast Stuff

VO₂ Max Intervals

Glycolytic (Lactic) Repetitions

Leg-Speed Drills

Types of Anaerobic Exercises

1. Alactic Exercise

2. Glycolytic (or Lactic Exercise)

3. VO₂ Max Exercise

Acknowledgements

This book started as a Powerpoint presentation and 20-page summary sheet for local coaches in Victoria, in late 2005. As athletes and coaches asked more and more questions it became evident that more was needed, and so the book idea was born.

There are many people to thank, and I hope I miss no one. Firstly, my thanks go to my beautiful wife Joanne and her patient parents Graeme and Junette Phillips for all their support. This book could not have been done without them. My mother Valerie McCabe has encouraged me all along and taken great interest in the book’s progress. Dr. John Hinwood and Dennis Jones have been a great support during a challenging year while the book came to fruition. Gavin and Allison Richards at MBE Bendigo helped us print the initial drafts for proofreading.

My brother Colin, who has been a tower of strength during the last year, contributed the superb cartoons for this book. Colin was an accomplished runner who has coached local athlete Tim Davies from 17th in Wales to 5th in the world mountain running championships, as well as to 3 victories in the annual race on Mt. Snowdon. Colin’s gifted wife Diana Mills took some of the photos in the book. Next, I’d like to thank Barry Magee, Lorraine Moller, Nobby Hashizume, Vern Walker and Rod and John Dixon for their input, as well as Arch Jelley, Chris Pilone, Nic Bideau, Robbie Johnston, and the flying professor, Roger Robinson.

Vern Walker corrected my historical and typographical mistakes with an eagle eye and teaming up with Barry Magee, provided an enormous amount of information about training directly under Arthur Lydiard. I grilled Barry and Vern about every possible detail I could think of, and they responded admirably.

Gary Moller and Gavin Harris provided detailed information for the early drafts, and long-time Auckland middle-distance coach Don MacFarquhar, who also trained under Lydiard, gave me some in-depth background about Peter Snell’s training.

In Australia, I was greatly encouraged by Australia’s “Mr Running,” Trevor Vincent, known to everyone as “TV.” Pat Clohessy, who ran with the Lydiard squad in Europe in 1961, gave me insight into how he so successfully applied the Lydiard principles with his runners over many years. His phrase “freedom running” should become enshrined in running literature.

Thanks to my great friend and coaching colleague, John Meagher, and all the boys in the “H.I.T. SQUAD” who allow us to coach them. We hope you have a lot of fun and friendship as you achieve your potential.

Thanks also go to Dr. Ron Brinkert, exercise physiologist and coach, who introduced John and me to the benefits of VO₂ max training over 20 years ago.

Thanks to Geelong coach Neil MacDonald for your wonderful photos and detailed information, and thanks to Melbourne coach Kevin Prendergast for allowing me to use some of your material.

From the USA, I was greatly encouraged by the upbeat Dr. David E. Martin, exercise physiologist, who insisted I submit this manuscript to Meyer and Meyer and “go for gold.” Coach Greg McMillan was also very encouraging and gave me useful input for the flow of the book. Dr. Jack Daniels generously allowed me to draw on his concepts early on, and Pete Pfitzinger was very encouraging. These last two running authors, along with Dr. Tim Noakes, I regard as among the best in the business. Thanks to Meyer and Meyer for taking this book on, too!

Finally, I’d like to thank Garth Gilmour, Arthur Lydiard’s long-time friend and confidant, who authored many of the early classics that inspired me and thousands of others to get out and run. Without all Garth’s early work with Arthur, there’d be nothing published to draw on.

Keith Livingstone

Foreword by Barry Magee

As one of Arthur Lydiard’s original boys, it is indeed a privilege and an honor to be associated with Keith Livingstone’s H.I.T book. The Master Coach’s world-changing principles of training are still applied with great success in the modern era by the greatest athletes in the world. Now this book explains why these principles have always worked so well, as we are taken through the science of each phase in a very easy-to-understand manner.

I had 12 years of direct coaching under The Master, and trained and raced with fellow Lydiard Olympians Halberg, Snell, Baillie, Puckett, and Julian, to name just a few. We were each transformed by Arthur’s revolutionary new training methods into world-class athletes. It was indeed a thrilling and exciting time to run.

Murray Halberg and I were the first two athletes to do the full track schedule that Arthur had spent years developing and which proved so successful for the next 30 years. Male and female Kiwi runners shocked the world time after time with amazing performances from the middle distances to the marathon. The athletics world could not understand how so many world champion athletes could come from a country with less than 3 million people. Eventually the principles were used all over the world.

