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Healthy Intelligent Training

HealthyIntelligentTraining

The Proven Principles ofArthur Lydiard

Dr. Keith Livingstone

Meyer & Meyer Sport

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Keith Livingstone – Healthy IntelligentTraining

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

ISBN: 978-1-84126-900-9

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Contents

AcknowledgementsForeword Barry MageeForeword Lorraine MollerAbout the AuthorIntroduction – Keith Livingstone

Prelude“Growing Up with Lydiard”How to Use This BookMaking Training SpecificThe Great SecretThe Tortoise and the HareEfficient or Effective?

Marathon Edurance for MiddleDistance Speed“Keep Things as Simple as Possible…but Not Simpler.”

Part 1The Training Pyramid

Physiology of the Lydiard TrainingPyramid

Running Physiology TermsEnzymes, Acids And ChemistryMusclesCharacteristics of the Three MainMuscle Fiber TypesHeart Rate and Training Zones“Simplified”How the Cardiovascular System

ChangesTraining by Heart Rate

Establishing Maximal Heart RateEstablishing VO2 Max Heart RateEstablishing Anaerobic ThresholdHeart RateEstablishing Your Resting HeartRateEstablishing Your Heart RateReserveEstablishing Your TrainingIntensitiesHeart Rate Monitor TricksNic Bideau on Heart RateCardiac Drift

Training TermsSteady Stuff

Aerobic Runs

Sub-Threshold RunsThreshold RunsHow Lactic Acid Builds UpExponentially Above ThresholdSpeedRelating Running Speeds toThreshold Running SpeedRelating Running Speeds to VO2Max Running Speed

Fast StuffVO2 Max IntervalsGlycolytic (Lactic) RepetitionsLeg-Speed Drills

Types of Anaerobic Exercises1. Alactic Exercise2. Glycolytic (or Lactic Exercise)3. VO2 Max ExerciseMore on VO2 Max

Part 2“Complex” Training SystemsStart with the End in Mind

Part 3The Lydiard System ExplainedFirst Things First – Your TrainingDiaryThe Lydiard Endurance Base in Detail

There’s a Time and Place forEverythingFlexibility and IndividualityTrain, Don’t StrainAbsorb Your TrainingRome Wasn’t Built in a DayEffort Runs“Learn About Your Body”

Maintain Speed and TechniqueConsistency with VarietyThe Long Run: How it IncreasesAnaerobic Potential!Base Running: Do’s and Don’t’s

Part 4Recovery, Nutrition And BodyTherapies

Recovery from Long RunsOiling the MachineFemale Athlete TriadMaintaining the Chassis &ElectricalsPodiatryMassage TherapiesChiropractic

Part 5Hill Resistance TrainingOverview

Hill Training: Do’s and Don’t’sHill Training—The Lydiard WayThe Three Lydiard Hill Exercises

1. Steep Hill Running2. Hill Bounding3. Hill Springing

Downhill StridingWind SprintsA Word of Caution HereMore Words of CautionAlternatives

Part 6

The “Anaerobic” TrainingPhase Overview

Milk and VinegarHow Gentle Aerobic Running“Restores”Developing the Ability to TolerateOxygen DebtWhat Exactly Is “Fast?”Why Anaerobic Training Isn’t SpeedTraining!A Real Case History Of “SpeedTechnique” SuccessThe Fundamental DifferenceBetween Middle Distance andDistance RunningHow Peter Snell Trained for 1.44.3on Grass in 1962What Was the Physiology Again?

First Anaerobic PhaseMultiple Long Intervals, ShortRecovery, and VO2 Max Time TrialsDaniels’ Running Formula TablesHow to Estimate V Dot TrainingPacesCreating An Aerobic ProfileWhy Is VO2 Max Pace Anaerobic?What Should It Feel Like, Then?How Coach Bideau ApproachesInterval WorkWhy Lydiard Would Never UseShort, Hard, Fast Intervals at thisStage

The Second Anaerobic PhaseGlycolytic ExerciseShort Fast Repetitions with AmpleRecovery

How Lydiard Would BalanceTraining HerePeaking

Part 7How Different Athletes UseLydiard Principles

How Our “H.I.T. Squad” TrainsDuring Track SeasonHow Other Healthy Youth SquadsTrainBarry Magee – Auckland, NewZealandNeil MacDonald – Geelong,VictoriaHow Rod Dixon Started in Athletics

Part 8Exercise Physiology 101,Again!

Alactic ExerciseRunning on Empty

Part 9Strength Training for Athletics

Strength Training Terms

Part 10The Times – They Are AChangin’ (by OlympianRobbie Johnston)

Comparing the Principles Used by

John Walker & Hicham El Guerrouj

Part 11For the Nerds

A Review of Recent Research

Part 12Winter Running & Cross-Country TrainingTraining For Cross Country (withRoger Robinson)

A Study in SausagesFirst PrinciplesWhy Run Fast?The Structure of the SausageStudying the Menu

Nutritional Benefits of SausagesThe Story of SausagesSausage Groups: LegalizedCornercuttingSausage CountryThe Sausage SeasonSausages for BeginnersScientific SausagesWinter Sausages in SummaryTen Rules for Racing

Part 13Chris’ Corner with OlympicCoach Chris Pilone

Drive for Gold – with Olympic

Part 14

War Stories & Real CaseHistories

How Craig Mottram Came Backfrom the DeadKynanStephenTonyChris

Part 15NZ Coach Chris Pilone onEasy Days and Overtraining

Part 16More on Overtraining

Malcolm: His Intense Training Story

Keith’s Story: How I Thrived onAerobic RunningYou Can Do Too Much of a GoodThingKeith’s Classic MistakesMore Crazy Training Stories“I Feel Like I Could Have Done itAgain!”Nic Bideau’s Comments

Part 17Getting Your “Headspace”Right

Setting Achievable GoalsBHAGOs: Big Hairy Goals AndObjectivesSmart Goals

Specific GoalsMeasurable GoalsAchievable GoalsRealistic GoalsTime FramesNo Expectations – No Limitations

Part 18Developing Your WinningStrategies

Know When to RunGeorgie’s Smart RaceNever Look Back!!RespectPlay Your Best CardSnatching Defeat from the Jaws ofVictory

One Story for the Road

Part 19Training for Longer Distances5000m & 10000m Training

What Not to Do!Big HintsHow to Put it Together

Final Preparation Weeks for theMarathon

How to Safely Reach Your TargetVolumeTaperingWhat’s Going on in There?

FinallyFrom Barry Magee

BibliographyIndexOnline Resources

Acknowledgements

This book started as a Powerpointpresentation and 20-page summary sheetfor local coaches in Victoria, in late2005. As athletes and coaches askedmore and more questions it becameevident that more was needed, and so thebook idea was born.

There are many people to thank, and Ihope I miss no one. Firstly, my thanks goto my beautiful wife Joanne and herpatient parents Graeme and JunettePhillips for all their support. This bookcould not have been done without them.My mother Valerie McCabe has

encouraged me all along and taken greatinterest in the book’s progress. Dr. JohnHinwood and Dennis Jones have been agreat support during a challenging yearwhile the book came to fruition. Gavinand Allison Richards at MBE Bendigohelped us print the initial drafts forproofreading.

My brother Colin, who has been a towerof strength during the last year,contributed the superb cartoons for thisbook. Colin was an accomplished runnerwho has coached local athlete TimDavies from 17th in Wales to 5th in theworld mountain running championships,as well as to 3 victories in the annualrace on Mt. Snowdon. Colin’s gifted

wife Diana Mills took some of thephotos in the book. Next, I’d like tothank Barry Magee, Lorraine Moller,Nobby Hashizume, Vern Walker andRod and John Dixon for their input, aswell as Arch Jelley, Chris Pilone, NicBideau, Robbie Johnston, and the flyingprofessor, Roger Robinson.

Vern Walker corrected my historical andtypographical mistakes with an eagle eyeand teaming up with Barry Magee,provided an enormous amount ofinformation about training directly underArthur Lydiard. I grilled Barry and Vernabout every possible detail I could thinkof, and they responded admirably.

Gary Moller and Gavin Harris provideddetailed information for the early drafts,and long-time Auckland middle-distancecoach Don MacFarquhar, who alsotrained under Lydiard, gave me some in-depth background about Peter Snell’straining.

In Australia, I was greatly encouragedby Australia’s “Mr Running,” TrevorVincent, known to everyone as “TV.”Pat Clohessy, who ran with the Lydiardsquad in Europe in 1961, gave meinsight into how he so successfullyapplied the Lydiard principles with hisrunners over many years. His phrase“freedom running” should becomeenshrined in running literature.

Thanks to my great friend and coachingcolleague, John Meagher, and all theboys in the “H.I.T. SQUAD” who allowus to coach them. We hope you have alot of fun and friendship as you achieveyour potential.

Thanks also go to Dr. Ron Brinkert,exercise physiologist and coach, whointroduced John and me to the benefits ofVO2 max training over 20 years ago.

Thanks to Geelong coach NeilMacDonald for your wonderful photosand detailed information, and thanks toMelbourne coach Kevin Prendergast forallowing me to use some of yourmaterial.

From the USA, I was greatly encouragedby the upbeat Dr. David E. Martin,exercise physiologist, who insisted Isubmit this manuscript to Meyer andMeyer and “go for gold.” Coach GregMcMillan was also very encouragingand gave me useful input for the flow ofthe book. Dr. Jack Daniels generouslyallowed me to draw on his conceptsearly on, and Pete Pfitzinger was veryencouraging. These last two runningauthors, along with Dr. Tim Noakes, Iregard as among the best in the business.Thanks to Meyer and Meyer for takingthis book on, too!

Finally, I’d like to thank Garth Gilmour,Arthur Lydiard’s long-time friend and

confidant, who authored many of theearly classics that inspired me andthousands of others to get out and run.Without all Garth’s early work withArthur, there’d be nothing published todraw on.

Keith Livingstone

Foreword by Barry Magee

As one of Arthur Lydiard’s originalboys, it is indeed a privilege and anhonor to be associated with KeithLivingstone’s H.I.T book. The MasterCoach’s world-changing principles oftraining are still applied with great

success in the modern era by the greatestathletes in the world. Now this bookexplains why these principles havealways worked so well, as we are takenthrough the science of each phase in avery easy-to-understand manner.

I had 12 years of direct coaching underThe Master, and trained and raced withfellow Lydiard Olympians Halberg,Snell, Baillie, Puckett, and Julian, toname just a few. We were eachtransformed by Arthur’s revolutionarynew training methods into world-classathletes. It was indeed a thrilling andexciting time to run.

Murray Halberg and I were the first two

athletes to do the full track schedule thatArthur had spent years developing andwhich proved so successful for the next30 years. Male and female Kiwi runnersshocked the world time after time withamazing performances from the middledistances to the marathon. The athleticsworld could not understand how somany world champion athletes couldcome from a country with less than 3million people. Eventually the principleswere used all over the world.

In the mid 1960s I myself begancoaching the Lydiard way withimmediate success. In the years thatfollowed, I coached a young man namedKeith Livingstone and perhaps from that

association has come this book. Beforehe died, Arthur Lydiard had left me withhis personal approval as the one manwho fully embraced and understood hiscoaching principles. Over recent years Ihave often been asked when I was goingto write a book to explain more aboutLydiard’s training methods that couldeither enlarge or simplify the system bypresenting it in a new way to themodern-day coaches and athletes of theworld.

Well, lo and behold, Keith Livingstonehas done a superb job and in my mind, amuch better one than I could have done,with extra information to help coachesand athletes to fill in some of the cracks

and to give us more understanding ofhow and why this brilliant systemworks. H.I.T. does exactly that! Coachesaround the world would have to be veryfoolish if they do not read and use thisbook to the maximum.

In my opinion, Lydiard holds all theKeys to running success. H.I.T. sharesmany of the KEYS that have been lost,forgotten or misunderstood. I totallyrecommend Dr Keith Livingstone’s bookto anyone who is looking for thecomplete training system to complementwhat Lydiard has left us.

Barry Magee1960 Olympic Marathon Bronze

Medalist1961 World Cup 10,000m champion

Foreword by LorraineMoller

Like Keith Livingstone, I grew up onLydiard. For young Kiwi runners, it wasunquestionably The Way. One who hadthe good fortune to be the recipient of

Lydiard’s influence remained a convertfor life, not from some faddish followingor blind devotion but because his systemmade complete and utter sense andshowed consistent results. CountlessLydiard-trained runners like me enjoyeda range of abilities from middle-distancetrack to marathon, significant athleticlongevity, and the attainment of personaldreams.

Lydiard himself never expected athletesto accept his way without question; heoften said that if your coach cannotexplain to you the reason for doing aworkout then you need a new coach.That is because “Lydiardism” is asystem based on sound principles, and

each element of the training is a logicaland necessary step up the pyramid toexcellence: stamina, strength, lactic acidtolerance and racing speed are allbuilding blocks one upon the other, andunderstanding their inter-relationship isessential to sound coaching. Each phaseof training is based on correctsequencing and timing, and thesynergetic effect created is more than thesum of its parts: physiologically andmentally the athlete is fully prepared tobreak his or her limits on the day thatcounts.

Each cycle of training builds upon thenext so that one can reasonably expectpersonal best performances year after

In our fast-paced culture we have beenconditioned by many influences,especially media to look for quick fixesand the short-term pay-off. Lydiardismoffers neither of these. Like most thingsof value in life, this system is based onlong-term commitment and the pursuit ofthe highest in athletic achievement. Nomethod has withstood the test of timeand had more success attributed to it inthe athletic world.

H.I.T. captures the genius of Lydiard anddelivers it to athletes and coaches in acomprehensive and complete form.Keith Livingstone, a long-time

aficionado of Arthur Lydiard, hasproduced the definitive work on Lydiardtraining since Lydiard himself, andbrilliantly conveys the art and sciencethat has built champions of all abilitiesand events with clarity, humour andhistorical reverence. The LydiardFoundation has proudly adopted thisbook as its official text for all Lydiardcoaching courses.

Lorraine Moller1992 Olympic Marathon BronzeMedalistCo-founder of Lydiard Foundation

About the Author

Keith Livingstone is a former NewZealand athlete who has worked as achiropractor in Australia for 20 years.He has “coached quietly” for over 20years and can claim to have successfullycoached a current Olympic triathlon goldmedal coach and a World Masters

Games treble champion. With coachingcolleague John Meagher, he has helpedguide Australia’s strongest middledistance and cross-country high schoolsquad to a number of Australian titles.

Born in Kenya in 1958, with a twinbrother, Colin, the boys emigrated withtheir family to Owairaka, Auckland in1965, and grew up within a few hundredmeters of Arthur Lydiard’s home. Theylived in Owairaka Avenue, went toOwairaka Primary School, and ran forOwairaka Athletic & Harrier Club,founded by Lydiard. Both brothers laterrepresented Auckland in nationalcompetition.

Keith was coached for 5 years by thefamily grocer – Olympic marathonmedalist Barry Magee, one of Lydiard’svery first pupils, starting at 17. He wonan Auckland Under-18 3000m title inrecord time in bare feet in his firstchampionship, after a summer ofenthusiastic self-coached 100-mileweeks.

Keith worked as a copywriter for RadioNew Zealand for 5 years and thenmoved to Melbourne, Australia to studychiropractic for 6 years. For over tenyears, Keith consistently ran with thebest athletes in New Zealand andAustralia, in very strong eras whereeach country could boast Olympic or

world champions. He claimed a numberof decisive wins and titles in seniortrack, cross-country and roadcompetition.

As a chiropractic student at RMITUniversity, Keith had access to some ofthe best facilities in Australia in sportsscience, biomechanics, anatomy andphysiology. He ran with the powerhouseGlenhuntly Athletics Club in Melbourne,and was a key member of 12 Victorianstate championship teams over cross-country and road with Glenhuntly.

His best track times (which he wasnever happy with) include 3000m in8:06, 5000m in 14:04, and 10,000m in29:19. His road times include a 44:37for 15 km, and several 10km road timesnear 29 minutes.

Keith was named “Victorian

chiropractor of the year” in 1999 andwas on the board of the AustralianSpinal Research Foundation for 5 years.He has been married to Joanne for 17years, and they have 5 children.

Introduction

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

I grew up in a little suburb one could“toss a blanket over.” The Aucklandsuburb of Owairaka was the home of

Arthur Lydiard, New Zealand’s greatOlympic running coach. It was also thehome of a motley band of neighbourhoodkids who Lydiard shaped into afearsome squad that smashed worldrecords, won Olympic titles, andchanged the face of world athleticsforever. The basis of his conditioningsystem was a formidable weekly run of22 miles that started and finished inOwairaka. This circuit, the ‘Waiatarua,’climbed high onto the ridges of theWaitakere Ranges overlooking Aucklandfrom the west. Lydiard once said thatevery school and suburb had kids whocould be world champions, if trainedcorrectly. We all believed him.

For impressionable kids with a bit oftalent and desire, the possibility of aworld-class career in athletics was real.The neighborhood was dotted withworld luminaries on the athletics stage,all home-grown. Later, New Zealandhad a renaissance of world champions inmiddle-distance and distance athletics.So did Finland. The common link wasthe remarkable Arthur Lydiard and hisprinciples.

Sadly, the golden days of athleticdomination have long passed for NewZealand and Australia. Arthur Lydiard’sprinciples have been shelved by a wholegeneration of athletes and coaches whoseem to have forgotten the benefits of

intelligent endurance work followed bysystematic speed development.

The torch has been passed to third-world countries in Africa, whoseathletes follow systems that bear muchsimilarity to those of the original “FlyingKiwis.” There are signs of resurgencethough. One of the few male non-Africans to break the Africanstranglehold over middle or distancetrack races in the last 18 years at worldchampionship level has been AustralianCraig Mottram. World-class at everyevent from 1500m to 10,000m, he hasshown that anything is possible with hisblend of extensive year-round endurancetraining. Early in 2006 in New Zealand,

Mottram was shaded by the brilliantKiwi runner Nick Willis in a 3.52 mile.Afterwards, he and his coach NicBideau met privately with some of thegreat “Flying Kiwis” of the past,including Sir Murray Halberg and DickQuax. They asked to see some of histraining diaries.

“It looks just like the way we used totrain!” exclaimed Dick Quax.“If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” retortedBideau.

So that’s what this book is about.Applying the principles pioneered byLydiard over 50 years ago, in a moderncontext, with the hindsight of current

physiology.And, most importantly, you’ll have a lotof fun doing it!

Unfortunately we can’t give youLydiard’s uncommon insight and geniusas well… but why not develop yourown? Arthur would probably be verypleased if you did.

Keith Livingstone

Arthur (right) with Nike founder andOregon coach Bill Bowerman (left) andLydiard Foundation co-founder Nobby

Hashizume.

Demo version limitation, this page notshow up.

How to Use This Book

This book is written for serious,competitive athletes who wish toreach their potential over middledistance races and longer. The solepurpose of this book is to furnish agood understanding of the majorenergy systems of the body and applythis understanding to your athletics. Ifwe succeed in that, the mission will beaccomplished.

We have avoided deeply exploring suchtopics as biomechanics and injuryprevention for good reasons. Some

books on athletics training try to be “allthings to all people,” and we feel theysuffer as a result. So this book is simple.

The whole book rests on a goodunderstanding of the “TrainingPyramid” and the energy systems andmuscle fiber physiology as explained inPart Two.

Each level of the training pyramiddepends upon successive blocks of workhaving been performed thoroughly, andif this work can’t be done because ofother priorities and demands, then theprogram fails.

“As to methodsthere may be amillion and thensome, but principlesare few. The manwho graspsprinciples cansuccessfully selecthis own methods.The man who triesmethods, ignoringprinciples, is sure tohave trouble.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are many systems of conditioningfor middle distance and distancerunning, and many athletes and coacheshave been successful with approachesthat appear to vary greatly.

So use this book as a guide, and seewhere you can use the principles. Everyindividual situation for athlete and coachis different.

Make Training Specific

So if the major thrust of this book is indeveloping the aerobic foundation to itshighest possible level in the timeavailable before serious competitionstarts, the secondary thrust is workingout which of the anaerobic energysystems you’re training, as specificallyas possible for your current ability. It istotally possible to run anaerobically at alevel way beyond your level ofdevelopment, with disastrous results. Ifyou understand these concepts alone andapply them, then reading the book willbe worthwhile.

At each level of the training pyramid,there will be specific types of workoutsdescribed that are designed to achievethe major goal of each phase leading topeak performance. The examples givenare just that; examples, and especiallywhen developing race-specific speedsand working the anaerobic energysystems at the business end of a season,there are endless variables possible.

It is important to realize that theimportant thing is the aerobic base,and without it, the anaerobic trainingfalls over, and results becomeunpredictable.

Lydiard would add to this that the

balance of the program was extremelyimportant. With hawk-like vigilance, hecould balance a program so that thedifferent energy systems required formaximal performance were all fullytrained, rested and “ready” on the bigrace day.

“I’m not a greatbeliever in sportspsychology. At thehighest level, thetraining programmeis everything. It hasto be the right

training, and it hasto be the righttiming.”Olympic Gold MedalTriathlon coach Chris Pilone

As a general principle with youngerathletes especially, once this work iscontinued into the race-specificpreparation phase, only one or two“intense” sessions a week are generallyrequired. A great deal of the remainingtraining time can be geared to totallynon-specific work, namely slowrecovery jogging that enables anyacidosis in the working muscle to be

flushed back into the general circulation,allowing the whole system to be “takenback to neutral.”

The Great Secret

This is the great “secret” of aerobictraining that has been largely ignored bycurrent middle distance coaches.Whatever you do that is very intense hasto be balanced out with a reasonablevolume of easy work. The harder you go,the more the volume of easier workrequired, and the easier the better. Totalrest won’t do it. Easy aerobic activitywill. That’s the secret. We’ll leave thephysiologists and PhD theorists to tell uswhy, but if more athletes and coachesdid just this there’d be far more certaintyin racing.

As I write this, while coaching two goodmale athletes through a track season, wenoticed several competitive athletesdrop away, over only a fortnight, frompersonal-best 800m times of close to1:50 for 800m, to times 4 to 6 secondsslower in good races.

What happened there? Here’s my guess.Our young athlete, full of testosteroneand great natural ability, has popped aPB off a haphazard blend of hard andfast repetitions and aerobic runs. Theathlete and coach, euphoric at getting soclose to a very respectable “sub 1:50,”decide to “really do some hard training”to nail the one minute, forty somethingthat’s around the corner. And nail the

training, they do.

It only takes ONE poorly thought out,too-hard session, to drive six inch nailsinto one’s own coffin. As Australianexercise physiologist and super-coachDick Telford has stated, a “cloud offatigue” ensues. Any confidence gainedgoes out the window, to be replaced byanxiety. Not good. If only the athlete hadjogged slowly around the park for mostof his runs, and done a little specificpace work in between races to maintaindevelopment; 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 andmotivated junior athletes pop up whoreally do have “the goods” to becomeworld champions. Two or three yearslater their immense potential has notbeen realized and frustrations set in asno improvement in times has been made,or times oscillate between unpredictableseasonal highs and lows. The reason?Their early racing came off whatnaturally developed aerobic capacitywas already there, but no significantaerobic training has been done since.

Unfortunately, an attitude has snuck intomodern athletics that endurance runningwill “slow” athletes down and that it’snot “specific” to the speeds ofcompetition. Such criticisms areabsolutely justified … in the short term.But if you read this book, you’ll see thatthey have no basis in the real world ofinternational success. Look at anyAfrican or European world champion inmiddle distance and distance events,scratch behind the glossy magazinearticles, and you’ll find a significantcomponent of endurance-based work inthe preparatory season, withoutexception.