In the mid 1960s I myself began coaching the Lydiard way with immediate success. In the years that followed, I coached a young man named Keith Livingstone and perhaps from that association has come this book. Before he died, Arthur Lydiard had left me with his personal approval as the one man who fully embraced and understood his coaching principles. Over recent years I have often been asked when I was going to write a book to explain more about Lydiard’s training methods that could either enlarge or simplify the system by presenting it in a new way to the modern-day coaches and athletes of the world.

Well, lo and behold, Keith Livingstone has done a superb job and in my mind, a much better one than I could have done, with extra information to help coaches and athletes to fill in some of the cracks and to give us more understanding of how and why this brilliant system works. H.I.T. does exactly that! Coaches around the world would have to be very foolish if they do not read and use this book to the maximum.

In my opinion, Lydiard holds all the Keys to running success. H.I.T. shares many of the KEYS that have been lost, forgotten or misunderstood. I totally recommend Dr Keith Livingstone’s book to anyone who is looking for the complete training system to complement what Lydiard has left us.

Barry Magee

1960 Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist

1961 World Cup 10,000m champion

Foreword by Lorraine Moller

Like Keith Livingstone, I grew up on Lydiard. For young Kiwi runners, it was unquestionably The Way. One who had the good fortune to be the recipient of Lydiard’s influence remained a convert for life, not from some faddish following or blind devotion but because his system made complete and utter sense and showed consistent results. Countless Lydiard-trained runners like me enjoyed a range of abilities from middle-distance track to marathon, significant athletic longevity, and the attainment of personal dreams.

Lydiard himself never expected athletes to accept his way without question; he often said that if your coach cannot explain to you the reason for doing a workout then you need a new coach. That is because “Lydiardism” is a system based on sound principles, and each element of the training is a logical and necessary step up the pyramid to excellence: stamina, strength, lactic acid tolerance and racing speed are all building blocks one upon the other, and understanding their inter-relationship is essential to sound coaching. Each phase of training is based on correct sequencing and timing, and the synergetic effect created is more than the sum of its parts: physiologically and mentally the athlete is fully prepared to break his or her limits on the day that counts.

Each cycle of training builds upon the next so that one can reasonably expect personal best performances year after year.

In our fast-paced culture we have been conditioned by many influences, especially media to look for quick fixes and the short-term pay-off. Lydiardism offers neither of these. Like most things of value in life, this system is based on long-term commitment and the pursuit of the highest in athletic achievement. No method has withstood the test of time and had more success attributed to it in the athletic world.

H.I.T. captures the genius of Lydiard and delivers it to athletes and coaches in a comprehensive and complete form. Keith Livingstone, a long-time aficionado of Arthur Lydiard, has produced the definitive work on Lydiard training since Lydiard himself, and brilliantly conveys the art and science that has built champions of all abilities and events with clarity, humour and historical reverence. The Lydiard Foundation has proudly adopted this book as its official text for all Lydiard coaching courses.

Lorraine Moller

1992 Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist

Co-founder of Lydiard Foundation

About the Author

Keith Livingstone is a former New Zealand athlete who has worked as a chiropractor in Australia for 20 years. He has “coached quietly” for over 20 years and can claim to have successfully coached a current Olympic triathlon gold medal coach and a World Masters Games treble champion. With coaching colleague John Meagher, he has helped guide Australia’s strongest middle distance and cross-country high school squad to a number of Australian titles.

Born in Kenya in 1958, with a twin brother, Colin, the boys emigrated with their family to Owairaka, Auckland in 1965, and grew up within a few hundred meters of Arthur Lydiard’s home. They lived in Owairaka Avenue, went to Owairaka Primary School, and ran for Owairaka Athletic & Harrier Club, founded by Lydiard. Both brothers later represented Auckland in national competition.

Keith was coached for 5 years by the family grocer – Olympic marathon medalist Barry Magee, one of Lydiard’s very first pupils, starting at 17. He won an Auckland Under-18 3000m title in record time in bare feet in his first championship, after a summer of enthusiastic self-coached 100-mile weeks.

Keith worked as a copywriter for Radio New Zealand for 5 years and then moved to Melbourne, Australia to study chiropractic for 6 years. For over ten years, Keith consistently ran with the best athletes in New Zealand and Australia, in very strong eras where each country could boast Olympic or world champions. He claimed a number of decisive wins and titles in senior track, cross-country and road competition.

As a chiropractic student at RMIT University, Keith had access to some of the best facilities in Australia in sports science, biomechanics, anatomy and physiology. He ran with the powerhouse Glenhuntly Athletics Club in Melbourne, and was a key member of 12 Victorian state championship teams over cross-country and road with Glenhuntly.

His best track times (which he was never happy with) include 3000m in 8:06, 5000m in 14:04, and 10,000m in 29:19. His road times include a 44:37 for 15 km, and several 10km road times near 29 minutes.

Keith was named “Victorian chiropractor of the year” in 1999 and was on the board of the Australian Spinal Research Foundation for 5 years. He has been married to Joanne for 17 years, and they have 5 children.

Introduction

Years ago, I became a serious runner. It was no accident. It was inevitable.

I grew up in a little suburb one could “toss a blanket over.” The Auckland suburb of Owairaka was the home of Arthur Lydiard, New Zealand’s great Olympic running coach. It was also the home of a motley band of neighbourhood kids who Lydiard shaped into a fearsome squad that smashed world records, won Olympic titles, and changed the face of world athletics forever. The basis of his conditioning system was a formidable weekly run of 22 miles that started and finished in Owairaka. This circuit, the ‘Waiatarua,’ climbed high onto the ridges of the Waitakere Ranges overlooking Auckland from the west. Lydiard once said that every school and suburb had kids who could be world champions, if trained correctly. We all believed him.

For impressionable kids with a bit of talent and desire, the possibility of a world-class career in athletics was real. The neighborhood was dotted with world luminaries on the athletics stage, all home-grown. Later, New Zealand had a renaissance of world champions in middle-distance and distance athletics. So did Finland. The common link was the remarkable Arthur Lydiard and his principles.

Sadly, the golden days of athletic domination have long passed for New Zealand and Australia. Arthur Lydiard’s principles have been shelved by a whole generation of athletes and coaches who seem to have forgotten the benefits of intelligent endurance work followed by systematic speed development.

The torch has been passed to third-world countries in Africa, whose athletes follow systems that bear much similarity to those of the original “Flying Kiwis.” There are signs of resurgence though. One of the few male non-Africans to break the African stranglehold over middle or distance track races in the last 18 years at world championship level has been Australian Craig Mottram. World-class at every event from 1500m to 10,000m, he has shown that anything is possible with his blend of extensive year-round endurance training. Early in 2006 in New Zealand, Mottram was shaded by the brilliant Kiwi runner Nick Willis in a 3.52 mile. Afterwards, he and his coach Nic Bideau met privately with some of the great “Flying Kiwis” of the past, including Sir Murray Halberg and Dick Quax. They asked to see some of his training diaries.

“It looks just like the way we used to train!” exclaimed Dick Quax.

“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” retorted Bideau.

So that’s what this book is about. Applying the principles pioneered by Lydiard over 50 years ago, in a modern context, with the hindsight of current physiology.

And, most importantly, you’ll have a lot of fun doing it!

Unfortunately we can’t give you Lydiard’s uncommon insight and genius as well… but why not develop your own? Arthur would probably be very pleased if you did.

Keith Livingstone

Arthur (right) with Nike founder and Oregon coach Bill Bowerman (left) and Lydiard Foundation co-founder Nobby Hashizume.

Prelude

Growing Up with Lydiard

As twin boys of six, my brother Colin and I landed in Auckland, New Zealand, after emigrating with our mother from Nairobi, Kenya, where we had been born.

This was January 1965. Our father had to remain in Kenya for quite some time; the political situation had become quite unstable.

Our mother, an experienced secondary school-teacher, secured a good teaching position at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School. This was before the days of equal pay for women. The only decent place my mum could afford was a small flat at 92 Owairaka Avenue, in the suburb of Mt. Albert, Auckland. We were promptly enrolled at Owairaka Primary School. Owairaka Primary School was a little school with its own concrete swimming pool, and several older weatherboard classrooms, with a modern block built in the early ’60s.

On the east side of the road were all the pricey houses on the slopes of Mt. Albert. The dividing line was Richardson Road. Owairaka Primary was on the west side. Around it on three sides were all the “State houses.” Just below the school grounds on the west side was a little park that none of us ventured into; it had State houses backing onto it from three sides, and you’d get a hiding from any one of several gangs who lived down there if you ever went into it. The only safe time was sometimes in summer when they had a version of Little Athletics. The park was called Murray Halberg Park.

Owairaka, meaning “place of Wairaka,” was the Maori name for Mt. Albert. Wairaka was a Maori queen. The hill and its environs were the center of our new little universe, and we’d often be up the “mountain” poking around the pa (village) sites. “Wairaka’s tunnel,” an ancient lava cave escape route to neighboring Mt. Roskill, had its entrance from the downstairs garage of a house in Mt. Royal Ave. We’d visit there when the owners weren’t home. It was a typical carefree “Kiwi” childhood for the time.