In his autobiography, Haile Gebrselassie

mentions competing in a marathon at age15, finishing with blisters in 2 hours 48or so on the rough high roads of AddisAbaba. We can’t complain about hisspeed or range, as he ran 3:32 for1500m indoors a few years ago and wasthe fastest finisher in the business overhis hallmark distances.

In the “Lydiard era,” professionalathletics and year-round competitionwere decades over the horizon. Winterseasons could be used for preparing theaerobic systems because the racedistances were all “aerobic,” while thesummer could be used for sharpening the“anaerobic” systems. Importantprovincial or national titles were at a

fixed time of year that never reallyvaried, and the only importantinternational competitions were the four-yearly Olympic or CommonwealthGames.

All that having been said, once you’veread this book, you can take yourknowledge and apply it sensibly, and ifyou have to manage athletes through amaze of varying competitions through theyear, at least you’ll be able to ensuresome level of progression andconsistency.

As mentioned earlier, the obviousanswer for athlete and coach is tochoose the big aims for any competitive

season, and tailor a program backwardsfrom the major races, treating anycompetitions along the way as purely“training information.” This requires agreat deal of confidence and controlbecause as Arthur Lydiard would oftensay, “when everyone else is runningfirst, you’ll be running last, but you’ll berunning first when it’s important.”

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

Melbourne athlete, teacher and coachJohn Meagher has successfully guidedhis team of schoolboys year after year toVictorian and national titles over trackand cross-country. Some have nowbecome successful senior competitorswith a continuing love for the sport. Hissquad, the “H.I.T. Squad,” features insegments of this book, and in one chapterwe show how the young squad puts theprinciples together.

John, in his 40s, has personally usedthese principles to win three WorldMasters Games running titles and anational age group triathlon event inrecord time. He’s won medals in worldage-group duathlon, and an outright

second-place in the MelbourneMarathon at 41.

Years ago, John trained with greatathletes such as Nourredine Morceli inthe American College system, as well asspending weeks in Kenya’s Rift Valleywith the boys of St. Patrick’s College,Iten, where he helped build a dormitory.He has “seen it all.” Together, we haverefined our interpretation of the Lydiardprinciples so that we can fine-tune themto the individual athlete.

John has personally trained schoolboysto times as good as 1:52 for 800 metersand 3:50 for 1500 meters, on year-roundaerobic principles. One of his squad,

now on an American track scholarship,ran 49.6 for 400m and 78s for 600m intraining, as well as 1:51.9 for 800m.This same athlete, at 18, has so far keptup a regular hilly 90-minute run onweekends, and with another couple ofyears of aerobic development should runa very decent 800m. Another member ofJohn’s squad, Daniel, now 22, won theVictorian state men’s 1500m title in2007.

While exceptional youngsters canemerge who run faster than theseathletes, at least we can say that there isstill room for a great deal ofimprovement as these young athletesmature into their simple programs. Their

anaerobic energy systems haven’t beenburnt to bits, and the aerobic work hasbeen fun and varied.

These young athletes, if they have thedesire and commitment to compete atsenior level, at least have an ingrainedway of doing things that will ensure theyapproach their potential over the comingyears.

Efficient or Effective?

In terms of short-term results, there aremany ways of approaching a season thatare more efficient than Lydiard’s.There’s no question about thatwhatsoever. If you’re healthy andreasonably fit, then the types of trainingadvocated by popular running magazineswill ensure rapid progression in theshort term because they sharpenwhatever innate aerobic development isalready there and maximise currentanaerobic potential.

In terms of an athletic lifetime, andachieving one’s fullest potential,

Lydiard-based systems are the mosteffective.

What’s the difference?

Which parachute would you prefer tojump with? The parachute packed by theperson who prepared 100 parachutes inan hour, or the parachute from theslower, more methodical person whocould absolutely guarantee that everyone of his parachutes would open?

You are effective when the value ofwhat you get done is significantlyhigher than the cost of getting it done.

An example of efficient training is a

weekly blend that incorporates longsteady running, anaerobic thresholdrunning, short bursts of VO2 maxtraining, several runs at very slowaerobic recovery levels, and perhaps ashort sharp session of leg-speed drills.That sort of training can ensure anathlete races up to his or her currentcapabilities throughout the year. But itdoesn’t increase the total capabilitybecause the faster work tends to “sanddown” or counteract the aerobic work.This is all explored in different waysthroughout the book. At some stage, thetotal aerobic capacity has to beincreased methodically.

Effective training is thorough, and

leaves no stone unturned, and is donewith the attitude that doing a jobcorrectly is an end in itself. For theathlete who wants to see just how far heor she can go, there’s a trade-off to bemade. Regular short-term results orlong-term glory? Neither is “right”;sometimes a talented athlete pursuing alife-time vocation has to choose a paththat goes right down the middle, andgood luck to him or her.

Marathon Endurance forMiddle Distance Speed

Lorraine Moller is a four-time Olympianin the marathon and was a medalist at 37years of age. She followed Lydiard’ssystem throughout her career, and shewas world-class at every distance from800m to the marathon.

Lorraine said that one of her biggestfrustrations in dealing with groups ofcoaches and athletes these days wastheir inability to grasp the simplicity ofendurance training for middle distancespeed. “Their eyes glaze over and they

look at the floor. They’ll grumble andsay “Lydiard training! That’s alloutdated!”

Lorraine’s fellow Kiwi, Dick Quax,himself an Olympic 5000m medalist andworld record-holder, apparentlyreceived the same response when hetalked to coaches and athletes.

According to Barry Magee, one ofLydiard’s original Olympic medalists,Lydiard himself had this to say aboutwhy modern coaches and athletes can’tcomprehend his proven system: “It’s toodamned simple!”

As far as the Lydiard system being

“outdated,” here is something for today’scoaches and athletes to ponder. The timeof 1.44.3 for 800m was run on a grasstrack by 22-year Peter Snell in February1962. It’s still the fastest 800m ever runby a New Zealander or Australian. Whatcould he have done on today’s fasttracks, with today’s pace-making andprofessionalism?

(We’ll forget his 100% success rate of 5gold medals out of 5 attempts inOlympic or Commonwealth competitionfor now.)

Modern coaches can also note well thatthe performances of Snell and hiscompatriots came from men who

generally worked full-time and ran theirlong runs in glorified tennis shoes. Nosports medicine, podiatry, exercisephysiology labs, heart rate monitors,corporate sponsorships, sportspsychology, government grants, designerdrugs, performance nutrition or anythingas we know them today. Zilch. Zippo.Nothing.

These amateur enthusiasts were coachedby a milkman! A very clever, well-readand pragmatic milkman, mind you, but aman who also had to support his familywhile coaching world champions.Without assistance.

It’s probably safe to assume that

Lydiard’s theories can still apply today.

Snell, now with a PhD in exercisephysiology, in recent years said that withhis current knowledge base he wouldhave changed very little of hispreparation apart from dropping someperiods of jogging at speeds that were“too slow.”

“Keep Things as Simple asPossible… but Not Simpler”

Although the basic premise of theLydiard principle is of great simplicity,there are key distinctions in itsapplication. This is what Lydiard had to

say about his system shortly before hedied, and it’s a great overview of thetrue nature of his philosophy.

Referring to his original method,Lydiard said it this way:

“My original training schedule requiredsix months to complete. It started with atwo-month long aerobic build-up,followed by a month of hill resistance.Then you’d move on to a three-monthperiod of track training.”

That’s pretty simple isn’t it? On thesurface, it looks very similar to theschedule followed by New Zealand’slatest middle distance superstar, trackcyclist Sarah Ulmer, gold medalist in theWomen’s 3000m Pursuit at the 2004Athens Olympics.

Ulmer not only lowered the worldrecord by several seconds in the heatsand semi-finals at Athens; in the final,she pulverized it yet again.

How did she do it? Many coaches haveanalyzed the last months of her scheduleand concluded that the intensity of hertrack training far exceeded anything seenbefore in women’s endurance sprint

conditioning. Correct. The next step wasto assume that it was this mode oftraining that got her there and thereforeportends the way of the future. Partlycorrect.

Sarah Ulmer’s preparation for Athenscame off several months of intenseanaerobic preparation and speeddevelopment, following a month ofprogressive resistance training (lowcadence and high resistance on an indoorcycle), following several months ofendurance cycling of up to 800kilometers a week. Sound familiar? It’sas near to the principles of the Lydiardsystem as one can go on a bike.

Before Athens came a dozen years ofendurance-based preparation, and aslow and steady progression in timesand results. Just like Peter Snell so manyyears before, Ulmer was able to handlevery high intensity workloads becauseof her endurance background. A classiccase of the more one does, the more onecan do.

In A Nutshell ...The Lydiard system can be viewed as a“training pyramid.” The vast bulk of thepyramid represents aerobic training. Thetip of the pyramid represents anaerobictraining. The higher the foundation of thepyramid before anaerobic metabolism

starts, the higher the ultimate level ofperformance.

Part 1The TrainingPyramid

For the purposes of this book, I’vedescribed Arthur Lydiard’s work asprogressively moving up a pyramid oftraining intensities, until the most intensework is done before the most importantcompetition. This is now known asperiodization.

Different energy systems in the body takediffering times to grow to their fullest

capacity. The slowest to develop to fullcapacity is the aerobic energy system,which can be constantly improved formany years.

Possibly the fastest to develop is theglycolytic anaerobic energy system,otherwise known as the lactic acidsystem, which can reach its highestcapacity in a number of weeks if asuitable aerobic foundation has beenlaid.

The alactic anaerobic energy system,which contributes less and less tooverall performance as distanceincreases, can be developed veryquickly too. However, while alactic

capacity at the chemical level in thecells can be pushed up to its maximumquickly, the neuro-muscular coordinationto run fast is a skill that has to be learnedover time. This is well-explained in alater chapter.

The efficient movement patterns learnedwith fast alactic running can contributeto efficiency at all speeds. So althoughthe overall energy contribution of thealactic system is minimal for theduration of a middle distance or distancerace, alactic training is very importantbecause of its effect on efficiency andeconomy, and also because many racescome down to a sprint at the end.

This type of work can be done safely ona year-round basis, especially on easydays, and doing so will not harm theaerobic systems.

So it can be seen that the trainingpyramid concentrates on different energysystems at different times, in a balancedway that ensures all of them come up tothe maximal capacity possible at just theright time. Imagine a master chef timinghis preparation of ingredients over alarge stove and you get the idea. If justone ingredient is on the stove too earlyor too late, and at the wrongtemperature, the whole meal may need tobe thrown out.

One type of work leads progressivelyinto another. It must be remembered thataerobic work of an easy or extremelyeasy nature can be continued inreasonable volume right into the racephase with great success.

In fact, if intense work is being done atthe top of the training pyramid, it must beassumed that it is being buffered byample very low intensity runningsessions that are very aerobic in nature.This balances the system and allows thebody to cope with the mounting acidosisthat hard training and racing invokes,and come back for more intense trainingagain.

Physiology of the LydiardTraining Pyramid

Please read this chapter very carefully,because it is foundational to the rest ofthe book. Below is an illustration of the

key energy systems and training phaseswe will be referring to throughout thetext.

Read the definitions that follow thispage before we proceed with the rest ofthe book.

PLEASE NOTE:This is the correct and logicalsequencing of the energy systems andintensity levels as we approach a peakracing phase for middle distance. Thephases each represent a specific energysystem, a specific range of muscle fiber

types, and a specific type of training thatwill best develop these. Leg-speeddrills can be continually used, year-round, and although technically they areanaerobic, the work bouts are so shortand recoveries so long that acidosis isn’tcreated to any degree.

Physiology of the “YouCan’t Run Fast if YouDon’t Train Fast” Pyramid:Too Much, Too OftenYou will see that by continually pushingduring training, that not only does theaerobic part of the pyramid never get toits highest possible levels in the

available time, but “Yo-Yo” results aremore likely, and systemic acidosisresults, leaving the athlete open toillness and injury. It is impossible to getthe best anaerobic training resultsbecause the cellular mechanisms forbalanced chemistry and repair arecompromised. We never ever get to ourpotential. We may approach it quickly inour first year or so of training like this,but then as the aerobic base declines, asit will, we will never really improve.

Running PhysiologyTermsExercise physiology is still an infantscience. We don’t deal in areas of blackand white when dealing with thevariations in genetics that will surface inany population, and we probably neverwill. We deal in broad principles,likelihoods, and tendencies. Particularlywhen discussing the energy systems, weare dealing with a spectrum of greyshades. Nothing is absolutely black orwhite, but some things are very darkgrey and some things are very light grey.For instance, at any given exercise

intensity, ALL of the energy systems willbe active, but some are extremely active,some play a supportive role, and someare nearly silent. What follows, inpractical terms, is all we need to knowfor now.

AEROBIC RUNNING: Exercise withoxygen. Running that is at an effort leveland heart rate where the oxygen breathedin is more than enough to supply thedemands of the exercise. In practicalterms, this sort of running can bemaintained for many minutes or hours ina fit athlete. At slow rates, body fats(fatty acids) are used more as fuel. Atfaster aerobic speeds, morecarbohydrates are used. Fat fuels are

abundant in the body, whereascarbohydrate stores are far more limited.

ANAEROBIC RUNNING: Runningthat is at a higher effort level where theblood supply and oxygen delivery areinsufficient to meet all of the demands ofthe exercise. Fuel is used withoutoxygen, but acidic by-products build upthat eventually stop the exercise. Thiscan happen very rapidly with high-

intensity running or can build upgradually with very strong running overmuch longer distances.

ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD: Thezone or “grey area” where the oxygendelivery to the working muscles is onlyjust enough to meet the energydemands. Above this level, the musclesare unable to easily disperse acidicwaste products, and work rate is forcedto slow again. Below this level, the

working muscles can still functionefficiently in the presence of oxygen.

This is the pace a well-trainedendurance athlete can race at forbetween 50 and 60 minutes; whether ofaverage or world-class ability, thresholdcan only be maintained for about thistime range.

ACIDOSIS suppresses normal nervefunction and muscle contraction, so if ahigh rate of work is continued,eventually the exercise is forced to stop.This creates an “oxygen debt” that has tobe paid back with rapid breathing onceexercise has stopped.

All running above or faster than the“anaerobic threshold” pace isconsidered anaerobic.

ISOCAPNIC BUFFERING ZONE:Fancy name for prolonged running just aheart beat or two above your anaerobicthreshold.

Enzymes, Acids andChemistry

Enzymes are substances that greatlyspeed up the rate of chemical reactions,sometimes to the order of severalhundred thousand times.

OXIDATIVE or AEROBICENZYMES: Oxidative enzymesproduced in the energy factories of the

muscle cells (mitochondria) greatlyincrease the ability of the muscle toextract oxygen from the blood, andenergy from fats and sugars. They existin very high levels in trained slowtwitch muscles, and in high levels insome endurance-trained fast twitchmuscles.

GLYCOLYTIC ENZYMES: Theseenzymes extract energy rapidly fromglycogen stored in muscle cells, in theabsence of oxygen. This process ofanaerobic energy extraction is known asglycolysis. Glycolytic enzymes arehighly concentrated in fast twitch (TypeII) muscle fibers, which are the primarysource of anaerobic energy for short,

high-intensity work bouts.

LACTIC ACID OR LACTATE: Asmentioned earlier, this is an energy-richsubstance produced by exercisingmuscles in the absence of oxygen. Theproduction of lactate accompanies asharp rise in hydrogen ions, and it isthese that create the acid environmentthat causes muscular work to cease. It isa reasonably harmless or inertsubstance. Once blamed for post-exercise muscle soreness (now calledDOMS or delayed onset of musclesoreness), the culprit has now beendeemed as micro-trauma to the musclefibers, and the attendant inflammation.

Muscles

MOTOR UNITSThese are groups of muscle fibers,usually all of the same type (i.e., slowtwitch, fast twitch), supplied by a singleincoming nerve axon (like an electriccable). If sufficient electrical charge isdelivered by the nerve, every fiber in themotor unit will contract at once. If notenough, the motor unit doesn’t fire at all.

‘ALL OR NONE’PRINCIPLEThe principle of “firing” a motor unit is

very similar to that of “firing” a sparkplug in a car engine. When enoughvoltage and current is delivered(threshold summation) by the lead to thespark plug, it fires. If the current isbelow the level required (sub-thresholdsummation), the spark flug fails to fire.The electrical current (electromotiveforce) that fires motor units is generatedby the brain, and delivered by thenervous system.

So we can see that muscle fiberrecruitment and coordination is verymuch a brain function, and just as inregular electronics, large voltages andcurrents are best delivered by largeinsulated cables, and small voltages and

currents by small insulated cables.

THE SIZE PRINCIPLEWithin a contracting muscle, motor unitsusually fire off according to the sizeprinciple, which means that they usuallyfire off in the order of smallest motorunit to largest, smallest nerve axon tolargest.

The smallest motor units are usuallymade up of slow twitch fibers withsmall nerve axons, and the biggest of fasttwitch fibers with big nerve axons.

Slow Twitch Type IFires 1st until all fatigued

Small incoming nerve axons

Fast Twitch Type IIAFires 2nd to maintain tension

Big incoming nerve axons

Fast Twitch Type IIBFires last only if forced to Massive

incoming nerve axons

Usually, the huge and powerful fasttwitch fibers are not easily trained (i.e.,recruited first) unless there is either amassive load to lift (hard to do whenrunning), or if the size principle isreversed (possible with a certain type of

simple exercise), or if all the slowtwitch and IIA fibers are takenprogressively to exhaustion byprolonged endurance exercise, therebyforcing the massive IIB fibers to berecruited to maintain tension (very longruns).

This leaves us with three options to trainand increase the cross-sectional area ofour most powerful muscle fibers.

Options 2 & 3 have always been part of

the Lydiard principles for over 55 years.For now we will briefly look at Option2, before re-examining it in detail in theHill Exercise section later. Option 1 isdiscussed in the Strength TrainingSection in Part 9.

Reversing the Size PrincipleThe size principle can be reversed by asudden lengthening (eccentric) stretch ofa (concentrically) contracting muscle, asi n plyometric exercise, or skipping, orhill-springing. This is why Lydiard’shill exercises were so effective: we nowknow that he was using a principle inphysiology that has only recently beendemonstrated by research.

Selective Muscle FiberRecruitmentFor small loads, only some of the slowtwitch fibers are required, and thereforethe brain and nervous system selectivelychoose which slow twitch fibers to“fire.” In fact, the car engine analogy isvery useful here. Recent advances inengine design have mimicked nature byallowing large engines to selectively firefewer or more cylinders according torequirements. This is exemplified byHonda’s variable cylinder managementor VCM device.

MUSCLE FIBERS

The previously named muscle fibersare the three main types that we needto know about.Two are contrasting sub-types of the fasttwitch variety.

Slow twitch fibers (Type I, also calledST) are fatigue-resistant, generallyhighly aerobic, and have a very richblood supply. They are redder in colourdue to the presence of myoglobin, theequivalent of hemoglobin in red bloodcells. The slow twitch muscle cells havevery high concentrations ofmitochondria; furnace-like structuresthat can use carbohydrates or fats toproduce high yields of energy. Slowtwitch muscle fibers can have very highlevels of oxidative enzymes, andalthough they can’t contract asexplosively as fast twitch fibers, theycan generate equal tension given equalcross-sectional area. In other words,they can move just as much weight, but

not as quickly. Their motor units aresmaller than those of the big fast twitchfibers, and so more muscle fibers willbe present given an equal cross-sectional area.

Although called “slow twitch,” they’remore actually described as “slowertwitch,” as they can “twitch” at 10-20times per second, compared to fasttwitch fibers, which can twitch 30-70times a second. They can contribute a lotof force production at very high aerobicspeeds and combine with IIA fibers inproducing force at glycolytic speedsapproaching those of 800m running.They can continuously contract for up totwo hours or more at lower loads. At

low load levels, slow twitch musclefibers can fire off asynchronously;meaning differing fibers will come intoplay across a muscle according to localfatigue levels and fuel levels. Fasttwitch fibers fire off synchronously in anall-or-none pattern directed by theirlarge incoming nerve axons.

The ultimate slow twitch muscle is theheart muscle, which never rests duringour whole life. Of course, it lookscompletely different under themicroscope than the slow twitch musclein your limbs because it needs to expandand contract outward and inward, like aballoon, but physiologically therequirements are the same.

The sports genetics cheats of the futuremight give themselves away when theystand at starting lines with their legsrhythmically expanding and contracting.

Fast twitch fibers (Type II, or FT) as agroup are more explosive, bigger, andare generally anaerobic in nature if no

endurance training has been applied.They can contract quickly, but fatiguequickly because they lack the richness ofvascular supply, myoglobin, oxidativeenzymes, and mitochondria of the slowtwitch fibers. They are whiter in colorbecause they store starchy glycogen asfuel. Hence they used to be called“white muscle” fibers.

Type IIB, or FT-B fibers are thebiggest and most explosive fibers. Theywill tend to use creatine phosphate as aprimary fuel in short-term anaerobic (oralactic) work bouts lasting less than 10seconds, and they will have the biggestmotor units. They can also burnglycogen. With endurance training some

FT-B fibers can acquire aerobicqualities and become FT-A fibers.

Type IIA or FT-A (Fast TwitchAerobic fibers) are intermediary fibersthat have aerobic and anaerobiccharacteristics. They can access fats andcarbohydrates from the bloodstream aswell as locally stored glycogen andcreatine phosphate, and have areasonably rich blood supply. There isevidence that endurance training changessome FT-B fibers into FT-A fibers.They come most into play after thepowerful FT-B fibers have temporarilyrun out of creatine phosphate and areactivated most in glycolytic (long-termanaerobic) work bouts lasting between

13 seconds and 90 seconds.

Fiber type ratios are geneticallyordained, but studies with identicaltwins show that these ratios can be

changed somewhat with specifictraining. Slow twitch fibers can’tacquire fast twitch characteristics, butsome fast twitch fibers can certainlyacquire fatigue-resistant slow twitchcharacteristics with extensive endurancetraining.

OK: the nerds among you will say thatthere is another muscle fiber type,known as IIC or IIX. Yes, but it is atransitional form between IIA and IIB,so don’t worry about it! Your traininglife won’t change!

If we wish to make things absolutelysimple, we can assume that the threefiber types relate strongly to three

main energy systems: Type I =Aerobic, Type IIA = Glycolytic(Lactic) anaerobic, and Type IIB=Alactic anaerobic.

Characteristics of the ThreeMain Muscle Fiber Types

Table above is from Karp, J. R. “Motorunit recruitment strategy in muscleduring eccentric contractions.”

Unpublished master’s thesis. TheUniversity of Calgary, 1997.

How does VO2 Max fit intothe muscle types and theirenergy systems?

VO2 Max, like Anaerobic Threshold, orsub-Threshold running, represents alevel of intensity. Each level ofintensity will use a combination ofmuscle types and energy systems asthey’re phased in or out.

Heart Rate and TrainingZones “Simplified”

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!How the Cardiovascular

System Changes

With endurance training, the maximalheart rate doesn’t increase, but the totalwork capacity of the heart does. Theheart muscle is the ultimate slow twitchmuscle, because it never stops (whilealive, anyhow!).

The heart muscle uses whatever fuels itcan to keep on pumping, and unlikelinear slow twitch muscle fibers in allthe skeletal muscles, the starfish-shapedfibers overlap each other in alldirections. This gives the muscle theability to expand and contract, likeSpandex or Lycra.

Prolonged endurance training over timewill result in an increased work capacityfor several reasons:

Training by HeartRate

Heart rate monitors are very useful, butby no means should they be relied uponto dictate training and racing. Youshould learn to listen to your body. Thebest use of heart rate monitors is withpeople who tend to push their longerruns at too high an intensity. A lot ofrunners buy heart rate monitors but don’treally know how to use them.

Here, in a nutshell, is a quick guide toestablishing your training zones without

having to get them established in a lab.

The keys are your resting heart rate andyour maximal heart rate. Forget the(220-Your Age) formula; that shouldhave disappeared with the dinosaurs!

Your resting heart rate will decreaseover time with good aerobic training, butyour maximal is far less influenced bytraining. Nevertheless, the ability of theheart to pump blood will usuallyincrease a great deal, because the size ofthe left ventricle (the stroke volume)increases with training, and there will bea greater heart rate reserve or workcapacity.

Establishing Maximal HeartRate

Your maximal heart rate is geneticallydetermined and doesn’t appear to beincreased by training. When you firststart endurance work, it is possible thatyour nervous system will make yourheart beat like a jack hammer inresponse to the new demands ofsupplying large areas of muscle withblood. As the leg muscles and cardiacmuscles capillarize and adapt, theheart’s stroke volume will also increase,and a high heart rate is no longernecessary. Your maximal heart rateshould be established when you’re quite

fit already, as should your resting rate.

Maximal heart rate is best discovered byan already fit and rested athlete afterseveral minutes of high intensity running.Try running hard, straight up a steep hillfor at least 3 minutes, after a thoroughwarm-up. Record the pulse every 15seconds or so, and wherever you maxout is about right.

If you’re carbed up, glycogen-loaded,and rested, you’ll achieve a better heartrate than if you’re tired. The heart is amuscle too, and it likes high energy fuel.It will also only respond to the demandsmade on it by the nervous system, and ifthe legs are tired then there’s not the

need for as much cardiac action. In fact,tired legs and glycogen depletion willlower your VO2 max capability acrossthe board.

Establishing VO2 Max HeartRate

Your VO2 max heart rate is within just abeat or two of your maximal heart rate. Itoften is just below maximum because atmaximum the heart becomes relativelyinefficient at filling and emptying.

Establishing Anaerobic

Threshold Heart Rate

Your anaerobic threshold rate is the oneyou need to quantify more and stay wellunder for most of your endurancetraining. This is often around 85% ofyour maximum heart rate, but someathletes can hammer along at above 90%very well.

Your average heart rate recorded duringa 50-60 minute road race will suffice fora threshold reading, but you can time-trial at your 15k road racing pace (for areasonably performed athlete) and byabout 20 minutes your threshold levelsshould even out.

Establishing Your RestingHeart Rate

Your resting heart rate is best averagedfrom your waking up heart rate; take itthree mornings in a row, before you getup and about, and that average will dofor a start.

The most useful endurance workloadsare done between 60%-80% of yourheart rate reserve (HRR). The HRRrepresents the number of truly availableheart beats between rest and maximum.

Establishing Your Heart

Rate Reserve

To work out this figure, use thefollowing formula:HRR = (max HR-resting HR).

For someone with a maximum HR of195, and a resting HR of 45, the HRRwill be 150.

The lowest useful aerobic zone in thisexample, for gently increasing totalcapacity, will be [60% x (150)] +[resting HR], or (90 + 45), or 135beats/minute.

Any lower than this is really only foraerobic recovery or restoration ofnormal blood pH; the really useful

aerobic zones start around 60% of HRR,which coincide with a lactateconcentration of about 2mmol/litre. Thisis also known as the aerobic threshold.

Establishing Your TrainingIntensities

Work out your rates for 65%, 70%,75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, etc. These thencan be entered into your diary and youcan see what zones you venture intowhen you’re running over varyingterrain, (the HR will go up on up-hills,and decrease on descents) and set analarm at an upper limit if the purpose ofyour run is basic aerobic bread and

butter endurance.

The table on the left shows the pulse rateexpected at each intensity in the previousexample. The best heart rate for theweekly or bi-weekly “¾ effort” runwould be between 75% and 80% ofmaximum HRR: in this case it’s an HRbetween 158 and 165, which is a full 6beats lower than a typical thresholdzone, which would hover around an HRof 173. In the case of this “marathonintensity” run, you can see that the “¾effort” is equivalent to 75% of maximumHRR. The diagram below illustrates thisconcept further.

As you get fitter aerobically, yourcomfortable cruising speeds will comedown, and, for any given heart rate,more distance can be covered. A goodtest of condition, then, is what distancesyou can cover at extremely low heartrates as well as high. Four-time Olympic

champion Lasse Viren and his coachmeasured these adaptations constantly.They would even cover distances with aheart rate as low as 80 beats/ minute.

Just thinking about going for a run willachieve this heart rate for a lot of

people.

Coach Nic Bideau often gets his athletesto do workouts at very controlled heartrates well below threshold, at rates thatapproximate potential marathon pace orslower.

He likes to get them to run for a set timewith the heart rate in a tight range.Sometimes he’ll set several ranges thatgradually climb or descend in aworkout. He suggests that the most usefulconditioning ranges are found aroundmarathon pace or slower, rather than atmaximal work rates.

The vast majority of athletes have a

threshold level around 85% of heart ratereserve or less. Robert De Castella andother marathon stars were probably wellover this, but for practical aerobicendurance training purposes, we will bevery safe if we assume that we shouldgenerally stay below this zone as muchas possible when building the aerobicendurance base, and now and againapproach it, but with easy days beforeand after.

Once you know your zones, it’s a matterof getting used to “controlling” trainingefforts so that the athlete knows exactlywhat a set heart rate range feels like.Then it’s a matter of planning thesedifferent aerobic zones into regular

endurance training, so that the athletegets used to going up and down thedifferent intensity levels.

Heart Rate Monitor Tricks

Once over the threshold, and headingtowards the maximal heart rate, the heartas a pump can become relativelyinefficient. No longer is there a nearlylinear relationship between bloodpumped and distance covered.

So at any truly aerobic heart rate, at agiven level of fitness, and in similarmoderate conditions, it will take anathlete a certain number of beats to

cover a specific distance. This ratio canbe easily calculated with an ordinaryheart rate monitor that records averageheart rate for an elapsed time.

For instance, if a good athlete covers10km in a high-aerobic 35 minutes at anaverage heart rate of 155, that wouldmean he has covered 10,000m in (35 x155) heart beats. That would result in5425 heart beats per 10,000m, or(10,000/5425) meters per heart beat.This would be 1.84 meters per beat. Thesame athlete could expect to cover10,000m at 40 minutes and 45 minuteswith the same ratio… so at the slowersub-threshold speeds obviously theaverage heart rate will drop to maintain

the ratio.

So if we assume that our athlete is goingto take close to 5425 heart beats tocover 10,000m on a known course, wecan more or less predict what he shouldaverage for different aerobic times overthe course.

If he takes 40 minutes, then the 5425heart beats will be divided over 40minutes for an expected HR average ofjust over 135, and at 45 minutes, it willplunge further to just over 120, tilleventually it will approach the restingrate.

The exact ratio will vary according to

individual biomechanics and willimprove over time with the developmentof aerobic capacity and leg-strength, butwithin any short-term training blockthese changes won’t be so apparent withsomeone who has trained for a fewyears.

This sort of record-keeping is at its mostuseful when determining when it’s safeto do a hard session again. Systemicacidosis will elevate resting heart rate,and glycogen depletion with musculartiredness will lower stride distance.

The athlete simply has to go for a veryeasy morning run over a known courseand determine the ratio. If it is back to

normal, he is running efficiently again. Ifit is not, he should look at easier aerobicrecovery until ready.

The set course should be largelyunchanging (i.e. road) and doesn’t haveto be accurately measured. So long asthe same set course is used for suchtests, the ratio over that course is all thatmatters. Olympic triathlon coach ChrisPilone will discuss the effects ofovertraining in a later chapter.

NB: Some of the latest HRM’s have anin-built heart-rate variability sensor.This detects variation between beats,which may also signify elevated stresslevels systemically.

Nic Bideau on Heart Rate

The heart rate progression is something Ilike to use either at altitude or whenathletes are in good racing shape on thetrack. At altitude, the athletes often findit hard to go fast enough to get their HRup, as compared to sea level but onceit’s up it can very quickly becomedifficult to control – usually becausethey’ve been working too hard to get itup to normal AT levels in the first place.So it is more of a control mechanism togradually build from: starting from whatis probably marathon race pace effort, tohalf marathon pace and eventually toaround 10 mile race pace effort.

When athletes are in great racing shape Ifind they have no problem running fastand getting their HR up high very quickly– but while the effort to get HR up at thishigh speed may seem easy in the first 5mins. This is due to an increasedefficiency at high speeds but thiseventually becomes more difficult thanthey imagined it would according to howthey felt in the first 5 mins to maintainand HR starts racing so again it’s acontrol thing just to ensure they arerunning aerobically for most of this workrather than too anaerobically.

Another thing I do is sometimes throw ina 1 min float, which just lets their HRdrop down before they get rolling again.

An example of this may be 5x8 min with1 min float breaks for a 45 min AT pacerun.

I believe that there is still a good deal ofconditioning effect achieved whenrunning slower than most people do inthreshold pace runs, say at marathonrace pace, and I find more often peoplewho think they are running with whatshould be blood lactate content ofaround 3.5 – 4.5mmol* are probablymore likely running 20 min time trials at10k race pace with the last 10 min ofsuch work producing way too muchlactate and this just doesn’t have thesame effect.

(*This approximates anaerobic thresholdin many people, although it can vary.)

I don’t always stick to HR – anothermethod I use once they are racing is 85%of 5k race pace – when Mottram is in 13min shape he often does 10 laps at thebeginning and at the end of his workoutsat 3 min/km pace – he finds thisreproduces a similar effort to when hejust goes off HR early in his trainingprep.

(Since 5000m race pace is about 109%of threshold speed for well-trainedrunners, then [85% of 109%] will equateto Mottram’s 10 lap steady state pace;this works out to be 92.5% of threshold,

or just below marathon pace, which is95-96% of threshold pace on average.)

Mottram rarely trains much above thislevel of effort, except in a specificsharpening phase.

Cardiac Drift

Cardiac Drift occurs mostly on hot days,during longer runs. A constant pacedeffort might be accompanied by a steadyincrease in heart rate throughout thelatter part of the run. This is acombination of dehydration andglycogen depletion: the blood plasmavolume can decrease significantly due to

sweat loss, and this reduced volume isstill expected to be kept at a constantpressure when pumped to the rest of thebody. Therefore the pump (heart) has towork harder.

Sessions aimed at particular heart ratezones or training intensities shouldprobably be done in temperateconditions and be of medium duration.

If cardiac drift is rapid, you aredehydrating and need to slow down anddrink, and perhaps thinking about doingthe session on another day.

Training TermsThere are many differing terminologiesin running. We’ve standardized ours asfollows:

Steady Stuff

Aerobic Runs

These can range from absolutely slowand easy “recovery” runs, to runsapproaching higher intensities belowanaerobic threshold training, and at low

intensities their main use is to “restore”the system. Extended long runs at lowintensity can be enormously useful for anathlete who is having erratic training andracing form. It’s very wise to mix indifferent blends and intensities of“aerobic strata” in a training regime.

Sub-Threshold Runs

Also called marathon-pace runs, these

are slightly slower but a lot morecomfortable than threshold. These cangive nearly all the benefits ofthreshold training, without the dangerof “going over the top” of theanaerobic threshold. Sub-threshold runscan be longer than tempo runs, with asimilar warm-up and cool-down, but iftoo long can also use up significantcarbohydrate stores that have to bereplenished. Lydiard would introducethese into the buildup or base phasegradually, so that one or two “strong”runs of about an hour at marathon racepace were run each week.

These runs will be described in detaillater.

Threshold Runs

Also known as tempo runs. These arerun as near to the anaerobic threshold aspossible. This is often described as“comfortably hard,” and is very close tothe maximum pace a well-conditioned

runner can race at for an hour. The mostefficient threshold runs last about 20minutes and can be slotted into medium-length runs of about an hour in total, aftera good aerobic warm-up and with agood aerobic cool-down period.

Threshold running is very effective oncegood aerobic conditioning has beenestablished, but it uses lots of muscle

glycogen (stored carbohydrates). It’sarguable whether athletes without alarge aerobic base will benefit much inthe long term from such work.

This work shouldn’t be done too often,because it can have a cumulativelytiring effect similar to racing. Shortruns of a few minutes at threshold orsub-threshold pace have been found veryuseful when preparing for faster-pacedwork in training sessions and even inwarming up for important races.

How Lactic Acid Builds UpExponentially Above

Threshold Speed

Relating Racing Speeds to

Threshold Running Speed

This is based on data from worldrecords and appears accurate for well-trained club athletes as well. You willsee that despite the heart ratereaching near maximum at or nearVO2 Max, it is possible to keeprunning faster and faster until acidosisforces the exercise to stop or slow.

(concept from: Janssen, P. TrainingLactate Pulse Rate, 1987)

Relating Racing Speeds to

VO2 Max Running Speed

These speeds are accurate for goodclub level or better male middledistance runners. For significantlyslower athletes, it is best to go bymaximum distance achievable in acertain time. For instance, VO2 Maxspeed can be held for 8-10 minutes atthe best, by either a well-trainedslower athlete or a world champion.Threshold speed can be held for 50-60minutes in a well-trained athlete,regardless of ability.

Fast Stuff

Vo2 Max Intervals

For the sake of this book those are workbouts run at VO2 max pace, with arecovery generally equal to or shorterthan the duration of the work bout. Theyare essentially anaerobic in their effect.These challenge the Type I slowtwitch fibers to their maximum, andprobably recruit a good number of IIAglycolytic fast twitch fibers as well.

VO2 max intervals are very effectivewhen performed for 2-5 minutes, withequal or shorter time recoveries. 5000mpace (95% VO2 max pace) is very safeand effective, yielding all the benefitswithout the dangers of 100% VO2 pacework (3000m pace). There is simply noreal need to go any faster to extract allthe benefits of this particular type oftraining. Any faster and we are trainingthe glycolytic systems, with all the

acidosis that invokes. These runsdevelop anaerobic capacity, by beingat an intensity the body cancumulatively hold for some minutes.

Glycolytic (Lactic)Repetitions

These are work bouts that areconsiderably faster and shorter, with amuch-needed recovery that is far longerthan the work bout. They are run at aglycolytic anaerobic pace, which isusually specific to 1500m or 800m pace.They are very anaerobic in their effect.They should never be run in an aerobic

base period. These stimulate the IIAglycolytic fast twitch fibers the most.

These runs develop anaerobic powervery well, especially if long orcomplete recovery is taken.

Leg-Speed Drills

These are very short work bouts,generally less than 10 seconds induration, that use the alactic anaerobic

system, meaning that very little acidosisis possible. They are very safe to doyear-round, especially with a good walkor jog recovery of over 30 seconds.These increase power, muscularefficiency, and speed. They are bestdone when well-rested, near the start ofa training session, before moving ontoother work. These challenge the IIB fasttwitch fibers the most.

Types of AnaerobicExercises

1. Alactic Exercise

Very short, explosive bursts of exerciselasting only a few seconds. The mainfuel for this exercise is a substancecalled creatine phosphate, stored in thelocal muscle. The high-energy phosphatecan be rapidly restored with a shortrecovery walk or jog without evertriggering the sluggish lactic acidsystem, thus avoiding the “acidosis” thathalts any longer bursts of intense

running. Lactate will only start toaccumulate at a high rate after 10-13seconds of intense exercise. Alacticrunning is ideal to develop the brain-muscle pathways and coordinationassociated with sprint speeds, while stillbuilding and maintaining aerobiccondition.

2. Glycolytic (or Lactic)Exercise

Uses carbohydrate (starchy sugars, suchas muscle glycogen) without oxygen toproduce rapid energy for longer-termanaerobic work bouts lasting over 13seconds, but a by-product is lactic acidor lactate, which can be used as a veryenergy-rich short-term fuel. The acidosisthat stops muscles contracting is reallyproduced by hydrogen ions released atthe same time as lactate from themuscles. Lactate eventually is brokendown and dispersed back to the liverwhere it is re-made into sugars.

3. VO2 Max Exercise

Technically, VO2 max is the term used to

describe the maximal possible level ofoxygen uptake when we exercise at sealevel. Absolute VO2 max is measured astotal volume of oxygen consumedregardless of body size. Relative VO2

max is measured in litres of oxygenconsumed per kilogram of body weight.This is expressed in mls/kg/minute.

Many people think that somehow VO2

max represents the upper level ofaerobic capacity and is therefore“aerobic” training. Uh-uh. Nope.

At VO2 Max, your heart rate is near itsmaximum, and at this maximal work rate,huge amounts of oxygen are consumed.

However, the amount of oxygenconsumed is nowhere near enough tomeet the demands of the muscles, and thework rate can only be maintained forseveral minutes at most in a fit athlete.The working muscle cells are beingasked to do two things at once: extractwhatever oxygen they still can from anincreasingly acidic bloodstream andextract anaerobic energy by glycolysis.

So even though this level of workrepresents the highest level of oxygenconsumption possible, we mustremember that the work intensity isanaerobic and mounting acidosis in theworking muscles will force the exerciseto stop at the maximal rate.

More on VO2 Max

Brief periods of training at this pace canbe very beneficial in elevating racepotential over middle distances, but thechanges in maximal oxygen consumptionare mainly in body chemistry and musclecell chemistry. Maximal oxygen can beextracted because of greatly increasedconcentrations of oxidative enzymes andbuffering agents in the working muscle.

Brief periods of training at maximalrates can naturally train the top end ofcardiopulmonary capacity as well (to getefficient at these work rates, the bodyhas to be exposed to them), but capillarydevelopment and blood supply to the

working muscle are best developed withprolonged endurance work at a muchlower level.

Blood supply to the muscle cell isn’tefficiently increased by VO2 max effortsbecause the very high work rate invokesacidosis that chemically suppressesnormal aerobic functions and caninflame or rupture the muscle cell wall.VO2 max pace is very close to the paceone can hold for 8 minutes. For goodathletes, current 3000m pace is 100%VO2 max pace, and current 5000m paceis 96% VO2 max pace.

There Are Two Parts to VO 2

Max Development

The first and most important part isthe aerobic base below the anaerobicthreshold. Time spent runningaerobically has been shown to be thebiggest stimulus to the aerobicdevelopment of the body. Time spent

exercising at lower intensities willencourage the safe development of thecardiovascular delivery systems of thebody and the proliferation ofmitochondria, which together constitutemore or less the pure aerobiccontribution to VO2 max via the slowtwitch muscle fibers being extended totheir fullest capacity.

The second portion, where maximaloxygen is consumed, is of course,terribly anaerobic. This portion is thecellular chemistry contribution, wherethe biggest stimulus is really time spentat VO2 max (or, more safely, 95% Max –5000m race pace for a good athlete).The safest and best stimulus for this is

several 2-5 minute bursts of exercise at5000m pace, with equal or shorterrecovery, progressing over severalweeks to 3000m pace intervals.

Physiologists may or may not agree withthis breakdown of VO2 max but, for allpractical purposes, it works. It providesa rational reason why different studiesgive different answers to the “best” wayto raise VO2 max.

The answer is there isn’t a “best” wayto elevate VO2 Max.

It depends on which contribution toVO2 max we’re talking about: thepure aerobic or the anaerobic.

Any short-term scientific study doneover only a few weeks automaticallyexcludes the key requirement of sub-threshold aerobic development: time.

There is a clear two-fold progression,with the development of “pure” aerobicpathways at low intensities the firstpriority, (stimulating the type I slowtwitch fibers, mitochondrial activity,capillarisation, and oxidative enzymes)followed by higher intensity exercisethat is really well above the anaerobicthreshold and stimulates the cellchemistry to buffer acidosis and extractenergy anaerobically.

Part 2“Complex”Training Systems

Many modern approaches incorporatework at different energy levels of thetraining pyramid on a regular basis;perhaps every week. Does this meanthey’re “no good” or ineffective?

No. By paying attention to key basics,and ensuring that ample recovery andsteady state aerobic running iscompleted each week, it certainly is

possible for an athlete to race and trainwell year-round, and progressconstantly. The “complex” system oftraining developed and refined inAustralia by Pat Clohessy, ChrisWardlaw, Rob De Castella and SteveMoneghetti is an example.

Earlier, Ron Clarke, who broke 16world records, ran using a similarsystem. Clarke wrote years ago that he“didn’t believe in peaking,” and heimplied that if one trained constantly,improving aerobic efficiency, then one’speak was always at the current aerobiclevel reached. This was inferred bymany Lydiard advocates as a criticismof Arthur’s methods, but on reflection, it

is a confirmation. There is no betterexample of an athlete prepared toconstantly raise his aerobic trainingtempos, year after year, with the directresult of increased performance, thanRon Clarke. My only comment herewould be that we never did see whatRon Clarke could have done had he put aspecific anaerobic topping on hisawesome aerobic base.

Funnily enough, Michael Johnson, worldrecord-holder over 200m and 400m, hasalso been quoted recently as saying he“doesn’t believe in peaking.” Well,whether he believes in it or not, I don’tknow what else to call the largest-everimprovement on the world 200m record

ever on an Olympic day that counts. (Hisstupendous 19.32s improved on his ownrecent 19.66, which in turn broke the 17-year old world record of 19.72 set byPietro Mennea of Italy). Anyhow,Michael and I will have to agree todisagree on this one.

The “Australian system” is a weekly“template” including different types ofrunning and different aerobic andanaerobic tempos on different days. Likeany “template,” it can be fiddled withslightly and fine-tuned as the athletelearns his or her reactions to the weeklywork. An advantage can be that theathlete always knows generally what todo each week, and also the racing

muscles and energy systems are neverfar away from race conditioning. Thedisadvantage in many of these“complex” systems is that athletes canoverdo the anaerobic work at the cost oftheir aerobic systems and that true race-specific speed development for middledistance is never done.

It isn’t periodised training leading to aseasonal peak, but it is extremelyeffective conditioning that could easilylead into a specific middle distance racepreparation with outstanding results. Thekeystone of this system is the regularlong running, but interspersed throughthe week are short bursts of fasterrunning that are well-buffered by very

easy aerobic running. The percentage offaster running is extremely small, butpivotal.

This training was the conditioning basisfor 3:31.96 1500m runner Simon Doyle,who was ranked by Track and FieldNews as No. 2 over 1500m worldwidefor two years running in the early 1990s.Doyle’s time is still the Australian1500m record. Coach Pat Clohessy toldme that after a disappointing 1990Commonwealth Games where hefinished 4th in the 1500m with 3:35.70,Doyle wished to move up to 5000m.Clohessy got him to train with ShaunCreighton, who was later the Australian10,000m record-holder, and they were

well matched over hill-circuits and 15-mile runs. The result of this increasedendurance work was a big breakthroughover 1500m and 800m, as well as anAustralian 3000m record.

Pat Clohessy pointed out that in earlieryears Doyle had done “tremendousamounts of hard repetition work,” andthis combined very well with a newrelaxed approach to long “freedom runs”through the Stromlo Forest without awatch. Frequently Doyle and Creightonwould do “surge work” of up to 10-15minutes over the varying circuits in theforest, and other times do “quick hills”of about 180m on forest trails.