The Stoddard Road shops were about 400m from the school. There was a small Four Square grocer’s belonging to a guy named Barry Magee. We bought our groceries there. He had been a very good runner we were told, and on one occasion he had all his medals in the window. (Barry Magee was one of Arthur Lydiard’s first serious pupils; he was bronze medalist in the 1960 Olympic marathon, and he was ranked first in the world in 10,000m in 1961).

We were just little kids, of course, and the world of sport and athletics meant very little to us. Our little Irish neighbour, Mrs. Vesey, who had four children of her own, would dose us up on cod-liver oil after school so that we would grow up “big and strong like Peter Snell.” We heard that this guy was the best runner in the world and would keep our eyes peeled for someone who obviously looked a bit like Superman.

All little boys need a place to explore and have high adventure in. For us, this place was “the creek,” complete with brambles, rusting car bodies, old supermarket trolleys, surprised ducks, frogs and tadpoles. A veritable Disneyland. This creek and green strip also ran straight beside Lydiard’s place, although it was considerably more civilized there, with concrete walls. His home, as the crow flies, was only about 300m from our home in Owairaka Avenue, but across the other side of the creek. We’d often play down there amidst fennel and ferns, oblivious to who lived a few meters away.

After a while we became aware of another guy who was becoming famous for beating the No. 7 trolley bus into the center of town in the mornings; his name was Jeff Julian, and he’d won some big marathon races, including the Fukuoka marathon in Japan. Every day he’d run to and from his work at the Bank of New Zealand in Queen Street, and the bus with all its stops had no hope of matching him over the 6-mile journey.

My mum got another teaching job at Manurewa High School on the other side of Auckland. A boy there was a very good runner who’d won all the schoolboy races. His name was John Walker, and his picture was in the school magazine she brought home. He looked very lanky, with a short haircut.

One day our friend Gavin showed us where Peter Snell lived. It was a very nice-looking house in Allendale Road, on the “rich” side of Mt. Albert. Two stories. We knocked on the door but no one answered.

As the ’60s rolled by, we got used to the sights of wiry runners padding past us each year in the Owairaka Marathon, or training in big packs along the roads. We’d hand out sponges from buckets or point a hose if they wanted. One guy with a barrel chest, who looked more like a tough boxer, had his framed picture in a local library. His name was Bill Baillie. One day we saw him run past our house, just like in the picture! He was the best road runner in the world, and a world-record-holder for 20,000m and one hour.

We didn’t know who this Murray Halberg guy was who had the park named after him. We weren’t sure about him at all because the park wasn’t anywhere to hang around in. Apparently he grew up around there: in Hargest Terrace, which backs onto the park. He must have been pretty tough, anyhow, whoever he was. A little plaque on the building at the park said he was an Empire and Olympic champion and world-record-holder in running. Someone said he had a store in Balmoral or Sandringham, on the other side of the hill.

I went to Wesley Intermediate School when I was 11. This was situated beside a continuation of the same same belt of State housing that my last school was near, and the same creek that ran beside Lydiard’s home. Barry Magee’s daughter Diane was in my class. Her dad was still running in races and winning around Auckland, as were Jeff Julian and Bill Baillie.

The Lovelock Track, named after the 1936 Olympic 1500m champion, was over the fence from our school, in parkland beside the creek.

The track was asphalt and black rubber. This was the headquarters of the world-famous Owairaka Athletic and Harrier Club, which Arthur Lydiard, the best running coach in the world, had founded. His house was on Wainwright Avenue, a hidden dogleg around a few corners from the club. It was a State house like the rest.

Kevin Ryan, one of New Zealand’s toughest distance runners of the 1970s, lived a few streets away, and his parents-in-law had a house backing onto the track. Kevin was coached by Barry Magee. Dick Quax, who was emerging as one of New Zealand’s world champions, lived up the hill somewhere near Summit Drive. In 1970, Quax pushed Kip Keino all the way in the Commonwealth Games 1500m in Edinburgh.

Quax was coached by John Davies, who had been Olympic 1500m bronze medalist in 1964, and Davies had been coached by Lydiard.

Secondary School came and we went to Sacred Heart College on the other side of Auckland; a Catholic day and boarding school. It was a rugby, cricket and music school, famous for producing All Black captains and a group of young rock musicians called Split Enz.

Our first year there was 1972. Each night after getting off the train we would trudge with our heavy bags from Mt. Albert station, up Allendale Road, past Peter Snell’s old place, then up over the hill itself and down again.