In our “H.I.T. System” adaptation of theLydiard method, we have also followeda weekly template system that can beeasily adapted year-round. The mainthings we include on a year-round basisare a focus on maintaining anddeveloping leg speed, which can bedone very successfully while increasingaerobic capacity, and always a longweekly run. This is all explained in Part5, where we share how we train oursquad on this basis, with consistentlygood results.

Perhaps my only criticism of the“Australian” system is in its poorinterpretation by many athletes andcoaches, rather than the system itself.

Athletes never seem to regularly go tosome parkland in spikes and work onpure leg speed and turnover, with amplerecovery, before commencing otherwork, for instance. However, Rob DeCastella was an exception. He would puton his track spikes to do leg-speed workbefore any of his “sprint / float” sessions(400 fast/200 float).

One session, usually done over parklandor trails, is named after SteveMoneghetti. The “Mona fartlek” consistsof bursts of faster effort oversuccessively shorter time intervals (i.e.,20min. 2x90s, 4x60s, 4x30s, and 4x15swith equal ‘float’ recoveries). This sortof workout will never develop all of the

middle-distance capacities efficientlybecause true leg speed running requiresa rested state before we do the fast work… not minutes of preceding fast tempowork and legs full of acidosis!

Therefore it’s a VO2 max workout, not arace-specific glycolytic workout formiddle-distance runners, and definitelynot a leg speed workout, although thepopular running magazines will tell youit is a “speed workout.” Not in my book.However, if Joe Runner were to do aspecific leg speed workout with plentyof recovery before moving to a Monafartlek, then he’d be able to absorb bothtypes of training and his nervous systemwould be able to adapt and make sense

of it.

Other proponents of year-round“complex” systems include suchsuccessful distance runners as FrankShorter and Arturio Barrios.

Shorter’s notorious interval sessionswere of extremely high quality, withshort recoveries. He must have had ahuge anaerobic capacity which heneeded to train constantly to reach hispotential. He would alternate intensedays with days where young teenagerscould jog with him for miles. There is atale of a young athlete who joinedShorter on one of his easy days and wasamazed at how easily he could keep up

with the superstar. Shorter then invitedthe youngster along for a track workoutthe next day, and apparently the kidlasted just a couple of laps! For FrankShorter, with a 7:51 3000m time andmarathon endurance, track intervals withshort recoveries around 61-62 secondsare only VO2 max pace or very slightlyfaster. For an untrained kid, they will beintolerable.

Sometimes individual athletes emergewith a very unusual blend of musclefiber types that loudly dictate theirresponses to training.

De Castella’s hard efforts were shortand sweet sessions. However, both De

Castella and Shorter stressed very, veryeasy long running on recovery days.

Another athlete who achieved the highestlevels was Irish runner John Treacey,who was notorious for the slowness ofhis long runs. Fellow Irish athletesrefused to train with him because of theboredom, according to Chris Pilone.However, it didn’t stop Treacey frombecoming world cross-country championin 1979.

So if you’re going to train this way, erron the side of caution after hard effortdays, and you’ll be in very goodcompany.

Start with the End inMind

The Lydiard program starts with the endin mind. In this way, it is no differentfrom any other planning exercise.

If the end in mind is superlativeperformance at the very limit of ourtrainable capacities, then we have to askourselves what the most fundamentalrequirements are. In planningterminology, we have to supply abundantfuel and get rid of wastes quickly.

Obviously, when we’re running at ourphysiological limits for several minutes,fuel delivery has to be as highlydeveloped as possible and wasteremoval has to be equally well-developed.

Imagine a huge city like New York thatwas expected to just “grow” withoutsome form of infrastructure or planning.

By the time a population of a fewthousand was established, reliableinfrastructure would be expected toensure a supply of water, food, andconsumables, and infrastructure wouldalso be expected to quickly get rid ofwastes. Without such infrastructure, acity like New York would have stayedthe size of a small trading village. Thepotential of that village to grow to itsfullest functional potential would havebeen limited without proper planningand long-term vision.

Clearly for a huge city to function well,the infrastructure of supply and removalhas to be huge and well-planned. Thetrillions of cells in the human body have

the same requirements.

Now if we continue the car/engineanalogy, imagine a high-performanceracing motor that had small fuel inletsand small waste extractors. No matterhow much horsepower this engine coulddevelop in short bursts, its capacitywould be severely limited.

Evidently the engine would run muchbetter for much longer if the fuel and airintakes were ample to meet demand, andif burned fuel wastes were removed assoon as they were produced.

We can look to nature for the bestpossible analogy of what I am trying to

describe here. Nearly all of the 1200known bamboo species are notorious forextremely rapid growth. One species,Bambusa oldhamii, is known to grow upto four feet a day, often reaching 90 feetin just 60 days, with no further growthuntil the next spring. But what is notcommonly known is that the seedlingscan stay underground for 5 years or sobefore even a shoot appears. Despiteprolific watering, weeding, and soilpreparation over 5 years, nothinga p p e a r s , on the surface. Butunderground, the plant (a super-grass)has developed a magnificent root systemthat extends far and wide, preparing allsystems for the massive spurt thateventually occurs. Does this growth

occur in just 60 days, or in 5 years and60 days? It is during the latter. The 5years of unseen growth just makes it allpossible.

So for the ultimate high-performanceathlete, the first thing to plan is the fuelsupply and waste removal infrastructurebecause this takes the longest to developand is the limiting factor for all high-intensity exercise. To understand thismore, we have to go right down to thecellular level.

Unless there is ample attention paid tothe progressive development of thecirculatory system at the microscopiclevel a long-term improvement in

performance is hindered.

Why? Because eventually a point will bereached where there is inefficient supplyof nutrients and inefficient removal ofwastes.

This is the point where the energydemands on the muscle exceed theability of the circulation to supply it withfuel and oxygen, or where the bodycannot quickly flush acidic wastes awayfrom the working cells. This ends in apooling of substances that inhibit normalnerve and muscle function, and canattack the cell wall and cytoplasm (cellcontents) as well.

To counteract this we have to developthe circulation at the tiniest level: wherethe skeletal muscle cells uptake oxygenand glucose and offload waste products:carbon dioxide, lactates, and otherintermediary by-products.

The energy production in the cells isdone by workhorses called themitochondria. These turn fuel andoxygen into the energy required forforceful muscle contractions.

In a very fit endurance-trained athlete,the skeletal muscle cells andmitochondria are supplied by many tinyblood vessels called capillaries.

Mitochondria are the “energy furnaces”of the human muscle cell. They gobbleup fatty acids and sugars within the cell,and are prolific in the red slow twitchfibers. Fast twitch fibers that haveresponded to endurance training willhave some mitochondrial developmentin the cell. These IIA fibers can alternatebetween aerobic and anaerobic energysystems.

The slow twitch fibers are rich inmyoglobin, the muscle’s equivalent ofhemoglobin, the iron-rich protein thatenables oxygen to be carried in the redblood cells. Mitochondria are richlyendowed with the enzymes necessary toextract oxygen from the blood, and also

with the enzymes that can break largemolecules of glycogen and globules offatty acids down into simple fuels.

Mitochondria and myoglobin arenoticeably absent in the super-powerful IIB fast twitch fibers.

The DNA that runs our mitochondria isinherited only on the female X-chromosome; in fact there is stronggenetic evidence in the mitochondria thatall humans descend from a commonhuman female ancestor in the distantpast. As with all scientific conjecture,there is debate on this, but a point ofagreement is that there are only about 7basic mutations from a common maternal

ancestral DNA in all modern Europeans,and the European DNA is only a stepremoved from that of our East Africanand North African brothers and sisters.

So, athletes, at the end of the day, youinherit a large portion of your sheerendurance capacity at the cellular levelfrom your Mum!

Whatever the science is, it makes basicgood sense to choose your maternal linewisely. British coach Colin Livingstoneagrees. “Choose good hardy peasantstock in your maternal line. Preferablywomen who could work all day in thefields, from sun-up to sun-down, then gethome and cook for their men folk.”

Livingstone has carefully scrutinized hisfamily line and found an unbroken line offemales extending into antiquity. (Notsurprisingly, many of their male partnersdidn’t live as long.)

There you go; you now know all of thepractical exercise physiology conceptswe need for this book. Now you canstun athletes and coaches alike bynonchalantly dropping phrases like“glycolytic acidosis” into trainingconversation. Wouldn’t that be fun?

If you really need more, go to the “Forthe Nerds” section in Part 11.

Part 3, which comes next, ties yournew knowledge together, within theframework of the Lydiard System, sothat as well as stunning people withyour vocabulary you can stun themwith results. That’s a lot better!

Part 3The LydiardSystem Explained

First Things First –Your Training DiaryIf you’re serious about your athletics,you’ll keep a daily training diary. Itdoesn’t need to be complicated: thesimpler the better.

I know of some decent national-levelathletes who don’t bother, but they paywhen it comes time to sort out a trainingpattern or when the coach needs to findout where the athlete has gone off thepath. If you don’t measure things andwrite them down, you usually can’tmanage them! Imagine any business thatdidn’t record daily transactions: it

wouldn’t be going anywhere fast!

Kiwi running superstar Rod Dixon wascoached for years by his brother John.John insisted that Rod keep an ordereddiary of all his training. Sometimeswhen Rod was in Europe and havingtroubles adjusting his program, all hehad to do was ring John in New Zealandand read out his sessions from his diary.

“John would be onto things in a flash!He could sort things out for me veryquickly, and I was on the other side ofthe world!” says Rod.

At the end of a season, John would sitdown and re-examine Rod’s training

diary to look for patterns and results thatwere below par. This information wasinvaluable for planning the next season.

Lydiard was the same: he wouldexamine his athletes’ diaries regularlyfor the same reasons.

I know of some athletes who keep alltheir training data on a computer: this isOK for complex heart rate analysis, butwhat happens when the computer dies orthe program gets superceded?

For day-to-day stuff a cheap, ordinaryyear calendar diary is sufficient forOlympians and club athletes alike. Ihave over twenty years’ worth in a little

box under my bed. The best type of diaryis a simple business diary, with oneweek to the open double page. Thesediaries usually have a little year plannerin the front – perfect for the business ofentering important race dates andcounting back.

All you have to do is run a ruler about 5cm in from the right margin of each page.The top part of the margin is where youenter the sessions your coach hasplanned for the day. The bottom part iswhere you enter the total distancecovered for the day. The larger area tothe left is where you write in all themeaty stuff of exactly what you did.That’s all you need. You can also enter

morning heart rate, how you’re feeling,etc: this is best kept in one specific partof your diary entries every day.

At the end of the week, you can enteryour total miles run, and any other data,in the top right part of the right-side pageand transfer this information to the yearplanner at the front for at-a-glance totals.

We’ve found diaries very useful withour athletes, especially if things go awryat the peak end of the season. We canquickly go back to when they felt theywere running very well and see justwhat type of session done recently theyresponded to.

One of our runners had recorded a 3:461500m time (his PB) off a weeklyTuesday session that went along thefollowing lines:

1. short warm-up followed by severalfast relaxed strides over 60m:

2. 10 minutes of threshold running onparkland

3. after several easy minutes, 3 x 800m@ 3000m pace, 2 minutes recovery

4. easy half-hour aerobic recovery

We had done that sort of work forseveral weeks in our VO2 max phase,and he had raced well over 800m and1500m early season, even pushing his1:52.0 PB at 800m. The more intense

sessions of the week are nearly alwaysdone on Tuesday in our adaptation of theLydiard system, so it’s pretty easy tospot how changes in training can affectthe athlete because we keep most partsof the training week quite constant year-round.

When we upped the intensity of hisTuesday work to glycolytic work at1500m pace, his form became erratic.So we know now that Daniel respondsbest to 3000m pace intervals, and that heneeds barely an injection of faster work,with racing, to reach his potential eachseason.

By the same process, we have worked

out that his training partner “Chubba”responds very well to 800m races run 2days apart and fast glycolytic work. Histraining diaries from last year and thisyear show that he ran a PB 1500m eachtime he had done this in regular racing inthe previous week. In fact, he ran awinning 800m PB this season of 1:52.0,less than two days after getting a tired5th in another 800m in 1:55.0.

Both athletes are very closely matchedfrom 800m to 3000m on the track, but forthem to race to their best for theremainder of the season they will haveto concentrate on different types ofwork.

At the business end of a season, differentvariations will work best for individualathletes, but you won’t be able to findthese individual patterns unless you keepexcellent records. So keep a diary!

The Lydiard EnduranceBase in Detail

This is the base of the training pyramid:the foundation of all that comes later,

and will therefore be covered in somedetail. The biggest misconception formodern athletes and coaches is that thisperiod emphasizes “long slow distance.”Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

That is a myth that emerged with thephilosophy of enjoyable running for themasses in the 1970s. It has its place forsure, especially in recovery running, butit is miles away from the most effectivetype of endurance training required toperform at world-class levels.

It may also have emerged becauseLydiard espoused long slow running forpeople at risk of heart disease. TheAuckland Joggers’ Club and the

Honolulu Marathon Clinic used this sortof slow running very successfully withpeople who’d suffered cardiac events.

So, in the interest of keeping things assimple as possible, but not simpler…

here’s a quote from Arthur Lydiard in aChicago interview when he was 85:

“LSD (long slow distance) has its place.Long slow distance of three, four or fivehours certainly will enhance yourcapillary development well because youare engaging the exercise for a very,very long period of time. But the point isit takes longer to obtain the same resultas if you were to do your aerobictraining at higher aerobic speed.

We had to obtain the best possibleresult in the limited time that we hadand the best way to develop aerobiccapacity was to train at higher aerobicspeed. My runners did a very hilly 22-

mile course, with one hill of three miles,somewhere around 2:10 and 2:15*. Weused to do our Monday 10-mile run inabout 55 minutes. They were all aerobicrunning, but we weren’t mucking aroundat all.”

* Barry Magee says that these timeswere achieved by the elite athletes suchas Snell and himself, towards the end ofthe endurance phase: not every week. Atthe start of the endurance phase, the aimwas to get around the whole 22-milecourse in good condition. Most gooddistance runners would aim to cover thecourse in around 2 hrs 30 mins to 2 hrs40 mins.

There’s a Time and Placefor Everything

Lydiard was very clear that each phaseof training had a particular purpose anda time-frame in which to achieve theintended results. He didn’t like tointroduce new things until a phase hadbeen largely completed and the bodywas ready for the next step.

When the next step or phase wasintroduced, the previous developmentwould be maintained while the newwork was concentrated on. For instance,during hill-work, a weekly long run andsome easy recovery runs would maintain

the fine aerobic development, but thefocus was the hill-work.

The body would be ready for the nextstep when the law of diminishing returnstook effect. For instance, there was nouse introducing the hill-strengtheningphase until the strong aerobic runs doneduring the “buildup” ceased to showmuch improvement. Improvement wouldbe constant and powerful for a numberof weeks but would usually trail offbetween 8 and 10 weeks, dependingupon the prior development of theathlete. A new athlete could stay in thisphase for months on end and stillcontinue to improve; however, at somestage, the body would need faster work

to get the very best results.

This didn’t mean that more aerobicimprovement wouldn’t occur: inpractical terms it was a matter ofprioritizing the type of work that wouldget the athlete into the best possiblecondition to race well in the time thatwas available. Eight weeks of aerobicbuildup may get an athlete’s aerobiccapacity to within a whisker of itscurrent potential, whereas double thatamount of time might yield little morechange. To some, this tiny bit of extrapotential was worth spending monthsand years to acquire if it meant a tenth ofa second at the business end of anOlympic final.

Athletes like the great Finn Lasse Viren,coached by Lydiard’s protégé RolfHaikkola, would spend years on theendurance phase, and use most domesticand international competitions betweenOlympics as “development races” ormeasures of condition. Viren’s executionof his training plan was perhaps the

epitome of Arthur Lydiard’s concepts:Viren was prepared to run several extrathousand kilometers in training atcontrolled aerobic speeds in Finnishwinters and forego gold at competitionsas important as the Europeanchampionships (he won bronze), inorder to win the ultimate prize, which hedid with “double doubles” over 5000mand 10000m at the 1972 and 1976Olympics.

The endurance phase was all aboutstrong aerobic running. At no stage in a“buildup” would an athlete deliberatelyundertake sustained work above theanaerobic threshold. Lydiard consideredthis to be totally counter-productive and

harmful to the development of theaerobic systems. In fact he was veryemphatic about this. Lydiard had hisathletes undertake a high volume ofwork, with a portion approaching theanaerobic threshold, but neverdeliberately exceeding it during theendurance phase. His runs each weekwere of varying distances, with varying“effort levels,” each one developingdifferent levels of the aerobic strata andall with the intent of raising the ability torun at speed aerobically.

There was a very simple reason for notrunning every run at a pace that pushedthe anaerobic threshold; this pace wouldbe the equivalent of running the mileage

of 4 marathons at race pace, each week,or faster. This would be very tiring andwould hammer the glycogen reservesand recovery ability of the body. Longerruns at lower aerobic speeds couldactually speed recovery from fasterefforts.

Having said all this, athletes such asSnell definitely “mixed” some of theirphases of training on occasions. Thiswas especially important when trying tofit in short racing tours with the demandsof long term planning for majorcompetitions. They could do thisbecause there was a substantial aerobicbase and training maturity that wasalready developed, and the “balancing

act” could still yield satisfactory short-term results.

However, it wasn’t the ideal structure oftraining Lydiard aspired to, and in the“real world” that Lydiard’s first pupilslived in, training had to be efficient andvery time-effective. They did whatevergot the best results possible, whichmeant never skipping the aerobic phase,but hill resistance and anaerobic phasescould certainly be compressed, withexcellent results, especially if theaerobic work had been excellent.

Flexibility and Individuality

On discussing this with Barry Magee, itis also very clear that some other mythshave to be exposed here. No twoathletes are alike. This is screaminglyobvious. We differ as much on the insideas we do on the outside. Even theKenyan highlanders as an interrelatedgroup, exhibit startling individualdifferences in responses to training.

We have to understand that you and Ihave different blends of muscle fibersthat give us different capacities torespond to the different types of training.We have different nervous systems anddifferent perceptions of discomfort andpain and differing types of intelligence.We have different cardiovascular

capacities.

While many writers associate Lydiard’ssystem with rigidity and inflexibility, inpractice the opposite was true. Lydiardwas intuitive, as all great coaches are,when dealing with his athletespersonally. Like a good horse trainer, hecould tell very quickly if a program wasnot working for an athlete and wouldchange a schedule around very quickly ifneed be. The principles behind thetraining never changed, but the intensityand duration of workouts could be fine-

tuned to the individual.

Magee once presented himself toLydiard during a buildup, still carrying alittle “condition” despite having trainedover 100 miles a week for months.Magee was a natural endurance runnerwho could coast at high aerobic speedsall day. Lydiard immediately made himtrain with Ray Puckett, a notoriouslyhard racer and trainer, for severalweeks. The weight came off.

Don MacFarquhar, a well-knownAuckland coach who trained with Snell,recounts that Lydiard had “manydifferent schedules for different ages andstages of development. His 100-mile a

week preparations were really only forthe exceptionally talented or seriousathletes.”

MacFarquhar also recounts howArthur’s standard response to any newtraining method or suggestion was “No!It won’t work” until he’d had time tothink about it and trial the suggestion.MacFarquhar noticed that Snell was“ploughing” the ground with his rawpower when he sprinted, rather thanflowing over it. Snell was already anOlympic 800m champion, so newsuggestions to Lydiard on training werenot advisable.

Nevertheless, MacFarquhar suggested to

Lydiard that Snell should work on histechnique regularly under the instructionof a top sprint coach. Lydiard dulythought this over and realized that Donwas absolutely correct, and initiatedregular Monday night technique drillsunder the tutelage of 400m champion andsprint coach Colin Cameron. This workwas started after Christmas each summerfor the next few years, at the time whenthe endurance buildup had beencompleted.

Lydiard had already intuitivelycoached his champions to Olympicmedals and world records when hewas finally introduced to thephysiology of what he was doing after

a European tour in the early 1960s.

MacFarquhar relates how the wholesquad was called together when Arthurhad returned, and he explained conceptssuch as “anaerobic” and “aerobic”exercise.

He “lost” his squad almost at the outset.Bill Baillie, later a 6th placer in theOlympic 5000m and a world record-holder for 20,000m and 30,000m (stillthe New Zealand 20,000m track record-holder, since 1964!), chirped up saying“You mean fast stuff and slow stuff,coach?” Olympic champion Halbergwas even more to the point: “Coach,does all this change anything we’re

doing in training?” “No, not at all,” saidLydiard. “Good. So we can cut the B.S.and get on with it!” replied Halberg.

Lydiard was also never overlyconcerned with counting mileage exceptfor the period of the endurance phase or“buildup” as we knew it. As this phasewas the foundation, no shortcuts werepossible, and aerobic volume was thekey. However, although the exact amountwas individual and negotiable; theprinciple wasn’t.

Lydiard once wrote, “No one can sayexactly what the limits are for theindividual; it’s a question of each runneradjusting to running and doing what he

or she likes, on the basic understandingthat the more they run aerobically, thebetter the prospects for development aregoing to be.”

As far as the endurance base isconcerned, the principle of individualityhas to be applied with common sense. Iremember a very talented athlete whohad run 50 seconds flat for 400m at 17years of age with very little specifictraining. He had designs on 800mrunning. As he could also cover 200m inclose to 22 seconds and win his schoolcross-country on soccer training, he wasobviously a special talent. In terms ofmuscle fibers, he had a great number ofIIB and IIA fibers, and a small “tank” of

type I slow twitch fibers that hedeveloped enough to win a schoolendurance race, but that was about it.

However, he was a hopeless sight as hestruggled on long runs and fared muchbetter later on when he cut back and ransustained 12 mile (20k) efforts over bighills at close to his best aerobic speeds.For him, that was enough to achieve thegoal of long runs initially, and in lateryears he could have progressed to thetruly longer runs. For various reasons hedidn’t persevere, so we’ll never knowwhat might have been.

Peter Snell was possibly a similarphysical type, and a far more determined

character, so he managed to perseverethrough the early endurance years enoughto turn his IIB fast twitch capacity to IIAfast twitch oxidative capacity, and weall know what became of Peter.

Lorraine Moller, who was trained onLydiard principles since her early teens,was able to run 56 seconds for 400m atthe age of 15, beating much olderwomen. Her coach nurtured her initiallyon 50 aerobic miles a week underLydiard’s instructions, and she thrivedand increased distances from year toyear. Before she was out of her teens,she’d placed 5th in the CommonwealthGames 800m final, and later, 5th in theworld cross-country championships.

After moving to marathon training in1979, she won Commonwealth medalsover 1500 and 3000m in 1982, as wellas breaking the New Zealand women’s1500m record in 1985. In between thesetrack performances she was 5th in theinaugural Olympic women’s marathon.

The great Dick Quax, who coachedLorraine Moller to her BarcelonaOlympics marathon medal, says thisabout individuality: “Every runner isunique. I have never coached tworunners who have reacted in the sameway to training. There is no recipe forsuccess – only sound physiologicalprinciples, which must be adhered to.”It’s a case of horses for courses, but

everyone benefits from correctendurance training.

It will take an athlete and coach a coupleof years at least to learn the likelyreactions to different types of work forthat individual. Often we don’t evenknow “what’s in there” until musclefibers get well-trained. It can be verysurprising, and one may find that theathlete is suited to a totally differentdistance range than he or she initiallyfound success with.