That first year we read of Quax being a favorite for the Munich 5,000m. Then Quax was out with stress fractures. A young guy from the South Island surprised everybody by getting bronze in the 1500m. His name was Rod Dixon. The guy who won the 1500m in Munich, Pekka Vasala of Finland, was trained under the Lydiard principles, as was his compatriot Lasse Viren, who won the 5000m and 10000m. Lydiard had earlier spent about 18 months in Finland, coaching the coaches.

Even though we had no particular interest in running yet, it was not unlike growing up in Melbourne and not being aware of AFL football or growing up in Chicago and not being aware of basketball.

1974 came, and with it the amazing Christchurch Commonwealth Games. We watched on TV like the rest of sports-mad New Zealand. Dick Quax missed the Games due to injury. Dick Tayler, coached by Lydiard and Alastair McMurran, won the 10,000m in a fantastic time with a huge kick. New Zealand went wild. John Walker medaled in the 800m and 1500m, nipping under the world record in chasing down Filbert Bayi. Rod Dixon was fourth in 3:33, a phenomenal time itself. Jack Foster got silver with a 2:11 marathon- at age 42! A young girl named Lorraine Moller ran 2:03 to get fifth in the 800m. She was coached by Dick Quax’s coach, John Davies.

This was the start of the second golden era in New Zealand. Tiny New Zealand with its three million people could match any nation on earth. The men’s and women’s teams dominated World Cross Country championships in the mid ‘70s; the “Big Three,” Walker, Dixon and Quax, guaranteed filled stadiums anywhere in Europe. It was a very heady time to grow up for an impressionable teenager just starting to discover some athletic ability.

My brother went to Mt. Albert Grammar School for the art programme in 1974, when we were 15. Peter Snell had gone there and played rugby and tennis, and in the early 1930’s Arthur Lydiard went to the same school. My brother started running and getting into the school athletic team. This was funny because he’d never been interested in sport at all until the Commonwealth Games.

In 1975, Rod Dixon was ranked world number one in 5000m, two years after ranking first in 1500m. In 1976, John Walker won Olympic Gold over 1500m. Quax secured the 5000m Olympic silver while Dixon was out-lunged for bronze by the German Klaus-Peter Hildenbrand. Both were beaten by the relentless Finn Lasse Viren, while he defended his Olympic double. Quax achieved the 5000m world record the next year.

NZ World Cross Country Champions, Morocco, 1975

The men’s team was superb despite absence of Rod Dixon. Mile champion Walker finished 4th.

John Walker’s coach, Arch Jelley, lived over the hill in Mt. Albert, on Asquith Avenue, a mile up the road from the famous Western Springs Stadium where Snell and Australia’s great Ron Clarke had run world records a decade earlier. Arch Jelley was with Owairaka Athletic Club. His son Martin ran for Owairaka Athletic Club, and was very talented.

Around this time we became more aware of Kevin Ryan, who was going to win the 1976 Olympic marathon as far as we were concerned. He lived near the Lovelock Track, and was coached by Barry Magee.

Kevin Ryan was tall and very strong and ran over 100 miles a week, and was the New Zealand cross country, marathon, and road champion. He’d already won marathons overseas. Lydiard’s Wainwright Avenue house was only a short jog away from Kevin’s place. Lydiard wasn’t there now; he was overseas a lot of the time and we didn’t know where his new house was really. The new occupants used to leave a plastic jug upside down over the tap on the lawn for Waiatarua runners, in deference to its heritage.

Kevin Ryan used to run his “official” Waiatarua run around the famous Lydiard course, only counting the stretch from and to Lydiard’s house. It was a big 22 mile loop. Others used to run the “Waiatarua” course, but of course they would start in slightly different places, and even though the middle 90% was exactly the same, it was never “official.” Waiataruas HAD to be run from Lydiard’s old place to do the job. “Gotta do the work” was Kevin’s motto.

I was boarding at Sacred Heart College now, and sometimes on weekends my brother would drag me out for a run around Mt. Albert and it felt like a lung-burning sprint the whole way. He’d become pretty tough just from running at school.

On long weekends and school holidays, we’d often go hiking around the West Coast of Auckland. We’d camp out and cover large distances, carrying all our gear. Eventually our vista would grow to include the Coromandel Peninsula, Mt. Ruapehu, the Bay of Islands, and Waiheke Island. Mum was probably glad to get us out of the house.

The next year, 1975, my brother came back to Sacred Heart, and we were both boarders. We decided to win the School Athletic Championships at every distance above 400m. Colin coached me because he had run for over a year. We ran a five mile hilly course around the school each night after school for several weeks, and sometimes we would surge lamp-post to lamp-post. At first it was very hard, but gradually I caught on.

The school 800m came and we tore off like bats out of hell. Only one other guy could hang on as we died on our stakes, and he snuck past on the line. Colin out-kicked me with his thumping speed. ‘Stretch’ Arbuckle, the guy who beat us, won the Auckland Inter-Schools 400m title a few weeks later. Heavens knows what we all ran our first lap in.

Colin had a “rock and roll” head on a super-athlete’s body and could often thrash me in training, even when I was winning championship races at senior level. In later years, he much preferred running with his dogs to racing, but he still represented Auckland as a junior and senior athlete and ran around 50 minutes for 10 miles. He said he got far more fun out of chasing his dogs for hours in wild steep country than wasting a Saturday waiting for a race.

“We” won the 1500 and the 3,000 in new school records; Colin would ride close shotgun, seeing off any pretenders. In the school cross country we took off and there were several minutes of daylight before the third finisher. We’d run a couple of times a week and play soccer in the school team; sometimes we’d front up at Wesley Harriers and run the pack runs. This was Barry Magee’s winter club.

The next year Colin went off to art school in Dunedin, hundreds of miles away in the South Island. I stayed on for 7th form. During the summer before he went away we decided that we should train properly, and that, according to the Peter Snell book in the school library, meant 100 miles a week was required. Fine.

We both had summer jobs at the Chief Post Office in Auckland, sorting the Christmas mail. We rigged up a system where we’d run to and from work, carrying daywear, and shower at the post office. I still have my diary from then; being 17 years old, in my new Adidas Malmo basketball shoes with gum-rubber soles, I clocked up my first 100 mile week after several 80s and 90s, and then kept going.

It was mostly twice a day at first, but very quickly I came on with the long runs, often by myself. We’d worked out where the Waiatarua course went by reading the Snell and Halberg books and talking to guys. Our friend Gavin once asked a kid at school who lived next door to Snell if he could ask Snell to draw a map of Waiatarua. Snell obliged, with a scrawled note saying “Good luck!”

One day in January 1976 I showed up at the Lovelock Track for Owairaka’s Wednesday night club race, and asked to join so that I could run in the Auckland Championships. One guy asked me if I had done any training and scoffed when I answered truthfully. I duly won the Auckland Under-18 3,000m title in 8:54, by 11 seconds, in bare feet and a borrowed singlet. It was an Auckland record. A big tall guy in an Owairaka uniform kept yelling at me not to turn around so much as I lost several feet each time. It was Kevin Ryan.

Shortly before the Olympics that year, poor Kevin sliced through his thigh with a skill saw, ruining his final preparation for the Games. He subsequently ran 2:11 for the marathon on several occasions and was a top-five finisher in Boston.

Later Kevin moved to Boston and trained with the great Bill Rodgers, as well as coaching Pete Pfitzinger, who would go on to become a two-time U.S. Olympian in the marathon, surprisingly defeating world number one Alberto Salazar in the process. Pete is now an exercise physiologist, coach, and highly published writer, living in Auckland.

So that year was my first year as a distance runner, and by the end of it I’d acquired Barry Magee as a coach and won several more titles in track or cross-country.

I was finally introduced one weekend to the great Arthur Lydiard, who now and again would run workshops for coaches and athletes under his employment with the concrete manufacturer Winstone’s.

Lydiard gave a talk at our club running weekend in the Motu Moana Scout Camp on May 16, 1976. We were a varied bunch of ages and abilities. No current superstars were present. Barry Magee briefly introduced us, and Arthur, who was about 59 at the time, peeled off his tracksuit after his talk and said he’d join us for our run. All I wrote in my diary was “Arthur Lydiard came and ran Waiatarua with us.”

Arthur did the Waiatarua circuit that day under three hours with no trouble. He was a very fit, nuggety little guy, but he seemed chatty and friendly enough. The bunch thinned considerably over the business end up the big climbs, but Lydiard was fine in the thick of things. I was probably in awe so I didn’t speak to him much, but I did listen in as he dispensed advice to the group. He spoke quickly, in staccato bursts.

When we had finished, Barry told Arthur that I was his new pupil, and Arthur nodded approvingly, telling me that stamina was king and to do everything Barry told me. It took five years to become a champion and 10 years to become a world champion. He’d probably seen kids like me a hundred times before, and he reminded me of the gruff movie star Brian Keith. Then after a cup of tea and some biscuits he was off!

Over the next five years I got to regularly run over 100 miles a week on the Lydiard program, and lived in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington in my job with Radio New Zealand. I got to represent each province in national championships and won senior races and titles over road, track, and cross country in Wellington, as well as some good races in Australia. I got to know or meet lots of good and great runners, but frustratingly, never fulfilled what I thought was possible.