An athlete I coach who had great successas a schoolboy distance runner recentlycommenced his track racing and wasasked on the spur of the moment to run in

a 4 x 400m relay for his club. Earlier inthe month he had won a couple of 800mraces with short sprints in the straight,competing against state-levelcompetitors, on a diet of weekly longVO2 max intervals, with nothing fasterthan 64s 400m pace. After running adisappointing 1500m race and feeling“tired” from working all day before in abottle store, he ran 49.6 for the relay leg.We hadn’t even trained this energysystem or those paces yet at all, so hemay have a very big tank of glycolyticIIA muscle fibers just waiting to betrained.

Train, Don’t Strain

The purpose of this phase was tosystematically build the aerobic capacityto the highest level possible beforecommencing faster work. The biggeststimulus to the development of aerobiccapacity is often uninterrupted timespent at higher aerobic or sub-thresholdlevels: especially with regard to thedevelopment of the very fine bloodvessels in the running muscles (thecapillary beds) and the muscular wallsof the heart itself.

While it’s an established fact these daysthat repeated intense exercise bouts wellover the level of the anaerobic thresholdcan stimulate “growth factors” incapillaries supplying skeletal muscle,

(as long as sufficient recovery time isallowed between intense exercise bouts)it’s also an established fact that theprolonged “acidosis” and muscle traumathat accompanies such exercise can bedetrimental.

More recovery time is required thatcould otherwise have been spent doingproductive aerobic training, withoutsuch “down time.” Even mild acidosishas been shown to disrupt the body’saerobic and anaerobic energy systems,the nervous system, and the function ofcells. Training too intensely is likeplaying with fire. Aerobic training issafe and predictable. There is certainly aplace for more intense work, later, when

the time is right.

Lydiard found that most healthycompetitive adult distance runners couldhandle a volume of around 10-12 hoursof steady to strong aerobic running aweek, and still improve significantly.This effectively would result in a figurearound 100 miles per week for a goodrunner, and became a good yardstick toaim for.

Originally Lydiard’s schedules werewritten for male runners aspiring tonational and international competition.He completely changed his schedules totime-based formulae when one dearelderly lady runnerat a YMCA talk

informed him that she had beenfollowing his schedules religiously andhad completed 102 miles the previousweek, but it took her rather a long time(20 hours!).

Lydiard noted that if an athlete was ableto add slower easier recovery running insecondary sessions, according to his orher ability to maintain the workload, thateven finer results could be attained.

The trick was to do as much strongaerobic running as possible whileimproving week by week but not somuch that general fatigue would result.Lydiard found that the best way tobalance the weekly schedule was by

varying the distances and efforts so thatthe athlete was always able to absorbthe training and come back for more. Theaxiom here was Train, don’t strain.

Absorb Your Training

If we use another analogy here, gettingbase miles in can be compared tostudying. There is only so much one canabsorb effectively. Have you ever spentunproductive hours studying for an examwhen you were already too tired toabsorb the information? There is only somuch that can be absorbed, and beyondthat point, it’s a complete waste of time.So find what your level of “absorption”

is and don’t go over it. This is your “set-point,” and though it may shift over time,don’t rush it. Just because your body cando something when it’s tired doesn’tmean that you’re getting an optimalresult. Do enough to get the result andhave the wisdom to leave it right there.

There is no point in setting a recordweek of mileage if you get sore kneesand ankles, a sore throat, and lose thenext three weeks from minor problems.When I was on the Lydiard program, atabout age 20-22 I could do endlessweeks of 125 miles a week at 6 minutesa mile average (for my evening runs).This was made up of morning orlunchtime jogs of about 5 miles,

Monday-Friday, and longer runsTuesday, Thursday, Saturday, andSunday. A few times I bumped it up toover 135 miles a week, and my jointsfelt stiff, so I didn’t do more. I never gotan injury, a cold, or flu in my best yearof training, which totaled 5400 miles,including a full summer. That year I hada very enjoyable job with regimentedhours.

I had plenty of colds, flu infections, andinjuries in other years when I haddisrupted work and study schedules, andtried to keep old levels of training up inaltered circumstances.

Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day

Control of efforts was a key Lydiardprinciple. One would start the endurancephase at a lower level of performance

and gradually raise it by deliberatelyscheduled “effort runs” that over weekswould increase the aerobic capacity andshift the anaerobic threshold. At no stagewas “racing” of training desired orencouraged: the “acidosis” created byrunning too hard early in the schedulewould slow progress and possibly sendthe athlete into a pit of fatigue.

Patience was everything. Start at oneachievable level and chip away steadilyweek by week, and by week 8 to 12,definite changes would have occurred.

The resting heart rate would be lower,the left ventricle would have a largercapacity, the blood plasma volume

would have increased, and the HeartRate Reserve (the difference betweenthe resting heart rate and the maximalheart rate) would usually increase. Therunning muscles would greatly increasetheir capillarization, their mitochondrialdensity, and their levels of oxidativeenzymes. The maximal oxygen uptakeand the anaerobic threshold would bepushed up as high as possible in thegiven time, without being pulled downby anaerobic running.

The body would utilize more fats as fuel,sparing carbohydrates, and excess bodyfat would drop away, leaving the runneras a lean, mean, running machine.

Effort Runs

Certain days were designated as higheraerobic effort days. For instance, onMondays and Fridays, 10 mile (16kilometer) “steady state” efforts were tobe run at a good effort, which at the startof the “buildup” might mean runs of 65minutes on Monday and 62 minutes onFriday for Magee. By the end of 8weeks, these steady state runs werecovered in a natural progression at 58minutes and 55 minutes respectively.Nowadays we’d call these runs sub-threshold tempo runs, or marathon-pacemedium distance runs.

On those days that didn’t have a longer

run, it was very common to supplementwith a very easy morning run of half anhour to an hour. Some athletes ran twicea day on every day except Sunday, withexcellent results.

Great New Zealand athletes, such asQuax and Rod Dixon, also employedsimilar runs, and both confirmed withBarry Magee in recent years that theywould end up covering these “keystone”runs at closer to 52 minutes by the end ofthe build up phase because they werecapable of faster high-aerobic efforts.This was solid training, not racing, anddefinitely not a threshold run.

Lydiard devised an “effort” system that

would accurately describe the level ofeffort required for any scheduled run. Heexpressed levels of perceived exertionby simple fractions. A steady long run orgeneral aerobic run could be describedas 1/4 effort: a hard time trial duringfinal race preparations would be 7/8effort. A strong run for an hour at 3/4effort during the aerobic base would beequivalent to a run just below theanaerobic threshold, or marathon pace.

Many North American and Europeanrunners who purport to train on theLydiard system mistakenly run theireffort runs a little too hard.

The idea is always to push up an

energy system from below

The safest and most effective pace topush up the aerobic ceiling, andtherefore the anaerobic threshold with it,and therefore increase the time we canhold our VO2 max at, is under threshold:strong “3/4 effort” runs of about an hour,at about 90-95% of anaerobic thresholdspeed- or, really, “marathon pace,” arethe best.

“Marathon training” does not onlyapply to distances run – it also verymuch refers to aerobic effort levelsrun.

The chart here shows the heart rate zone

that relates to “marathon-pace” effortruns for a well-conditioned athlete witha resting pulse of 45 and a maximal heartrate of 195 beats/minute.

“Learn About Your Body”

The athlete has to closely monitor his orher responses to the schedule. Thesedays many athletes use heart ratemonitors to do similar things, but thebeauty of the Lydiard system was that theathlete had to listen to what the bodywas saying at every stage. (LorraineMoller describes the Lydiard system as“response-driven” and “intuitive”:qualities she says are imperative todevelop for the loneliness of racing).

Here is what Lydiard wrote in 1978.

A typical week’s schedule for this phase(for elite athletes) would have Mondayand Friday as the stronger effort runs forabout an hour, with Tuesday andThursday reserved for significantlylonger runs at an easier effort, andWednesday for a fartlek workout ofabout an hour.

Maintain Speed andTechnique

This latter workout could be run on agolf course or on the road, and wouldinvolve a number of short sharp sprintsand inclines interspersed with ampleaerobic recovery. This work would

maintain a stimulus to the fast twitchfibers and maintain good biomechanicsat speed, while not crossing into theunwanted longer anaerobic zones thatbrought on acidosis.

One of the things that Lydiard intuitivelyunderstood long before most exercisephysiologists and distance coaches wasthat fast efforts of less than 10 secondswere too short to trigger the sluggishlactic acid system, and depended onanother short-term energy system thatcould be quickly replenished within ashort aerobic recovery.

We now know that this work used thealactic energy system, which depended

on intra-muscular creatine phosphate, theexplosive short-term fuel utilized mostby the very powerful type IIb fast twitchfibers.

Consistency with Variety

The weekly schedule of the “build up”phase would look something like this: itwas full of variety, and would stimulatedifferent layers of the aerobic energysystems every week. Lydiard was wellaware that constantly varying levels ofeffort and duration in the aerobicthroughout the aerobic phaseaccomplished far more than constantsteady running alone.

You can see that run duration varied, as

well as intensity. To break things up andretain a speed element, fartlek runningwas done on Wednesdays.

Ron Clarke’s Melbourne training group,which included Commonwealthsteeplechase champion Trevor Vincent,and 10,000m runner Tony Cook, wouldoften do some of their “bread and butter”runs around Caulfield Racecourse.Lydiard’s runners would do the samesort of thing around AvondaleRacecourse.

Vern Walker, trained by Lydiard, was avery good Auckland runner who, onseveral occasions, beat his more famousOlympian running partners over cross-

country, road and track in the early1960s. He theorizes that race-courserunning had two main benefits. Thelonger grass gave recovery from theinevitable pounding accrued by longroad runs, and at the same time a certainamount of extra leg-lift was requiredwith each stride to push off. This was aform of low-level resistance work thatstrengthened the hip flexors.

“When you hit the road again to runhome after an hour or so of race-courserunning, you felt light as a feather,” notesWalker.

These days, many athletes use heart ratemonitors to make sure that they stay in

designated aerobic zones. Of course,heart rate monitors weren’t around in theearly Lydiard days, so athletes reallyhad to learn to “listen” to everythingtheir bodies were telling them.

We have discussed the use of heart ratemonitors in an earlier chapter, but it ispossible to reach an extremely high levelwithout one. I imagine Lydiard wouldhave found them very useful, but he’drather his athletes became intuitive andself-reliant, and not depend totally on alittle machine to tell them what their ownbodies were doing.

Experienced track runners would spend8 weeks in this phase before moving to

their hill resistance and faster work:road runners and marathoners wouldspend 10 weeks. If there was enoughtime, working back from the importantcompetition, a longer period would bespent on the aerobic buildup.

Eminent athletes like Dick Quax spent aslong as 12 to 16 weeks in the aerobicbuildup; they needed this to power themthrough very long and arduous Europeanseasons, where the early parts of the tourcould be used as final conditioning. Andas mentioned before, the Finns wereprepared to spend many months on thisphase each year.

Lydiard was adamant until he died that

the base building period should remainaerobic. Here’s what he said a weekbefore he died, to the editor of RunningTimes, in reply to a query about weeklyintervals during aerobic conditioning:

Clearly, this system could therefore beimplemented twice in one year, once forthe winter cross country and roadseason, and once for the summer trackseason. These days, internationalathletes and even junior athletes have to

adapt the principles to accommodate theyear-round availability of races. This iseven more reason for coaches andathletes to be very clear on their targetraces, and plan their seasonsmeticulously. Barry Magee says thatunder his 10 years with Lydiard, it wasalways 8 weeks of conditioning beforetrack and cross-country, and later on, 10weeks before a marathon. Lydiard couldgive longer endurance phases to peoplebrand new to his system, or he could beincluding the 4 weeks of hill training aslargely aerobic work. The repeated shortefforts in hill bounding, with recoveries,and short sprints and strides, neverreally crossed over into the acidosiscreated by the lactic acid system, and it

was very common for people to comeoff this phase in the best shape of theirlives.

The Long Run: How itIncreases AnaerobicPotential!

Weekends had the long 22 mile (35km)run, which included the notorious 5kmhill ascent, followed by another 15kilometers or so of undulating running onthe ridge of the mountains overlookingAuckland, before a long gradual descentand undulating to flat finish.

The main aim of this run was to putconstant pressure on the cardiovascularand aerobic systems and exhaust theglycogen stores in the fast twitch musclefibers, although in the 1950s and 1960s,neither Lydiard, nor physiologists, knewall that. If one’s legs felt “tired andheavy” in the closing stages, then thatwas “mission accomplished,” andLydiard knew from practical experiencethat this would result in increasedperformance capacity later.

The hill climb was a substantial effort atany stage of the year, and early in theconditioning period it would be

attempted steadily and cautiously. By theend of the conditioning period, this hill-climb would consist of about 20 minutesof running with a heart rate at the edge ofthe anaerobic threshold zone. If anathlete ran the early miles at too fast aneffort for his conditioning, he would“blow up” later in the run by usingprecious carbohydrate stores too earlyand not be able to complete the rest ofthe course in a fit state. Athletes thuslearned to ration their efforts and fuelsvery carefully in this weekly run.

The uphill run provided other valuablestimuli. The fast twitch muscle fiberswould be recruited to provide the extrapower that uphill running requires. The

prime movers for uphill running areessentially the same required for fastrunning; these would be strengthened bythe resistance training.

Slow twitch fibers, although admirablysuited to long endurance runs, doeventually fatigue as they are the onlyones preferentially recruited at lowerpaces. One to two hours of running willoften do the job, depending upon theeffort and fitness levels. Although slowtwitch fibers can preferentially burn fatsat low intensities, with stronger aerobicefforts their readily availablecarbohydrate stores (blood glucose,muscle glycogen) will gradually be usedup. Meanwhile, the fast twitch fibers

have not been used much at all, and stillhave most of their glycogen stores intact,unless the early pace has been too fastfor the level of conditioning.

Muscle tension with each stride has tobe maintained, and especially on uphillclimbs, this recruits the intermediary fasttwitch fibers next, with their own(limited) stores of muscle glycogen.These fibers will then use up theirglycogen, eventually having to resort totheir third-choice fuel of fats, therebylowering power output. This leaves onlythe very fast (IIB) fibers with glycogenand creatine phosphate reserves tomaintain tension, and these are recruitedlast.

The constant pressure upon fast twitchand intermediary fast twitch fibers underthe pressure of lowering fuel availabilityforces the muscles to adapt over time.They adapt by becoming more efficientat replenishing and storing glycogen,utilizing fats, and increasing the ratioand number of intermediary fast twitchfibers (Type IIa), which increases thepotential of the body to runanaerobically when glycogen levels arerestored.

Why? These fibers are primarilyglycolytic, so because there are more ofthem across a given muscle, potentialglycolytic capacity has been increased.(The downside is that the ratio of very

explosive IIB fibers will decrease, butthere’s an answer for that in the nextphase of training).

After the uphill slog, the recoverydownhill and following efforts along theridge road involved hovering at the edgeof the anaerobic threshold and learningto disperse lactates at strong aerobicspeeds, while starting to fatigue thecarbohydrate stores in the muscles andliver.

The final miles of gradual descent andflat running were largely pureendurance/ fatty acid metabolismrunning, but a short sharp hill of about700m at the 28km mark served to jolt the

fatiguing athlete into short-termanaerobic metabolism again.

So there you have it: once an athlete wasfit enough to get fit and had established adecent base of endurance running, themeat and potatoes of the system centeredon 8 to 10 weeks devoted purely to thedevelopment of the aerobic systems andall the fuel utilization, aerobic enzyme,and cardiovascular benefits that wouldfollow.

* Costill, D. L. “A Scientific Approachto Distance Running,” Track and FieldNews Publications, 79-80, 1989.

First Anaerobic Phase

Multiple Long Intervals,Short Recovery, and VO 2

Max Time Trials

Intervals, for the sake of this book, arework bouts with a recovery generallyequal to or shorter than the duration ofthe work bout.

Repetitions, which come later, are workbouts that are considerably faster andshorter, with a much-needed recoverythat is far longer than the work bout.

Time Trials over longer distances areused initially to look for weaknesses inrunning and drops in concentration; lapsare carefully timed. Time trials arenever run at full effort in this first phase.

Lydiard used to refer to this first phaseof anaerobic training as “tiring, exacting

work.” In this phase the athlete wouldperform numerous work bouts at paceswell above the anaerobic threshold, withjust enough recovery to get through theworkout while still holding onto goodrunning form, so that the body could begradually exposed to high levels ofacidosis.

The aim was to do enough prolongedharder work to get very tired, thuslowering the systemic blood pH as muchas possible, without it being so fast thatlocal acidosis in the leg muscles stoppedthe process too early.

The desired training effect after all thisfatigue and acidic blood chemistry was

an increased ability of the body tochemically “buffer” these acids so thateventually very high rates could bemaintained as long as possible. A goodchemical buffer is often a very weakacid or alkali: it can neutralize theeffects of very high acidosis.

The work rate and paces in this firstphase were very close to what we nowcall VO2 max pace. We can see from theearlier example of Snell’s mixed tracktraining leading to his first worldrecords in 1962 that there were anumber of time trial efforts or low keyraces over 2 miles, 3 miles, and 1 mile,and several interval workouts such as 10x 800m in 2.10, or 10 x 400m under 60

seconds, with equal distance recovery.As the major target races approached,shorter, harder races, time trials, andrepetitions were run.

In Snell’s case, track training started inlate November. World records weredelivered in late January and earlyFebruary. About 9 weeks from “Go” to“Whoa.” (The earlier European tracktour would have left a recent anaerobicbase.)

The one mile, 2 mile, and 3 mile solidtime trial distances are interesting for an800m runner. They can be interpreted asconstant efforts at VO2 max pace, or justslower.

The 10 interval work bouts over 800min 2.10 were also at VO2 max pace forSnell. (VO2 max pace is extremely closeto what we can hold for 8 minutes, or3000m pace at international level). 2.10for 800m is 8.06 3000m pace, and thiswould (at a guess!) be very close towhat Snell was capable of over thatdistance at that stage of his career. Themile efforts in 4.10 to 4.15 werebasically in the fast end of his VO2 maxspectrum, and the windy 3 miles in14.23 was at the slow end.

Lydiard could give a 14-minute 5000mrunner a workout like 6 x 800m at 2.15,or 20 x 400m at 67 seconds in themiddle of this phase. Some days could

be spent on developing leg speed withrepeated fast relaxed runs over 100-150m, and long easy recoveries. Otherdays could involve 7/8 effort time trialsover 3000m to 5000m. A long easy runwould be included each week. Duringthis phase it wasn’t expected that onecould race well yet, but one could if onewanted and call it “information.” Lots ofeasy aerobic running was encouragedbetween anaerobic sessions to facilitatefull recovery. Snell covered 10 milesevery morning, or an hour’s easyrunning, mostly on a local golf course,during his record-breaking summer of1962. This was quite apart from hisevening speed sessions and races.

The intervals were very close inprinciple and application to the “aerobiccapacity” intervals run by SebastianCoe, or the “multi-pace training”advocated since the 1970s by Britishcoach Frank Horwill. Having read PeterCoe’s books quite thoroughly, I wouldsay his “aerobic capacity” intervals arereally VO2 max intervals and could betermed “anaerobic capacity” intervalsfor our purposes.

The basic principle was also used by1936 Olympic 1500m champion JackLovelock and, later, Roger Bannister.Sebastian Coe’s coach and father, Peter,even went as far as describing Coe’s5000m pace work as the “golden

sessions” that got his oxygen uptake veryhigh.

More recently, US coach andphysiologist Dr. Jack Daniels hasexpounded the use of VO2 max intervals,run between 5000m pace and 3000mpace, before commencing even fasteranaerobic work. The beauty of hissystem is that he has clearly defined thepaces that need to be run, based onathletes’ current best performances at anumber of distances. Lydiard did asimilar thing by basing his classic“effort tables” on average best racetimes at various distances, and hemaintained that any sharpening programwould “fall over” if the efforts were not

adhered to accurately.

All of these great coaches share acommon principle when it comes to thiswork, despite the differing terminologyand ways of arriving at similarconclusions.

I will refer to the recent work of Danielsto define the different anaerobic zonesthat Lydiard was using years ago. I thinkit is appropriate because I want toclarify exactly what it wasphysiologically that Arthur was doing byhis intuition, in light of current thinking.

In my interpretation, Lydiard’s initialphase of anaerobic work bears striking

similarities to the later VO2 max work ofDr. Jack Daniels.

Do these following tables work? Well,over two years ago we made aerobicprofiles for a few of our H.I.T. SQUADyoungsters. One of them, MatthewColoe, seemed particularly suited to800m and 1500m but needed to work onhis long endurance.

We told Matthew in 2005 that when hecould run 3000m off endurance work in8:22 or faster, that he could run 3:45 for1500m. In December 2007, he ran 2nd inthe Australian Junior 3000m champs inabout 8:18, and the next month ran 3:45for 1500m. There had been no real

glycolytic work or sharpening as such;just a diet of weekly steady 5000m paceintervals, and the rest was mostlyaerobic work, with the usual weekly legspeed session thrown in.

More on Time TrialsTime trials at 7/8 effort over longerdistances such as 3000m-5000m duringthe early race preparation phase give thehard sustained exertion required for anoptimal training effect physiologicallyand psychologically, without theacidosis and lactate of a full effort.

If an athlete can regularly run a hardsustained effort around the track atlevels approaching his or her maximumoxygen uptake, this will toughen him orher psychologically for the more brutalwork to come. The aim is for smooth,constant effort where lap times vary verylittle, concentrating on keeping effort up

through the psychological “bad patch”usually felt by athletes at 66-75% of theeffort distance.

Lydiard would often say things like,“Give the body something to do oftenenough in training, and it will adapt.”

There is nothing to be gainedpsychologically from going intoexcessive oxygen debt and acidosis:exactly the same training effect can beachieved by hovering at the edge of themaximum oxygen uptake.

Physiologically, these runs would trainthe body to adapt very specifically to theconstant high-level exertion of longer

track racing without pulling hard-wonaerobic condition down too much.

Later in the peaking program for middledistance events, under-distance timetrials at over 600m or 1200m could bevery helpful for 800m or 1500m runnersrespectively. Lydiard would want theserun at realistic goal race-pace, without a“last lap sprint.” For training purposes,full efforts were never wanted. Fulleffort was left for the first importantrace.

The last lap sprint could be trained inother race-speed-specific sessions in thepeaking phase, and it could all becoordinated as the major races

approached.

Daniels’ Running FormulaTables

The following is the highlightedexpected performance range of an athletewith a “V Dot” racing level of 75.0.Laboratory-tested VO2 max is a poorpredictor of race performance, but actualrace performance is the best predictor ofrace performance at other distances,especially if they use similar energysystems. For instance, an established10,000m time should give a realisticestimate of 5000m and 15k times to aimat. An athlete who hasn’t achieved all ofthe times across the spectrum at his or

her V Dot level may have not trained therelevant energy systems and speeds wellor may have a lack of trainability(genetic) in the most dominant musclefibers and energy systems. The 400mcolumn is a “best-fit estimate” made bythis author and is not from the originalDaniels tables. It takes into account thelikely required 400m time at 400 toachieve the adjacent 800m time.

How they may be applied to working outyour correct training pacesThe tables on these pages areexcerpted and slightly modified from:Daniels, J. Daniels’ RunningFormula, 2nd Edition, Human Kinetics:2005.