Athletics was my life, and all I wanted to do was one day run in an Olympic 10,000m or a World Cross Country championship. With the Lydiard culture and program it seemed like a logical conclusion at the time.

“My athletes didn’t have to deal with pain! We enjoyed ourselves!”

Arthur Lydiard

It wasn’t to be. A bad (non-running!) injury in 1979 led me to ask Lorraine Moller for advice. She said “try a chiropractor.” I did, and now I am one! I left New Zealand in 1982 to study in Melbourne but continued my running as much as I could.

I rang Lorraine in Colorado after Lydiard died. She helped arrange his last tour. She told me that in Boulder and in Texas he’d spoken to packed rooms with standing ovations. It doesn’t get better than that at 86.

On what was to be his last talk, an American coach repeatedly asked Arthur how his athletes dealt with the pain of training. Arthur didn’t seem to understand the question, whichever way it was put.

In the end he responded with an indignant reply: “My athletes didn’t have to deal with pain! We enjoyed ourselves!”

October 2007. The author with Barry Magee, Lorraine Moller, and Allison Roe. Two Olympic marathon medalists, and one former world marathon record-holder.

How to Use This Book

This book is written for serious, competitive athletes who wish to reach their potential over middle distance races and longer. The sole purpose of this book is to furnish a good understanding of the major energy systems of the body and apply this understanding to your athletics. If we succeed in that, the mission will be accomplished.

We have avoided deeply exploring such topics as biomechanics and injury prevention for good reasons. Some books on athletics training try to be “all things to all people,” and we feel they suffer as a result. So this book is simple.

The whole book rests on a good understanding of the “Training Pyramid” and the energy systems and muscle fiber physiology as explained in Part Two.

Each level of the training pyramid depends upon successive blocks of work having been performed thoroughly, and if this work can’t be done because of other priorities and demands, then the program fails.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are many systems of conditioning for middle distance and distance running, and many athletes and coaches have been successful with approaches that appear to vary greatly.

So use this book as a guide, and see where you can use the principles. Every individual situation for athlete and coach is different.

Make Training Specific

So if the major thrust of this book is in developing the aerobic foundation to its highest possible level in the time available before serious competition starts, the secondary thrust is working out which of the anaerobic energy systems you’re training, as specifically as possible for your current ability. It is totally possible to run anaerobically at a level way beyond your level of development, with disastrous results. If you understand these concepts alone and apply them, then reading the book will be worthwhile.

At each level of the training pyramid, there will be specific types of workouts described that are designed to achieve the major goal of each phase leading to peak performance. The examples given are just that; examples, and especially when developing race-specific speeds and working the anaerobic energy systems at the business end of a season, there are endless variables possible.

It is important to realize that the important thing is the aerobic base, and without it, the anaerobic training falls over, and results become unpredictable.

Lydiard would add to this that the balance of the program was extremely important. With hawk-like vigilance, he could balance a program so that the different energy systems required for maximal performance were all fully trained, rested and “ready” on the big race day.

“I’m not a great believer in sports psychology. At the highest level, the training programme is everything. It has to be the right training, and it has to be the right timing.”

Olympic Gold Medal
Triathlon coach Chris Pilone

As a general principle with younger athletes especially, once this work is continued into the race-specific preparation phase, only one or two “intense” sessions a week are generally required. A great deal of the remaining training time can be geared to totally non-specific work, namely slow recovery jogging that enables any acidosis in the working muscle to be flushed back into the general circulation, allowing the whole system to be “taken back to neutral.”

The Great Secret

This is the great “secret” of aerobic training that has been largely ignored by current middle distance coaches. Whatever you do that is very intense has to be balanced out with a reasonable volume of easy work. The harder you go, the more the volume of easier work required, and the easier the better. Total rest won’t do it. Easy aerobic activity will. That’s the secret. We’ll leave the physiologists and PhD theorists to tell us why, but if more athletes and coaches did just this there’d be far more certainty in racing.

As I write this, while coaching two good male athletes through a track season, we noticed several competitive athletes drop away, over only a fortnight, from personal-best 800m times of close to 1:50 for 800m, to times 4 to 6 seconds slower in good races.

What happened there? Here’s my guess. Our young athlete, full of testosterone and great natural ability, has popped a PB off a haphazard blend of hard and fast repetitions and aerobic runs. The athlete and coach, euphoric at getting so close to a very respectable “sub 1:50,” decide to “really do some hard training” to nail the one minute, forty something that’s around the corner. And nail the training, they do.