HOW TO ESTIMATE VDOT TRAINING PACESThis sheet shows the relevant ranges oftraining paces to aim at for the athletewho has achieved a V Dot of 75.0.These paces are the optimal paces toaim at to get the maximal training effect.Any faster is counter-productive. Forinstance, the athlete who has achievedtimes of 14.03 and 29.14 for 5000m and10000m respectively, (previous page)should be able to get his time for 1500mdown to 3:45.5 over a number of weeksby gradually introducing early-anaerobicphase VO2 max intervals at 2:14 per800m, or 2:49 per 1000m, with equal orless recovery, then gradually increasing

pace and introducing glycolyticrepetitions with long recoveries over600m at 92 seconds, eventually movingto 400m repetitions in 61 seconds withfull recovery. To get to the potential800m pace, we next bring in work at theFast Reps paces with ample recovery.This eventually will bring the 600mpace down to 82 seconds, and a fewrepetitions of 400m in 55 seconds, withfull recovery to allow goodbiomechanics at speed.

Creating an Aerobic Profile

Creating an aerobic profile using tablessuch as these is very simple and easy.The charts themselves can form the“graph.” Ideally, a well-trained athleteshould have a “flat line” across a rangeof distances that are regularly raced.Below is a sample from the author’s1980/81 summer season, where hisactual track or road times have beenapproximated to fit the chart.

The actual times recorded that seasonwere 1500m: 3:54.7, 3000m 8:06.0,5000m 14:11, 10000m 29:41. Adisparity in these times is seenimmediately. The highest oxygen powerranking is seen at the 75.0 V Dot levelfor 3000m. No specific 1500m or 800mpace training was done that season as theauthor was carrying a couple of minorinjuries and “raced himself fit” with

Saturday races once a week overvarying distances between 1500m and5000m, with the rest of his training beingsteady aerobic runs up to 22 miles. The5000m and 10000m times weren’t up tothe level of the 3000m as

The 3000m time was achieved becausebefore it there had been four 5000mraces, three 1500m races, and one3000m race over a two-month period.These 5000m and 3000m races wereVO2 max workouts, and the 1500mraces, though not fast, served to

stimulate glycolytic energy systemsabove VO2 max.

Later, the author recorded other timesusing differing training methods thatresulted in the following profile: 1500m3:50, 5000m 14:04, 10000m 29:19, 15kroad 44:37.

The author hardly ever raced at 800m as

he found it far easier to be competitiveover longer track distances. However,he should have raced over thosedistances regularly in early season eachyear to balance his aerobic profile andachieve his potential at 1500. If thecorrect specific anaerobic work hadbeen introduced, much better times couldhave been achieved and perhaps adifferent spectrum of race distancesattempted.

Here’s another example of an unusualprofile: youngster Navin Arunasalamcan run 200m any time of year in 23seconds or under. He can run 400m in49.6 in a time-trial. He can run 600m atthe drop of a hat in under 79s, a time

which could stretch many mature 800mathletes. He has a huge glycolyticanaerobic tank with muscle fibers thatare probably high in IIB and IIAdistribution, but with few Type I slowtwitch fibers. However, his 800m timeis still about 1:51.8, and his 1500m and3000m times have lagged way behindhis 800m time. He responds best toaerobic running mixed with intervals athis estimated VO2 max pace (1000m in2:50, repeated). He does this sort ofwork, or ten minutes at his sub-thresholdpace, after leg speed drills in his trackwarm-ups. This enables him to runconsistently.

We have found with Navin, and his

training partner Matthew (another 1:51.9800m runner as a junior), that a Tuesdaysession of VO2 max intervals will ensurea strong last 100m in a Saturday race,even though it is “miles slower” thanrace pace. Why? Because when you’revery tired at 700m, the energy systemschange down a gear from the glycolyticsystem to the next-best-trained system.This is something that Lydiard alwaysensure, long before VO2 max had asurname! Every system remains“trained” leading into a race. You willsee from the chart below that if Nav canget his 3000m time down that his 800mtime will come back down too. Imaginethat the aerobic profile is like aclothesline secured against the 400m

time. Lowering the “aerobic end” of theline won’t change the 400m time muchbut will lower the line as a whole,including the region most relevant to800m.

Note:You can see that if Navin can eventuallyget his 3000m down to 8:13, for

example, that the profile would morelikely pass through an 800m time wellunder 1:50. Aerobic endurance can beimproved much more easily over timethan lactate tolerance. (A far more exactchart by Jack Daniels and Jimmy Gilbertcan be ordered by sending a check forUS $20 to Jack Tupper Daniels, 20 EastSeparation Canyon Trail, Flagstaff, AZ86001). Another useful source of similarmaterial is the McMillan RunningCalculator onwww.mcmillanrunning.com.

Why Is VO2 Max PaceAnaerobic?

Isn’t There Still Oxygen?

For a world-class athlete, the anaerobicthreshold is extremely close to his halfmarathon race pace. For the rest of us,it’s what we can race flat out for 50minutes to an hour. Our heart hums alongat 85% of its maximum or faster.

Running faster than this for any extendedperiod raises acidosis in the body allalong, but we’re still capable of runningconsiderably faster yet, and extracting

and delivering even more oxygen fromthe air we breathe until acidosis gets sogreat that we can’t possibly extract anymore oxygen and are forced to slow.

That pace is very anaerobic because it’sway above the anaerobic threshold andbecause it’s the running velocity atmaximal oxygen uptake (we know it asVO2 max). It corresponds to 3000m pacefor a world-class athlete or extremelyclose to what we can run flat out for 8minutes for the rest of us.

However, once more, we can still runfaster again, even though our heart isnow thumping at its maximum rate andwe’ve extracted as much oxygen as we

can. This faster running is done by usingthe powerful short-term glycolytic andalactic anaerobic systems, but thoserates of running can’t be approachedeffectively by running faster and fasterover longer intervals. Increasingacidosis prevents us from getting thereeffectively.

We have to go shorter, harder, andfaster, with ample recovery, to developthat higher-intensity part of the anaerobicsystem.

Lydiard would often give his athletesspecific paces to run these sessions at,and other times he was happy as long asthey were “generally tired.” His books

and interviews don’t give much detailunfortunately, as Lydiard considered theanaerobic phase as the “least important”phase of his schedule.

He didn’t like to delve into elaborateexplanations of anaerobic training,saying that it could be accomplished in“101 ways” and was “eyewash.”

In one of his books, he discussessupervising such a workout in the finalweeks of preparation with Dick Tayler,who was to win 10,000m gold in theCommonwealth Games in 1974 with astunning last lap.

“The workout was at a school, and the

school coach and his athletes werecurious to know what times he wasrunning his 400m repetitions in and howmany he was going to run.

“Look,” I told them, “he doesn’t know,and I don’t know. It wouldn’t evenmatter if they weren’t 400 meterrepetitions. As long as he’s tired, he’sgoing to get the required physiologicalreactions.”

That was OK for Lydiard and Tayler.One was a world-class coach and theother was a world-class runner. Ofcourse they knew what they were doingby this stage! But over 30 years later, therest of us need a bit of a guide. Here

goes, with all due respect.

Without going into great detail, Danielsstates that the safest form of VO2 maxinterval is run at 95% of VO2 max pace,which is right at 5000m pace for goodcompetitive runners. According to all hiswork over the last 40 years with world-class athletes, 95% VO2 max pace ismore than sufficient to stimulate VO2

max from “below.” Recent researchindicates that training an energy systemsuch as the anaerobic threshold, forinstance, can positively influence thetime one can hold VO2 max pace for. Itseems that training within one generalzone can have benefits for the nexthigher level of intensity.

(Refer back to the previous pages onDaniels’ V Dot Training Paces. Thesefindings are accurate for the vastmajority of serious, well-conditionedmiddle distance athletes and providean excellent frame of reference foraccurately assessing and fine-tuninganaerobic sessions.)

Because it is slightly slower than 100%VO2 max pace (3000m pace), 95% VO2

max pace (5000m pace) is easier on thebody and more time can be spent in thatrealm. 100% VO2 max pace can be used,but more sparingly as it is very toughwork and the objective is to train, notstrain.

Any extended work faster than 100%VO2 max pace with insufficient recoveryis a total waste of time because exactlythe same training effect of raising theoxidative capacity of the muscles tomaximum can be achieved without theextra acidosis and recovery required.That’s good news. The extra acidosiscan even harm progress at this stage.

Time spent at or near VO2 max is thebiggest stimulus to maximum oxygenuptake, as one would expect. It stillproduces plenty of the desired acidosisand extreme pressure on thecardiovascular system but does so at atolerable level that the nervous systemand musculature can handle.

NB: A session of “20 x 400” at ¼ effortwould often be given early season. Thiswould have about a lap brisk jogrecovery. A well-conditioned athletewould normally be able to average closeto his or her VO2 max pace on these,whether he meant to or not.

I looked at a diary from early in my1980/81 track season where I had beengiven such a session and the first 10400m intervals averaged 65.4, and thelast 10 averaged a fraction more, withthe last interval run in 64s. This wasincredibly close to the average pace Iheld for a 3000m (VO2 max pace) laterin the season for a time of 8:06.

These workouts take a number of effortsto get the heart rate into the maximalzone, due to the regular recoveries.However, once “up there,” the heart ratestays near the maximal level for theduration of the session.

What Should It Feel Like,Then?

The most effective work bouts orintervals for running appear to be longerthan 2 minutes or shorter than 5 minutes,with equal or shorter recovery,depending on fitness. Any longer than 5minutes at VO2 max pace and it’s toonear being a race in intensity, without the

adrenalin, to have training value.

Shorter work bouts of 400m (at 5000mpace) can be used, but it takes a few ofthese intervals in a row, with shortrecoveries, until the heart rate andacidosis are in the right realm. It takessome time at a hard pace (usuallyminutes, at first) to get the heart rate upto near maximum.

With shorter intervals, just as the heartrate starts to sneak towards maximum,the recovery interval snatches it back outof the target zone, so the first few efforts,even though they are at the correct pace,fail to achieve time in the correct heartrate zone. With longer work bouts, the

heart rate keeps climbing to nearmaximum and stays there for quite sometime. The heart rate is still high at thevery start of the recovery, near itsmaximum, and because of the substantialoxygen debt incurred only drops slightlybefore jumping back up with the nextinterval. More of the effort will reachVO2 max, or very close to VO2 max, in asession.

In fact, Dr. Gerschler, the famousGerman coach and physiologist of the1940s, claimed that the heart strokevolume would increase in recoveryperiods between intervals.

This sort of workout can total up to6000m at VO2 pace, for a mature athletewho has an extensive aerobicbackground. More is possible, but thenwe are dealing with a very hardextended workload. It may be better todo a shorter session regularly that onecan recover adequately from.

How Coach BideauApproaches Interval Work

In a recent article for the Australianpublicat ion Modern Athlete andCoach, Nic wrote the following:

“I prefer high volumes of work whenusing intervals, with 6-10k of running atvarious speeds relevant to the athlete’scurrent fitness level for 1500m, 3000m,5000m or 10,000m with recovery boutsas required to maintain that pace.

“In the first stages of a training programthese are initially focused on 10,000mrace pace or even slower. Closer to themain target race faster speeds areintroduced at the specific pace of theevent the athlete is training for. I believethat too often athletes try to run too fast

in track sessions relevant to their currentfitness and are too anxious to focus ontheir cruising speeds for 1500m or3000m races, whereas I prefer to set thebulk of these sessions at 5000m or10,000m cruising speeds over longerdistance repetitions interspersed withshorter faster work.

“For example, when training for an eventsuch as the World Cross Country inMarch, Benita Johnson may begin thepreparation in November with 8-10 x 1km on a dirt path in around 3.20 withone minute rest. This develops into 3.10and the next step is to speed up 2 of thereps, the 5th and 7th in 3.00. This mayprogress to 4 x 2km reps on the track

with a lap jog recovery doing the 1st and3rd rep alternating laps in 70s (current3k race pace) and 75s (half marathonrace pace), the 2nd and 4th rep all evenpaced at 75s per lap (10k race pace).

“There are a myriad of workouts that canbe designed with this philosophy. Themain aim is to always be doing enoughhigh volume to continue building aerobicendurance while introducing some fasterrunning that relates to shorter distancerace paces and still avoid flooding theathlete’s muscles with lactate during theworkout.

“So varied are the possiblecombinations that rarely do the athletes

repeat the same workout. I see a coupleof distinct advantages in this – they don’tgo home to check their diary andcompare workouts from week to weekor year to year – too often athletes try tocompare workouts from one period toanother, which I regard as impossible todo for any real gain.

“You can never go to the track with allother elements of your life exactlyduplicated from one day to the next soyou will always fail to read into theeffects of other situations whether theybe weather, poor sleep the night before,harder training the week before,personal problems or whatever – andbeing different, the workouts always

provide an interesting challenge to theathletes who don’t know exactly howthey will feel not having done that exactworkout before.

“Closer to the big race, these workoutsoften mimic planned strategies due to beemployed in the race whilst surroundingit with volume to ensure aerobic fitnessis still maintained. Before theMelbourne Commonwealth Games5000m Mottram ran a series of3x1600m. The first one was done in 4.20(basically what we felt was around10,000m race pace for him or morespecifically the slowest we couldimagine the Commonwealth 5000m racebeing run at inside the last 2km).

“The 2nd rep was to practice the tactic,which we hoped could take him clear ofthe Kenyans in the Melbourne 5000m.His training partner, England’s 5000mrunner at the Games, Mo Farah, ran the1st lap in 65 secs and Mottram went tothe lead running the 2nd lap faster, the3rd lap faster again and once moreincreasing the pace on the last lap. Heran those laps in 59, 58 and 57 for afinal 1600m time of 3.59. He then easedback to 4.20 again for the 3rd rep andfinished the workout by cruising 4 x200m at 1500m race tempo with an easy200m jog recovery. We felt he wasready for Ben Limo and he was. But,unfortunately for us, Augustine Chogehad something else.

“These sessions are usually only carriedout once per week. If a second sessionof repetition running is used it is usuallyhill repetitions. Athletes usually beginwith 6-8 repetitions of running uphill forthree minutes at around 10,000m racepace or effort. Then shorten the distanceto something that can be reached in oneminute running at around 3000m racepace effort. Sometimes they alternatethree minute efforts with one minutefaster efforts in a series of 8 repetitions.

“I prefer the hills to be not so steep thatthe athlete can’t run up them smoothlyfor three minutes at 10,000m race pace.The recovery taken is as long as it takesto jog back down the hill easily and feel

ready to go for the next repetition. Ibelieve these workouts are fantastic fordeveloping power and speed as well asrunning efficiency.”

Why Lydiard Would NeverUse Short, Hard, FastIntervals at this Stage

Lydiard would never use short, hard,fast repetitions at this stage because thefirst phase of anaerobic training wasaimed at getting the systemic circulationinto acidosis. This was ably achieved bythe sustainable longer work periods ofthe VO2 max type work.

However, very fast running over shorterdistances would not be able to achievethe initial goal of systemic acidosisbecause the rates of anaerobic exercisewere so fast that the leg muscles wouldbecome very fatigued with localacidosis long before a systemic responsewas achievable. This is not unlike anathlete doing bench press untilexhaustion in a gym, with local muscleexhaustion and glycolysis stopping theexercise, but the athlete is still able to goand lift heavily in another exercise usinganother muscle group. The fatigue andacidosis is a localized event that doesnot stop exercise altogether.

In terms of rates of acidosis, although

VO2 training at 5000m and 3000m pacedefinitely can produce significantacidosis in the general circulation overminutes, the rate is nothing compared towhat happens in the legs when running at1500m and 800m pace. At those pacesthere is far less likelihood that thecardiovascular system can flush all ofthe acids out of the muscles and backinto the general circulation. So acidsbuild up exponentially in the legs andeverything stops.

The goal of reaching a high level ofacidosis in the systemic circulation ismuch harder to achieve this way, andlocal muscle fatigue stops the exerciseanyhow.

For instance, a runner with an estimatedVO2 Max of 75 (mls/kg/min) may beexpected to have a realistic potentialrange of times ranging from 1.50 at 800to 3.45 for 1500, 8.04 for 3000m, and14.04 for 5000m, according to aerobictables devised by Daniels. This assumesthat the differing energy systems have allbeen well-trained, and that the runnerhas a degree of natural speed.

Often it can be shown that under-achievement at a particular distance isdue to lack of specific training or racingat the relative paces rather than a totallack of aptitude.

If we look at the speeds involved, we

are moving down from 67s 400m pace at5000m (95% of VO2 max pace) to justunder 65s for 3000m (100% VO2 maxpace). The 1500m pace at this level is60s per 400m, and 800m pace is 55seconds.

100% VO2 max pace is a full 9 secondsper 400m slower than realisticachievable 800m pace and 5 secondsslower than 1500m pace. So, obviously,those paces have to be run next, andworkouts at those paces can be steadilyintroduced on the road to the “peakperformance.”

Having said this, the technical andneuromuscular aspects of fast running

have never been lost. Only lactic acidtolerance ability has been allowed todrop away to some degree until thisstage because the training of that part ofthe anaerobic system (the glycolytic)would counter the optimal developmentof aerobic capacity and oxidativeenzymes. Very short, relaxed alactic leg-speed runs, done throughout most of theyear (or within fartlek workouts duringLydiard’s original base periods) wouldmaintain and develop speed runningbeautifully.

The Second AnaerobicPhase

Glycolytic Exercise

Short Fast Repetitions with

Ample Recovery

When we get much beyond about 10seconds with flat-out running (and theexact time will vary according to ourtraining and genetics), then we enteranother energy realm. This is the realmwhere acid wastes build up at a ratequicker than the body can get rid of orrecycle them. This part of the anaerobicenergy system is called the glycolyticenergy system, where the primary fuel isglucose, which is broken down withoutoxygen to yield energy. The 6-carbonglucose molecule is split into two 3-carbon molecules of pyruvic acid, whichin turn is rapidly metabolized into lacticacid.

Lactic acid is really a rather inert largesugar molecule that is beneficial to thefunction of tiring muscles. Lactic acidconsists of a hydrogen ion (H+) attachedto a lactate ion (La-), and thisaccumulation of hydrogen ions in hard-working muscle creates the acidosis thateventually stops nerves and musclesfrom functioning efficiently.

Lactic acid is a fuel that can be used bythe heart, brain, and tissues in theabsence of enough oxygen for quite afew seconds. It can be shuttled aroundthe body rapidly. It can be re-metabolized (slowly) by the liver backinto starchy fuels (glycogen) or glucoseitself.

However, regardless of the biochemistryand the many benefits of lactic acid, allwe really have to understand in practicalterms is that acidosis is not good on aregular basis.

If hard acidosis-producing exercise isundertaken too regularly, without lettingthe body fully recover, then a cascade of

nasty things will occur.

At the cellular level of the muscle, theseharmful effects have been well-documented. For a start, we have therupture of the cell membrane wall, withleakage of cell proteins and destructivehemolytic enzymes into the bloodstreamand extra-cellular tissues.

According to Dutch sports medicinedoctor, endurance coach, and authorPeter Janssen, the aerobic enzymesystem can be sabotaged, with adecrease in endurance capacity.

Fat metabolism, carbohydratemetabolism, and alactic metabolism may

all be compromised. It may be daysbefore the aerobic system recovers andthe aerobic capacity is at its old levelagain.

It may be 24 to 96 hours before thesevalues settle down. Recovery from thedamage may take longer.

Does this mean we don’t ever exercisethis way? No. But we train itintelligently and specifically at our levelof current development, at theappropriate time, and with plenty ofeasy aerobic exercise all around it to getthe acidosis out of the systemiccirculation and back to a neutral statebefore any further hard work is done.

Funnily enough, we need this sort oftraining in sparing doses to fully realizeour potential in the middle distances.What we don’t need is to bomb thisenergy system day in, day out, at a timeof year when we should be“accumulating” aerobic fitness andimproving sprint potential.

So many aspiring athletes and theircoaches train this misguided way that Ihave devoted a whole chapter to it later.Every person who has contributed to thisbook has made major costly mistakes intraining: this is why they are goodcoaches or athletes!

In a nutshell, what athletes and coaches

need to realize is that any sustainedexercise faster than threshold pace hasthe capacity to induce acidosis andgeneral fatigue. The harder and moresustained the exercise, the more restrequired. To some coaches, rest is justanother 4-letter word. To a Lydiardcoach, rest is relative. Very hard fastefforts can be balanced out with verylow-key aerobic “recovery” of someduration. This type of “Active Rest” getsour systems back to neutral in the bestpossible way. Total rest does very littleto flush the muscles and their aerobicsystems.

Alactic exercise, i.e., very short burstsof fast exercise with plenty of recovery,

is quite different to glycolytic anaerobicexercise. Alactic exercise is reasonablysafe, especially if done with a goodrelaxed technique. Whatever speed wecan repeatedly stride through over shortdistances like 60 meters is well andtruly faster than our best possible 200m,or 300m pace, and very much faster thanour 400m pace. There’s no problemdoing this sort of work regularly. It hasto be done regularly to train fastmovement patterns, which are alearnable skill.

Here we come to the tip of the anaerobicportion of the massive Lydiard trainingpyramid. This final work commences inthe weeks leading up to the important

races. At this stage, racing is the ultimatefocus, not long endurance training orhard sustained training or VO2 maxtraining. That’s all been done in thecorrect, logical sequence.

Any long running is at a very easyaerobic pace that will really tend to usefats as a primary fuel rather than storedcarbohydrates. We need to save thesestored carbohydrates for hard, fastefforts.

Remember that any speed potentialreached over short sprint distancesduring the previous track season hadbeen maintained to a degree by shortfartlek bursts once a week during the

endurance or buildup phase. This wasthen developed further with sprint drills,striding, and bounding in the hill phase.All of these developed the explosivealactic portion of the anaerobic capacity,as well as strengthening the specificmuscles and movement patterns used infast racing. So the long endurance isthere, and the short speed is there.

The body’s ability to tolerate systemicacidosis has now been developed tonear its maximum by the extensive VO2

max-pace work over a number of weeks.It does not take any longer than fiveweeks to develop this specific capacityof the body to maximum, although wecan do it more gradually.

Easy running days between thoseanaerobic effort days would be used torestore more normal blood pH. Veryeasy running for up to an hour,depending on training maturity, wouldalso be encouraged on the morning ofanaerobic effort days.

So all we have to develop now is thespecific ability of the middle distanceathlete’s body to tolerate the very fastrates of local leg muscle acidosis thatwill be experienced in 800m or 1500mrunning at the current level of aerobicdevelopment.

If the athlete has developed the aerobiccapacity to a known level of longer

distance performance, by utilizing theDaniels tables we can have a veryaccurate idea of current achievablepotential at shorter distances, givenspecific training.

Using the earlier example of an athletewho has developed aerobic capacity to alevel that corresponds with a predictedVO2 max of 75 mls /kg /min, we seefrom the tables that this indicates apotential of 800m in 1.50, 1500m in3.45.5, 3000m in 8.04, or 10000m in29.14.

Paces down to 3000m pace have beenhandled in the earlier phase, as they arelargely VO2 max pace. The pace

required to run 3000m to potential isabout 64 to 65 seconds per 400m. Thisis a world away from the pace requiredto run 1500m to potential (60s), or 800m(55s).

Please Note: Glycolytic anaerobictraining does not have to be any fasterthan our current realistic achievable1500m or 800m pace.

These 1500m and 800m paces are whatwe base our realistic glycolyticrepetition paces on. It’s no use for amature runner with an endurancecapacity of, say, 31 minutes for 10k, or aVO2 max equivalent (“V dot”) on theDaniels tables of only 69.5, trying to do

repetitions of 400m in 60s, in the vainhope he will achieve a 1500m time of3:45, a time that requires a much higherlevel of equivalent oxygen uptake on theDaniels tables (V dot 75.0).

He most likely hasn’t developed hisendurance capacity to the level required,and his realistic goal pace is more likely1500m in 4:00 and 800m in 1:57. Byrunning his repetitions any faster thanthose race paces, he is probably runningabove his training level and invokingacidosis way above the level required toachieve current potential. He is actuallyharming his current potential.

One way to look at things in this

particular example (V dot 75.0) wouldbe to introduce 1500m pace glycolyticwork (60s 400m pace) after the VO2 maxpace work (65s 400m pace), which is areasonable increase in pace to cope withover a number of weeks. The pace canbe introduced over different repetitiondistances from 150m up initially andworking up to 600m but always with fullrecovery.

The next logical progression would beto introduce sessions at 800m pace, anincrease in pace of another 5 secondsper 400m, and this increase in paceshould be stepped up over a few weeks.If we have done our work properly andmethodically, all systems will be firing,

and brief glycolytic workouts at ourappropriate 1500m and 800m paces areall that are required to complete the taskof coming to a peak.

Remember, we have already developedour very short distance speed capacitysignificantly with leg speed drills, sowe’re just topping the anaerobiccapacity or systemic acidosis training(VO2 max pace) with an injection ofbrief glycolytic sessions. For the manwho has run 29.14 for 10,000m, (V dot75.0), trying to achieve his theoreticalpotential 1:50 800m can be achieved byrunning glycolytic 800m pace repetitionstotaling no more than 1600m.

This could consist of 4 x 400m in 55s,for instance, with a full walk/jogrecovery that may last a number ofminutes after each repetition.

His total workload at 1500m pace neednot total more than 3,200m.

This could consist of 8 x 400m in 60s,for instance, with a full walk/jogrecovery that may last a number ofminutes after each repetition.

Small total workloads of very fastglycolytic running (800m pace) willyield a terrific training response if thepreceding work has been done correctlyand full aerobic recovery is taken. If the

preceding work has been achievedhaphazardly, then the training responsemight be a very tired or injured athlete.It is useful to note that the average runnerneeds at least 5 or 6 800m races in aseason before he or she hits a PB.

CAUTION!

It’s here, during the race preparationphase, that we have to monitorindividuals’ reactions very carefully.

Once into anaerobic training, variationsin athletes’ genetics will dictate theirresponses far more loudly than in theaerobic buildup phase. Nearly all

athletes will respond well to an aerobicworkload and most will respond well tohill resistance work and long VO2 maxpaced intervals. As already mentioned inthis book, we found that it was relativelyeasy to get three of our squad down toPB times for 1500 between 3:45 and3:48, but once the glycolytic workstarted, one went “off the boil.” Weknow from his training diaries and fromwhat he tells us that he responds muchbetter to the 5k-3k paced long intervalsafter a warm-up with leg speed drillsfollowed by about ten minutes ofthreshold paced warm-up. He “eats”sessions of 800m or 1000m intervalsand can be a force down to 800m off thisdiet.

Many athletes and coaches think that lessrecovery between repetitions may bebetter here. Initially, the aim is to exposethe body to realistic achievable 800mpace, repeatedly, not limit the workoutby having to stop after only a fewrepetitions and slowing down. Later, asspecific fitness at race speeds develops,short-recovery sessions at glycolyticspeeds can be used sparingly to simulatea race effect. It’s up to coach and athletein each case, but the general rule ofthumb is that developing athletes trainconservatively in this energy system, andramp up the workloads only when a veryhigh aerobic and anaerobic traininglevel has been reached.

We won’t lose fitness by the full andlong recoveries. We’ll enhance it. Wehave designated specific aerobicrecovery sessions and days in this phaseto maintain the aerobic systems. Earlyseason middle distance races and timetrials will maintain and enhance VO2

max in the best possible way too.

The same 1:50 800m pace could bepracticed with 8 x 200m (1600m total)in 27s, with full recovery. 5 x 300m(1500m total) in 41s could achieve thesame broad goal. It’s the fast rate ofacidosis in the legs we want to exposethe athlete to at this stage, no more.Aerobic recovery running after thesession, and the next day, will amplify

the response. A time trial over 600m in82 seconds, with full recovery, followedby 2 x 400m in 55s with full recovery,may be achievable. If the athlete starts tocramp up with acidosis at the achievablegoal pace, then the session should bestopped and aerobic recovery runningresumed until the next designatedanaerobic effort day. It could beappropriate to then drop back to asession aimed at the current 1500mpace.

Once again, it must be pointed out thatfaster speeds than 800m goal pace neednot be run in repetitions because thosespeed potentials have been amplydeveloped with all the alactic leg-speed

running, hill-bounding, and sprint drillsto date.

If one has reached world-class and issearching for extra 400m potential tocope with an extremely fast first lap inan 800m with some good “speedreserve” then there may be a case forintroducing a very short, sharp andsweet session of, say a 300m at 400mpace, with very long recovery, followedby a 200m at the same pace. That iscertainly the sort of thing that SebastianCoe did very well.

One may achieve almost the same endsby keeping paces of glycolyticrepetitions to 800m or slower and

allowing short sprints with longrecoveries achieve the power goal. It isvery much a matter for the coach andathlete to decide upon.

For athletes concentrating on longerdistances, such top-end glycolyticcapacity becomes counter-productive todevelop extensively because it comes atthe cost of significant aerobic capacity.

How Lydiard WouldBalance Training Here

Lots of easy running on parkland ortrails can be done as aerobic recoverysandwiching all hard anaerobic

sessions, including long warm-ups andlong-cool down runs. It’s interesting tonote that the great Moroccan and Kenyanathletes will do three to four aerobicwork sessions at varying intensities toevery anaerobic session in the midst ofracing seasons. This is very much aLydiard principle.

We have a fair idea of where we’re atfrom training and racing “information,”without being overly concerned abouttimes and places. The big picture iswhat’s important. In this phase, Lydiardwas adamant that a good coach andathlete combination assess progress atevery step, and therefore these sessionshave to be “tuned” to prospective

realistic race times.

Maintaining the Glycolytic Basewithout “Going Over the Top.” “Icingon the Cake” sharpeners.

In the peak period of the season,sometimes it is necessary to maintainglycolytic activity at a high level withoutthe full demand of a race, or the risk ofupsetting the system with one session toomany of glycolytic repetitions at longsprint distances.

Lydiard’s way around this was a uniqueand demanding track workout that couldonly be attempted by people in peakracing shape anyhow.

He’d get his athletes to run several lapsof the track, alternating 50m of flat outsprinting with 50m of recovery. Thiswould really spike the acidosis in legsalready well trained to cope withglycolytic acidosis, but it would notnecessarily make the systemiccirculation acidic.

Lydiard said at this stage: “If I put anathlete out on the track and say, ‘I wantyou to go around that track five times,and every 100 meters I want you tosprint 50 meters as hard as you can,’every 100-meters, he sprints full-out 50meters; sprint, float, sprint, float. So in400 meters he sprints 4 times; around thetrack 5 times, he sprints 20 times. The

athlete will probably be out there forabout 8 or 9 minutes. By then his legswill be getting very very tired and startto get neuromuscular breakdown;muscles no longer contract. Now if webring that athlete in, and took the bloodfrom the leg muscles, and took the bloodfrom the ear lobe for arterial blood, weare getting two different readings. Weare going to get a very low pH readingin the leg muscles, but it’s not going tobe very low in the arterial blood.”

This sort of session was intense anddemanding, but for an athlete in topcondition it could be recovered fromwell without the danger of upsetting therest of the racing period.

Lydiard would probably say that by thisstage, every athlete and coach should beable to work things out for themselvesintelligently, so specific instructions fora race season are pointless. So we’llfinish here with something that I’vefound works very well in my applicationof the Lydiard work. Remember theprinciples are what are important, notthe exact days or sessions.

PEAKING

Planned peaking requires knowledge ofthe basic principles outlined in this bookbut also self-knowledge of the athlete.How does he or she respond to differenttypes of work?

Research done some time ago by theBritish Milers Club revealed that an800m specialist will not record his besttime for the season until he has run 5earlier 800m races, on average. For the1500m, it may be 4 prior races.

The coach and athlete have to look at theseason backwards from the planned “bigday out,” and see where they they canfind suitable races. Obviously, theearlier efforts will be done when notrace-sharp, but the way to get race-sharp, physically and psychologically isby racing!

Generally, in the weeks before the peakrace, each week will have:

Lydiard would like to ease off from allhard training 10 days before thescheduled major competition. In thistime, the athlete was encouraged to topup his or her reserves by plenty of easyjogging, and any intense anaerobic workhad to be low in volume with amplerecovery. Generally it should be at race-specific paces to get the body totally

ready for what was to come.

Another thing Lydiard seemed to dointuitively was include some kind ofsolid session at each of the anaerobicintensities from threshold up in theweeks before a major competition.Why?

In competition, when we fatigue anenergy system, our body will tend tokick down into the next availablesubstrate system. If it hasn’t been trainedwell, and rested well, then it’s notavailable. For this reason, as mentionedelsewhere in this book, we will oftengive a middle distance runner a sessionat VO2 max pace (well below race

pace), and an effort at threshold pace, inthe 2 weeks leading to a majorcompetition.

Part 7How DifferentAthletes UseLydiard Principles1. How Our “H.I.T. Squad”Trains During Track Season

Here’s an example from our ownapplication of Lydiard principles.

During track racing periods, we alwaysset aside Tuesday as the toughest day of

the week if racing is on Saturday.Tuesday takes the information learnedfrom last Saturday, and earlier weeks,and applies it ready for next Saturday.

Tuesday is always very specific to nextSaturday. For instance, if Johnny isaiming to run 800m in 1.50 on Saturday,Tuesday could have a variety of short,hard, fast “glycolytic” workouts tuned toexactly that pace. If it’s a 1500, then wedo work at that pace with amplerecovery. Time trials at these paces canvary, but as a general rule we keep themunder 600m at this stage. Longer timetrials can be run earlier in the first phaseof anaerobic training, if wanted. It’s upto the coach and athlete to work out what

sessions generate the best responses.Often the athletes will do some generaleasy aerobic warm up, then a few lightfast strides, followed by perhaps 2-3 kmat threshold speed before moving ontovery fast reps with long recovery. Thisseems to really warm up the energysystems involved and appears to makesessions predictable and consistent.

In the height of race periods, we may doseveral VO2 max runs of say a kilometerat 3000m pace, with good recovery, andthis will be done instead of a glycolytic800m pace session. The reason for thisis that we like to keep all the energysystems firing and have found that thissort of workout tends to help a well-

conditioned 800m runner hold his formand “kick” over the last 100m. We’llonly do this if the athlete complainsabout “lacking speed” at the end of hislatest race. More often this is a lack ofspecific VO2 max endurance once thelactate tank has sputtered and the systemhas to change down a gear. If the nextenergy system down isn’t trained, itcan’t be readily used so sometimes anathlete who only does race-specificglycolytic repetitions and slow easyrecovery jogging will get caught outover the last sprint, simply because hecan’t access the appropriate energysystem.

A Tuesday tough session plus a Saturdayrace add up to two very significantstimuli for younger athletes if thebalance of training is appropriate. Theredoesn’t appear to be a need for muchmore than two such sessions a week in

my experience: progress can certainly beattained. A balance of aerobic sessions,varied-pace fartlek runs, and easy longerruns can keep the momentum going.

We regard Tuesday at this stage of thetrack season as a “get in and get out”day. The total work done can be as littleas 1000m to 1600m in total. Repetitionsshould cease as soon as the athlete findshe or she can’t hold convincing form andpower. The aim is to come up “fresh” onrace day, and we have to remember thata substantial amount of anaerobicbuffering has already been accomplishedwith VO2 max work specific to theathlete’s level of development over3000m and 5000m distances.

If preparing for 1.50 at 800m, then earlyin the race phase, then a typical sessioncould comprise a 600m time trial in 82seconds, followed by a 300m at racepace (41 s) then a 200m at race pace(27s) with ample recovery betweenrepetitions so that the work can beachieved with good mechanics and

convincing power. This work wouldalways be done after a good aerobicwarm-up, and leg speed drills over short(alactic) distances. A good long aerobiccool-down is suggested afterwards.

If in the week of a more important race,a workout of 4 x 300m at 1.50 pace orslightly faster (41 seconds or faster)could be performed. Recoveries wouldbe just long enough to complete the workwith good form and power. We’re onlytrying to teach the body what the rate ofacidosis feels like on race day, notthump the body with informationoverload.

If it’s a very important race, and we’re

not “training through” lead-up races,then a fast race-specific session couldbe performed a good week or moreaway from the target race with plenty ofeasy jogging and light fast stridesinterspersed through the final days toensure that all energy systems and fastmovement patterns are “on ice” and nosystem is “burned.”

The main thing here is to keep theglycolytic anaerobic work short, sharpand sweet the nearer you get to importantraces and to balance it out with amplerecovery and plenty of low-levelaerobic work. The human body willreact to such work favourably. Withanaerobic work in the glycolytic realm,

at this stage of the season, a little bit ofinformation is often enough. We try tosee how little we can get away with,especially with junior athletes. Theresults can be surprising.

A couple of years ago, using this sort ofwork with 17-year-old boys following across-country season, one reached 3.50for 1500m and the other reached 1.52 for800m. More importantly, both boys arestill progressing.

Wednesday for us is always a pleasantmedium aerobic recovery day, perhapsover an hour of easy cross country overparkland.

In our Lydiard-based program foryouths, Thursday is the day year-roundwhen leg-speed drills, hill bounding, orlight fast work can be done. Once thefast alactic work has been done, a longeraerobic run or fartlek can be done.Always a good relaxed warm-up beforevery short fast efforts.

Friday is a day when athletes can againrun for an easy hour on parkland. If it’sthe day before a very importantcompetition, the run can be shortenedconsiderably in order to totally freshenup, but as a general principle we like tokeep a strong undercurrent of aerobicactivity going for as long as possibleinto the track season.

Saturday is race day, or a day whensignificant training effort is applied,depending on the stage of the year we’reat.

Sunday is always a long and pleasantrecovery run, depending on thedevelopment of the athlete. For youngathletes of about 15 years of age, thismay mean a one hour run over hills, andfor athletes who have been on theprogram for a few years, these runsgenerally take 90 minutes during latertrack season, and are often around 2hours during winter.

Monday is always a medium lengthrecovery run, very easy, on parkland,and the length of this will vary accordingto the development of the athlete.

How Other Healthy YouthSquads Train

2. Barry Magee - Auckland,New Zealand

For the last 5 years, I have been workingwith teenagers 13-19 years of age withthe Auckland City Athletics Club – plussome others around the country and havehad great success. That success I believehas come by following the Lydiardschedules that Arthur has left us in hisbooks. He has left us the blueprints tosuccess, and those schedules are themost important dynamic of all.

Barry Magee at Auckland’s famousCornwall Park with his group.

The system is called “periodisation”training where everything comes in itsright order, just like layers of the energysystem pyramid. Conditioning, hill work,time trials and reps – sharpening andfreshening.

The other things that have worked for meare as follows:

Group Training. Boys and girlsseparated and train together as twogroups to start and then splinter offaccording to ability and speed.Always at least two run together. Itis a dynamic that they love andsome even come along wheninjured to watch and talk to theirfriends.

Give them all a schedule of theirtraining to follow – as a guide andnot an absolute. Kids have so manythings going on with sports, music,ballet, school or whatever – it isessential that it is flexible and

adjustable. I usually do them 6weeks at a time. If they cannot makeit to the group they then know whatto do.

Training is done on grass as muchas possible and long racecoursegrass when training for X/C events.The emphasis is always on aerobicconditioning with the thought thatwe need to be preparing athletesfor the future.

Hill training – We do all the time,as well as the Lydiard hillspringing period. Even during longruns they often go over 3 Aucklandhills – Mt. St John, Mt. Hobson andMt. Eden. At other times whendoing reps they do sessions uphill.

Lydiard said, “Hills are theshortcut to success.”

Extra exercise —- For the olderones, I encourage an extra sessionmost days of running or swimmingin the mornings. This is not doneduring conditioning but through anyor all of the other phases.Particularly helpful during lastweeks of sharpening / freshening.

Being there. I show them that I amthere for them and that I amavailable to them or their parentsanytime. With my group (5-10 eachof boys and girls) we have two ofus coaching. I do 5 days and myassistant John does 6. When we dotimed training we split them into 2

groups, male and female, and take 1lot each. We do our best to be atevery major event to see them inaction.

3. Neil MacDonald -Geelong, Victoria

• Emphasize aerobic running.

Do some speed work all yearround, even if it’s just 6 x “flying”40 meters “fast / relaxed” with agood walk recovery betweenduring winter to keep in touch withthe fast twitch fibers and tocontinually reinforce sound

biomechanics for running fast. I feelthis approach means that athletesare also less likely to becomeinjured when stepping up to themore intense training later in theyear.

Give kids regular breaks fromrunning to recharge the batteries.i.e., two or three times a year(usually after an importantChampionship) the kids might havea couple of weeks off training withthe group. However, this is a timefor active rest as they all do othersports.

Explain to the kids why we aredoing a particular session at aparticular time. Eventually, they

should be able to coach themselves.

•Run on grass, gravel, dirt, bushtracks where possible to protectyoung growing bodies.

Make it fun – group training helpsthis as the warm-ups / cool-downs /longer aerobic running is a greatopportunity for talk / fun betweentraining partners. The kids in thegroup are great mates.Plenty of variety – we are alwaystraining in different environments(in the bush / down the beach /around the river trails / EasternPark / grass parkland / up anddown hills) Geelong is fantastic forthis as we have the best facilities /

training venues within a fewminutes. Also, there is plenty ofvariety in the training program – ina four-week block, apart from theweekly long run, the kids would notduplicate a session. A sessionmight have a very similarphysiological aim or stress asimilar energy system to a sessionfrom the previous week but kidsdon’t want to be running 4 x 400meters @ 1500 meter race paceevery Tuesday during the trackseason. We also do a lot of circuittraining that improves whole bodystrength, core stability andendurance (i.e., boxing, skipping,body weight exercises, very light

hand dumbells, medicine ball,yoga, Swiss ball). Occasionally,we will finish off with a game (i.e.,soccer) or run to the pool for arecovery swim or ride bikes aroundthe Geelong river trails.

If in doubt: undertrain. With kids Ireckon it’s important to do the leastamount that achieves the desiredresult. Every year, the kids do alittle more running (if they arecoping and want to do more), butthey are doing a lot less runningthan many other training groups

Don’t have a program that is set instone: if the kids are looking tiredor say they have been doing otherdemanding activities, I’m not afraidto change the session or lessen thesession or tell the kids to have thenight off. I like to warm up with thekids so I can see first hand if theyare ready for a particular session orneed an easier night.

4. How Rod Dixon Startedin Athletics

Rod Dixon was a classic example ofthe healthy Lydiard method in action.His brother John coached him to asurprise Olympic 1500m bronze inMunich 1972, when Rod was just 22years old. John was just a few yearsolder! Rod was ranked world numberone by Track and Field News over1500m in 1973, 5000m in 1975, and USroad racing in 1980. He won the NewYork marathon in 1983 in 2:08.59. Hisbest 800m was 1:47.6, his best 1500m3:33.8, and over cross-country he wasthird in the world crosscountry

championships in 1973 and 1982. Howmany people could run his range oftimes today?

As young brothers, we kind of raneverywhere. Our grandparents had afarm and we just ran everywhere...injunior school, athletics was almostdaily...and of courserugby...cricket...hockey...swimming and

soccer-football...I tried them all butsomehow I enjoyed the running part. Justrunning fast and it seemed forever, as thegames we created called for lots ofrunning....so in junior school, JohnDixon was the 100 yards Champion andthen 3+ years later I was. Intermediateschool was much the same....I playedsoccer and rugby but running I enjoyedmost.

John joined the running club MethodistHarriers...I wasn’t able to as theminimum age was 12 years...so for twoseasons John encouraged me to run for20-30 minutes with him and his friends 3times each week.

Our Mail delivery man, Mr Stripeman (aDutchman) was incredibly athletic; veryfit, always tanned and a great runner,more a fitness athlete, into exercise,using body weight and stretching andlifting small weights with repetitionsafter the run. His knowledge for goodnutrition was valuable and he presentedto us our very first “trail mix” of nutsand dried fruits, etc. Most non-runnersscoffed at the mixture as only “fit for ahorse.” It was this encouragement andinterest in the Dixon brothers that gaveus the incentive to become runners andbe fit and healthy.

Even at this young age, John Dixon wasalready learning many of the base skills

of a coach.

Harold Nelson, 1948 Olympian and1950 British Empire Games Gold andSilver medalist, was a member of theNelson Running Club as was 5-timeNew Zealand Cross Country ChampionKerry Williams. These two world classathletes gave time and effort to assisting,coaching, and running with us all eachweekend. We also had some great clubrunners who were ready to give adviceto the younger runners. This in itselfcreated the perfect environment to“listen and learn” for us all, and it wasnothing to get hundreds of runners eachSaturday at the running club.

Arthur Lydiard would travel aroundNew Zealand in the ’60s coaching andgiving advice to club runners in everytown, and it was during this time thatArthur shared his experience andknowledge with John Dixon. This helpedto shape and mold John’s ownexperience into an understanding that hecould integrate with that of Arthur’s.

I remember during one visit to Nelson byArthur, he wasn’t able to give a one-on-one discussion after his talk so hesuggested to John and me that he wouldtake time the next morning to speak withus at John’s home. I took that to bemaybe a hour. The session lasted over 5hours! I believe this time, which was

taped recorded by John, gave us thebalance of the Lydiard method andsystem which complemented the systemwhich John had developed and createdthrough our training and running inNelson.

I enjoyed and loved the club running,winning some races, and although thiswas very satisfying, it wasn’t the onlyanswer. I just loved to run and be withmy mates at the club. So for 5 years thatwas what it was....having fun and lovingwhat I was doing, winning some races,but mostly running my best. I did like theidea of being the Champion though!

In 1968, I decided to train hard with

John and so began the pathway of theDixon brothers, which later became theCoach and the Athlete, although John didaccomplish some amazing running featsof his own in the years of the ’70s and’80s.

I will say to this day, John Dixon was agreat coach, equal in my mind to the verybest I have ever met in my life, and inany other country in the world wouldhave been appointed a national coach, acoach of champions.

Part 8ExercisePhysiology 101,Again!

We can’t state these basics enoughfor most middle distance coaches andathletes. So, at the risk of overstatingthe obvious, let’s go through thebasics again.

For any exercise that lasts more thanabout 10 seconds, the infrastructure

required for fuel delivery and wasteremoval becomes more and moreimportant as the work durationincreases. Under about 10 seconds, itdoesn’t really matter too much.

The reason for this is that our muscleshave an inherent energy supply thatoperates independently of external fueland air supplies, for a few seconds atmost. This is intra-muscular creatinephosphate, an explosive source of short-term energy used most by our mostpowerful muscle fibers, the type IIB fasttwitch fibers. It is the equivalent of high-octane premium unleaded fuel you pourinto your high-performance fuel tank.