It only takes ONE poorly thought out, too-hard session, to drive six inch nails into one’s own coffin. As Australian exercise physiologist and super-coach Dick Telford has stated, a “cloud of fatigue” ensues. Any confidence gained goes out the window, to be replaced by anxiety. Not good. If only the athlete had jogged slowly around the park for most of his runs, and done a little specific pace work in between races to maintain development; then we’d see another PB!

But that’s too simple, isn’t it?

The Tortoise and the Hare

Every year in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA, super-talented and motivated junior athletes pop up who really do have “the goods” to become world champions. Two or three years later their immense potential has not been realized and frustrations set in as no improvement in times has been made, or times oscillate between unpredictable seasonal highs and lows. The reason? Their early racing came off what naturally developed aerobic capacity was already there, but no significant aerobic training has been done since.

Unfortunately, an attitude has snuck into modern athletics that endurance running will “slow” athletes down and that it’s not “specific” to the speeds of competition. Such criticisms are absolutely justified … in the short term. But if you read this book, you’ll see that they have no basis in the real world of international success. Look at any African or European world champion in middle distance and distance events, scratch behind the glossy magazine articles, and you’ll find a significant component of endurance-based work in the preparatory season, without exception.

In his autobiography, Haile Gebrselassie mentions competing in a marathon at age 15, finishing with blisters in 2 hours 48 or so on the rough high roads of Addis Ababa. We can’t complain about his speed or range, as he ran 3:32 for 1500m indoors a few years ago and was the fastest finisher in the business over his hallmark distances.

In the “Lydiard era,” professional athletics and year-round competition were decades over the horizon. Winter seasons could be used for preparing the aerobic systems because the race distances were all “aerobic,” while the summer could be used for sharpening the “anaerobic” systems. Important provincial or national titles were at a fixed time of year that never really varied, and the only important international competitions were the four-yearly Olympic or Commonwealth Games.

All that having been said, once you’ve read this book, you can take your knowledge and apply it sensibly, and if you have to manage athletes through a maze of varying competitions through the year, at least you’ll be able to ensure some level of progression and consistency.

As mentioned earlier, the obvious answer for athlete and coach is to choose the big aims for any competitive season, and tailor a program backwards from the major races, treating any competitions along the way as purely “training information.” This requires a great deal of confidence and control because as Arthur Lydiard would often say, “when everyone else is running first, you’ll be running last, but you’ll be running first when it’s important.”

Here’s an instance where Arthur was “wrong”: a well-prepared athlete will be running solidly, not last, early in the season, but when it’s important, he or she will be running very well. However, you get the point.

Melbourne athlete, teacher and coach John Meagher has successfully guided his team of schoolboys year after year to Victorian and national titles over track and cross-country. Some have now become successful senior competitors with a continuing love for the sport. His squad, the “H.I.T. Squad,” features in segments of this book, and in one chapter we show how the young squad puts the principles together.

John, in his 40s, has personally used these principles to win three World Masters Games running titles and a national age group triathlon event in record time. He’s won medals in world age-group duathlon, and an outright second-place in the Melbourne Marathon at 41.

Years ago, John trained with great athletes such as Nourredine Morceli in the American College system, as well as spending weeks in Kenya’s Rift Valley with the boys of St. Patrick’s College, Iten, where he helped build a dormitory. He has “seen it all.” Together, we have refined our interpretation of the Lydiard principles so that we can fine-tune them to the individual athlete.

John has personally trained schoolboys to times as good as 1:52 for 800 meters and 3:50 for 1500 meters, on year-round aerobic principles. One of his squad, now on an American track scholarship, ran 49.6 for 400m and 78s for 600m in training, as well as 1:51.9 for 800m. This same athlete, at 18, has so far kept up a regular hilly 90-minute run on weekends, and with another couple of years of aerobic development should run a very decent 800m. Another member of John’s squad, Daniel, now 22, won the Victorian state men’s 1500m title in 2007.

While exceptional youngsters can emerge who run faster than these athletes, at least we can say that there is still room for a great deal of improvement as these young athletes mature into their simple programs. Their anaerobic energy systems haven’t been burnt to bits, and the aerobic work has been fun and varied.

These young athletes, if they have the desire and commitment to compete at senior level, at least have an ingrained way of doing things that will ensure they approach their potential over the coming years.

Efficient or Effective?

efficient’’’

Healthy

Intelligent

Training

The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Barry Magee

Foreword by Lorraine Moller

About the Author

Introduction

Prelude

Growing Up with Lydiard

How to Use This Book

Make Training Specific

The Great Secret

The Tortoise and the Hare

Efficient or Effective?