Alactic Exercise

Short-term explosive bursts of energyusing creatine phosphate are termedalactic anaerobic exercises…meaningthey are too short in duration to formlactic acid, or lactate, and they are alsoanaerobic, meaning capable of beingperformed in the absence of oxygen.

Of course, these explosive bursts can’tbe repeated indefinitely. It is thought that5 minutes of rest or easy passive activitywill replenish short-term phosphateenergy stores to 95% of their startinglevels. The high-energy phosphatemolecules are recycled back into useover a few minutes if rest is sufficient.

So, as an example, it would be possiblefor a highly trained athlete to perform afew highly explosive bursts of exerciselasting a few seconds without producingthe acidic wastes associated with lacticacid as long as ample recovery wasgiven.

With very long recoveries lasting manyminutes, explosive short bursts could beperformed throughout the day withoutlarge losses of power. But shorterrecoveries would eventually deplete theintramuscular stores, and other sourcesof fuel would have to be deployed byother less-explosive muscle fibers usinglower-grade fuels, such as glucose orfats.

For a middle distance runner, shortbursts of alactic sprint drills won’tcreate acidosis but will reinforce usefulfast movement patterns if enough easyjogging recovery is taken. We’ve usedsuch drills right throughout a winter’saerobic base period on easy days, andthe end-product has been exceptionallyquick teenagers who can run endurancedistances with anyone.

Running on Empty

We can induce glycogen depletion andsystemic acidosis with too many longhard runs, as well as with too many fastrepetitions over short distances like

300m and 400m. This became veryobvious to me a number of years agowhen discussing the decline of Britishmiddle distance and distance trackperformances with a British coach.

Stuart Hale, an expert in the use of heartrate monitoring, had written a number ofextremely good articles on training byheart rate for Athletics Today . Icorresponded with him and visited himwhile in England at his base nearPeterborough.

Stuart told me of a number of national-level and international runners in Britainwho had embraced ‘OBLA’ training,with erratic and underwhelming results.

OBLA training, or Onset of Blood LacticAcid training, was very much in voguefor a few years, and possibly still is,with top athletes and coaches oftenconsidering slower aerobic efforts as“waste.” They cut their mileage backand did plenty of sustained running at oraround the anaerobic threshold level.Long runs were cut back to cope with thegeneral fatigue, so more and more wasexpected from less and less. Theysimply didn’t understand the benefits ofeasy aerobic running or where lowerintensity running fit into the wholepicture.

One of the most astounding observationsthat Stuart made when he took a few

disillusioned athletes on was that theywere totally inefficient at any sloweraerobic paces. These athletes werephysically uncomfortable at sloweraerobic speeds, often having erraticheart rates.

Stuart had to start these athletes onweekly programs of deliberately runningat very slow speeds until their bodiesbecame efficient at each heart rate level.This took quite some time, but theoutcome after many weeks of verycontrolled running at low heart ratezones, gradually increasing heart ratewhen efficiency was restored at eachlevel, was a range of personal bestsover 10km on the road.

A simple way of measuring aerobicefficiency with a heart rate monitor is byestimating meters covered per averageheart beat (covered in Part 1, TrainingBy Heart Rate: Heart Rate MonitorTricks).

With a well-trained athlete, the numberof meters covered during a heartbeat isabout the same, whether walking,jogging, or approaching the anaerobicthreshold.

Nic Bideau mentioned recently that hispartner, Sonia O’Sullivan, trainedintensely along these lines in the early tomid 1990s but also included quitesevere VO2 max track sessions with

minimal recovery. This workedeffectively for some time, resulting inworld number one rankings between1500m and 5000m in 1993 and 1994,and a world championship over 5000min 1995. (Sonia still holds the women’sworld 2000m record).

However, by the 1996 AtlantaOlympics, Sonia was very ill and unableto perform at her best. She turned tomore steady state aerobic work underBritish coach Alan Storey, winning the1998 World Cross Country title over4000m and 8000m, and by the SydneyOlympics in 2000 she was a very close2nd place winner over 5000m in 14:41.

The same phenomenon was mentionedby triathlon Ironman great Mark Allenabout his early days in triathlon: he camefrom a swimming background where theemphasis in those days was on punishingworkouts, every day!

“It was all I knew. So when I entered thesport of triathlons in the early 1980’s,my mentality was to go as hard as Icould at some point in every singleworkout. And to gauge how fast thatmight have to be, I looked at how fast thebest triathletes were running at the endof the short distance races. Guys likeDave Scott, Scott Tinley and ScottMolina were able to hold close to 5minute miles for their 10ks after

swimming and biking!

“So that’s what I did. Every run, eventhe slow ones, for at least one mile, Iwould try to get close to 5 minute pace.And it worked...sort of. I had some goodraces the first year or two, but I alsosuffered from minor injuries and wasalways feeling one run away from beingtoo burned out to want to continue withmy training.

Then chiropractor Dr Phil Maffetoneadvised Allen to use a heart rate monitorand train at much lower intensities. Hehad to keep his maximal HR below 155when running. At first this required 8:15mile pace, 3 minutes slower per mile

than the pace he was trying to hit inevery run! Over 4 months of runningbelow this prescribed aerobic maximalHR, his aerobic comfort zone hadimproved to 5:20 a mile at a HR of 155.

“That means that I was now able to burnfat for fuel efficiently enough to hold apace that a year before was redlining myeffort at a maximum heart rate of about190. I had become an aerobic machine!On top of the speed benefit at lowerheart rates, I was no longer feeling like Iwas ready for an injury the next run Iwent on, and I was feeling fresh after myworkouts instead of being totallyexhausted from them.”(excerpted from

http://www.duathlon.com/articles/1460)

Part 9Strength Trainingfor Athletics

Strength training is a huge arena, and it’snot the purpose of this book to expoundat large on every topic. However ifwe’re talking strength and power forrunning, specifically getting from A to Bin as short a time as possible, then Ibelieve this chapter will be useful forserious sprinters and middle distancerunners alike.

Arthur Lydiard never saw the need forathletes to spend large amounts of timein the gymnasium lifting weights. Hecited the case of Olympic championHalberg, who had a crushed andparalyzed left shoulder following arugby injury as a teenager, but whonevertheless could run 53 second lastlaps in major races. He would also cite

the example of the very muscular PeterSnell, whose power was a naturalphenomenon enhanced by endurancetraining and hill training.

As for arm swing in running, expertsseem to agree with Lydiard. Dr. RalphMann, USATF Sprint/HurdleBiomechanist and 1972 MunichOlympics 400 meter hurdles silvermedalist has written “...the relativelysmall upper limb muscle moments seemto relegate the arms to the simple role ofmaintaining balance.”

Los Angeles sprint coach Barry Rosssays “since the arms are very lightcompared to the rest of body mass, they

cannot do much more than what Mannwrote (and for which he took a lot ofheat from coaches!) and therefore don’trequire any more than isometric workfor runners.”

That having been said, some degree ofgood upper body and torso strength isdesireable, in my opinion. Years ago, Iran with Steve Austin, a very wiry andtough Australian runner who workedfull-time as a bricklayer. This physicallydemanding work did him no harm: he’drecorded times as good as 3:57 for themile and 13:22 for 5000m, as well as a27:53 10,000m. I’ll always rememberhow he described most distance runners:“They don’t have enough strength to tear

open a Wheaties box!” I agree fully:some of the specimens struggling at thebusiness end of races look like they’dhave trouble sneezing into a tissue.

If you’ve read the book so far, you’llrealize that the “secret” key to powerand efficiency is the short-term alacticenergy system, which recruits our IIBfast twitch muscle fibers. Hill training iscertainly a very effective method ofactivating our fast twitch muscle fibers,but I believe the very serious athlete cango one better. Heavy lifting can increaseleg muscle strength far more than hillresistance exercise because we areloading the legs with far more than justbodyweight. But for best results, it

should be the right type of exercise, ofexactly the right duration, at the rightintensity. At some stage, you’ll still needto translate this newfound strength intopower, and Arthur’s hill exercises areexcellent for that, especially if the activebounding or springing phase is kept toless than 10 seconds in each work bout,with plenty of recovery.

How much power can a small persondevelop? Think of the legendary martialartist Bruce Lee, a tiny man whoweighed about 130lbs. According to onearticle, he could spin-kick a 300lbsandbag that would smash violently intothe concrete roof of his Hong Kongapartment’s verandah. That’s strength

a n d power! Haile Gebrselassie isprobably less than 5’4” in height andunder 54 kg, (120 lbs), but he could passfor a bantamweight boxer with hisupper-body development. He has justenough useful muscle for what he needsand not an ounce more.

I once had a teammate who had run 1:48for 800m and 3:39 for 1500m, but hecouldn’t even do a single “pull-up” withhis bodyweight on a bar! That isextremely weak! His legs looked liketree trunks, but his upper body waswoeful. He did a lot of steep uphill repsyear-round, so he had terrific legstrength and anaerobic capacity fromthat, but he was very vulnerable in a

tight finish because he didn’t have theupper-body strength to match his legstrength. I put him on a program andwithin a few months he was able to do adozen pull-ups in several sets. Hisfinishing ability improved considerably,and later his range extended to a 13:385000m and a win in the Canberramarathon.

Every athlete wanting to reach world-class these days should do generalstrength training as an injury-preventivestrategy if nothing else. The exercisesshould be compound movements thatresemble real-life activities. Compoundmovements use many muscles incoordinated effort, across several joints,

and don’t just isolate one. It’s possibleto get extremely strong with 3 half-hourgym sessions a week or less, and most ofthat half hour can be recovery time!

In everyday activity, we usually push,pull, twist, lift, and jump: our strengthtraining program should reflect thesemovements. (Lydiard recommendedgetting a ton of gravel dumped on theside of the driveway, and thenshovelling it into another pile, then backagain. “That’ll work every muscle inyour body!” he chuckled.)

When using resistance exercise, we arelooking for “closed chain” movementsthat lift weight upwards and away from

the ground as our trunk opens up andextends, just like when we run. Oneparticular exercise, the deadlift, canaccomplish what we want for 90% ofthe skeletal muscle used in running! Andit only needs a few very heavyrepetitions, in a few sets, with lots ofrecovery inbetween, to get maximalstrength gains without unnecessary mass.

The underhand pull-up or “chin-up” isuseful for runners. It is a compoundexercise that uses some of the sameshoulder, back, and upper arm muscleswe use in hard sprinting. The most usefulpart is the slow descent phase. Onceyou’ve built up to about 12-15repetitions with body weight, it is useful

to get a weight belt, strap a weight discto it, and do fewer repetitions with theincreased weight. See how heavy youcan go within the 10 seconds alacticzone, with ample recovery after sets, andwhen you get to try your strength withbodyweight-only again several dayslater, you’ll do several more repetitions!I’ve seen skinny guys do repeated chin-ups with 100lb strapped to their weightbelts!

Another useful exercise is thebodyweight dip. The same principleapplies with use of weight belts torecruit fast twitch fibers once theexercise is established.

Barry Ross maintains that even the useof these last two exercises is not neededfor runners if they do very heavy liftingin the deadlift. He maintains that a heavydeadlift works the biceps, triceps, andforearm muscles isometrically, and “theonly muscles left hanging are thepectoral (chest) muscles.” Push-ups orbench press can therefore complete thepicture of whole-body development forthe runner.

The tonic postural abdominal and coremuscles tend to have far more slowtwitch muscle content and will respondto higher numbers of repetitions, or evenstatic isometric exercise, but resistancewith weight plates is also useful for

these exercises. It saves a lot of time. Ifyou want to get strong, lift heavy.

Some sprinters and footballers,particularly, get hung up on the benchpress. The muscles employed in thebench press are not really useful in fastsprinting, but may be very useful in hardcontact sports. According to US sprintcoach Barry Ross, a good strengthtraining program must produce superiorstrength with minimal mass, regardlessof the sport it is intended for (other thansports with a super-heavyweight class!).

With all of the energy systems optimallytrained and developed, an increasedsprint potential without unnecessary

muscle mass becomes a potent weapon.

However, if we put the cart before thehorse and get it wrong, as doconventional training program, we couldbe the fastest kicker at the back of thepack. I know from my own experiencethat mixing an endurance-based runningprogram with conventional weighttraining can be counter-productive forendurance but there is a way to do itproperly that we can still explore.

Heavy lifting at near-maximal is thoughtto recruit the fast twitch fibers very earlyin the lifting phase and bypass the slowtwitch fibers. A similar process isprobably at work when we sprint: we

tend to bypass slow twitch fibers andrecruit fast twitch straightaway.Whatever fibers we have in a musclewill increase in size with heavy lifting,but the ones that are most likely toincrease with very heavy lifting of shortduration are the fast twitch fibers.

We are all likely to have a spectrum offiber types in our muscles that willrespond to specific training in differentways. We don’t quite know what wehave to play with until training has beendone for quite some time; this applies toresistance training as well as running. Itis not something that a muscle biopsycan “predict,” because muscle fibertypes can vary enormously within any

individual. Just like the chicken, with itswhite fast twitch breast meat and redderslow twitch leg meat, we can varyenormously. The chicken can flap itswings mighty fast, but the slow twitchfibers in the legs are what get it places.

In the human, postural muscles like theabdominals and trunk muscles tend to beslow twitch, and prime movers like thequadriceps (thigh muscles) tend to havemore fast twitch fibers.

Very heavy lifting (above 85% of your 1rep maximum) with few repetitions, in afew sets, with plenty of recoverybetween sets, will primarily recruit andtrain the fast twitch fibers and their huge

incoming neural pathways. The key toheavy lifting for IIB development is tomake sure the total “load time” or liftingtime is well within the alactic time zoneof 10 seconds.

Longer duration lifting will naturallyenough cross over into the glycolytic andeven aerobic systems, and the musclefibers that will respond most to that arenot the IIB fibers, but the less powerfulfibers. This might seem OK, but it comesat a cost to a runner. Because the lesspowerful fibers function best in longertime frames, their cell structures have farmore fluid volume and complexorganelle development. This is all acellular payload we don’t want to

develop as a trade-off for increasedpower.

Once we get past about 10 seconds, themuscle cells involved require complexoxygen and fuel delivery systems(capillaries) and an array of glycolyticand aerobic organelles (includingmitochondria) and a lot of fluid in thecell body (the sarcoplasm or cytoplasm)to function. So we’re doing a type oflifting that increases muscle volume andweight (which we don’t want), at thesame time as increasing the density ofthe actual contractile proteins (which wedo want).

Think of the intramuscular alactic fuel,

creatine phosphate, as the sole fuel forthis heavy burst of lifting we’re after.We want to fire the V8 engine for 10seconds on the teaspoon of petrolalready in the fuel injector, and then letit naturally replenish itself over minutesvia the “phosphate battery” during a longrecovery.

Less intense lifting with many morerepetitions will more likely recruit andincrease the size of slow twitch fiberswithout a specific effect on the fasttwitch fibers, due to the “size principle”of muscle fiber recruitment.

The aim for the middle

distance athlete or distanceathlete is to have a bigengine with a small frameand very high efficiency

The danger, if we can call it that, ofconventional weight training is that weincrease our non-specific muscle masstoo much, thereby creating a largerpayload to be carried around the track.

The muscle has to be very specific torunning at high speeds; otherwise it is aliability that will come at a high energycost. Even a sprinter has to be verycareful that his or her muscle mass istotally functional, as even a couple of

extra kilograms in weight can upset thephysics of mass-specific force andground-contact time.

Once I went from a racing weight of57.6 kg (126 lb) to 63.7 kg (140 lb)within a couple of months of intenseweight training, based mainly aroundhalf squats with as much weight as Icould lift in several sets of 10 reps, twoto three nights a week. Although I feltmagnificent from the all-day adrenalinand testosterone surge that heavy liftinginvoked, my results were “good andbad.”

At the higher body weight, I could half-squat 150kg or 330 lbs (thighs parallel

to floor, backside touching bench) theten times. If that sounds very heavy, it is(ample padding over the bar issuggested), but it is nothing compared towhat a trained power lifter of the sameweight can lift. Don’t rush out and try tolift the weight I did: I’d been trainingregularly with weights for 6 years whenI did that and have some very goodstrength genetics. But it shows you thatsmall guys can develop serious leg andback strength.

On one occasion, on the tenth half-squatrep (without a “spotter”), I found myselflosing the weight and it dropped with ahuge crash to the concrete floor of thegym, which was on the 1st floor above

the ladies’ changing rooms of a swimcenter. Lots of wet partially clad ladiesand girls in towels emerged upstairs tosee what had happened, and I mademyself scarce. It pays to have a friend“spot” for you when lifting decentweights off a rack. However, severalguys started dropping weights regularlyafter that.

I found heavy lifting very good to do atnight, after any hard running session wasover and usually on the night before aneasy recovery day. The body was welland truly warmed up, and there was nodanger of depleting the body’s energystocks before a fast running session.

This sort of conventional lifting wascertainly effective for short sprintpower. My average 100m (jog start)time came plummeting down by a secondto about 11.3 seconds. I repeated this onseveral occasions, so it wasn’t a fluke.My 300m time got under 37 seconds. Icould do 4 x 300m runs in less than 40seconds, with just 300m walk / jogrecovery.

However, I was training the wrongsystem! Sets of ten repetitions with quiteheavy weights take at least a minute tocomplete, without rest, so they’re verylactic or glycolytic. There’s the time ofthe lifting or concentric contractionphase, as well as the lowering or

eccentric lengthening phase, ten times ina row. I was most probably training myIIA transitional fibers, with theaccompanying increased muscle cellmass that invoked. I’d have been muchbetter off halving the number of reps,and lifting a bit heavier. I might thenhave put on only a couple of kilos, gotstronger again, and translated thisstrength more effectively into 800m and1500m times.

Despite my increased strength and short-distance power, I couldn’t get my 400mtime under 51 seconds and my 800mtime was pathetic. Not knowing what Iknow now, I hadn’t worked on runningsessions that could translate this strength

into sustainable power past 45 seconds.My short-term power delivery hadincreased but so had my total mass by6.1 kg (14 lbs). This was more than a10% increase in body mass that myaerobic and glycolytic systems wereexpected to cart around the track.

Most conventional weight training isbased on several sets of severalrepetitions, (usually between 8 and 12),with the weight heavy enough to cause“failure” towards the end of theexercise. This, by its very nature, forcesthe muscle into very localised glycolyticacidosis, and as we already know fromthe rest of this book, acidosis is not goodfor muscles, or the nervous system.

Such lifting will force a longer recoverytime as the contractile proteins and cellmembranes get damaged by lifting to“failure.” Even worse, the inflammationcaused by acidosis will invokeintracellular fluid retention, so that theweight of the muscle tissue is greatlyincreased. The contractile proteins haveto contend with the “double whammy” ofrepairing serious damage at the sametime as being terribly inflamed.Eventually this damage will repair,because the body is simply amazing, butif it occurs several times a week, it’s nowonder it takes so long to increasestrength this way. The muscle simplylooks bigger because it is damaged; justlike your cheek would if it was punched.

So why even go there?

Conventional weighttraining is really glycolyticovertraining

If we lift alactically in small sets ofheavy repetitions, with long recoveries,this downside of conventional weighttraining is avoided, and the plus side isthat the first type of muscle to developwill likely be whatever fast twitch fiberswe have, packed densely with usefulcontractile proteins and very little else,and this will happen relatively quickly.Only useful muscle will develop in the

specific region trained, and because themuscles aren’t bathing in a sea of heavyacidosis, they will set about the job ofrepairing themselves almostimmediately. Alactic lifting for the IIBfibers will increase strength and speedpotential without increasing uselessmass.

CAUTION!

Another thing to watch out for isexcessive soreness after initial heavylifts. The shortening phase of musclecontraction is concentric, and thelengthening or lowering phase iseccentric. It is the eccentric orlengthening phase with a very heavy

weight that excites the large nervepathways most and invokes the fasttwitch fiber response, but it is this samemuscle action that can cause DOMS, orDelayed Onset of Muscle Soreness. Sothere is a case for starting gym-basedwork very gradually with lower weightsand higher repetitions initially toprepare the muscular system for theintensity to come.

The number of repetitions we can lift atlower intensities before fatiguing has adirect mathematical relationship to ourmaximal potential, and this is often avery safe way to determine potentiallifting goals. For instance, a 10RMweight is about 75% of one’s 1RM, and

a 15RM is about 60%.

The best way to warm up for heavylifting is not by hopping on an exercisebike or treadmill, as most gyms havetheir patrons do, but by dynamicallymoving.

Barry Ross says, “We do a dynamicwarm-up prior to lifting, then start at theheaviest weight and work down tolighter weight. New lifters I’ve trainednever question the concept, and we’venever had any injuries. Experiencedlifters I’ve trained always start with theconcern that they will injure themselvesby lifting “heavy first.” After a fewsessions, they adapt and never question

the concept of ‘heaviest first’ again.

“I recently spent time with a veryexperienced strength and conditioningcoach who had the fear of ‘heavy first’injury. He decided to try it out with 2 ofhis experienced trainees. Over a 4-weekperiod, both improved bench press bymore than 50 lbs and their deadlift bymore than 80 lbs. Needless to say, all ofhis athletes lift heaviest first.”

Naturally, we work our way into gym-based training gradually, with experthelp where possible. Heavy lifts aresafe if done with good technique; if donewith lousy technique, you can rupture adisc in the spine, which is not

recommended. So what is excellenttechnique?

The Deadlift

This is a much safer exercise than thesquat, because the weight is lifted off theground, rather than off a high rack.Therefore, it can be done withoutspecialist equipment and you shouldn’tneed a “spotter.” It also uses a lot ofshoulder and arm muscles not recruitedin the squat.

“The deadlift works the bicepsextensively but isometrically.Bodyweight dips work the triceps, butso does the deadlift! Only the chest

muscles are left hanging by the deadlift,”says Barry Ross, whose proven strengthtraining program is extremelyuncomplicated but effective.

I recommend Frederic Delavier’sexcellent book Strength TrainingAnatomy (Human Kinetics, SecondEdition) for any serious students of gym-based lifting. In his section on thedeadlift, he recommends that thedeadlifter create a “block” with historso.

Another advantage of the deadlift is thatit uses more muscle mass across thebody than any other lift, so it gives a lotof bang for its buck. The major musclesused all extend the trunk and legs as theylift; the same basic motion used in thedrive phase of sprinting.

The heavier we can lift in a maximal lift(I rep maximum, or 1RM), the more wecan lift in repetitions at every levelbelow that weight; so our relative“endurance” increases with our strength.The number of repetitions we can lift atlower intensities have a directmathematical relationship to ourmaximal potential, and this is often avery safe way to determine potential

goals. For instance, if a 10RM weight isabout 75% of one’s 1RM, then thisrepetition range could be used early in astrength training program to test currentmaximums without blowing a gasket.

A stronger leg extension manifests in alonger stride without any increase incadence, and therefore we can covermore distance efficiently. Leg strengthhas benefits at every race distance.

One studyb1b demonstrated a statisticallysignificant improvement in 5000m timein well-trained individuals despite nosignificant improvement in VO2 max oranaerobic threshold. These individuals(experienced orienteers) trained with

low repetition, heavy weight protocolsand reduced total aerobic training by35%, yet improved. The increased legstrength translates to an increased stridelength at every level of running intensity.

For example, if we had a 2-meter stridelength and ran 5000m in 14 minutes, itwould take 2500 strides to cover thedistance. But if we could increase ourstride length by 2.5% (5 cm), then over5000m at the same cadence and oxygenuptake intensity, this would translate intoa time of 13:39.0 with no increase inoxygen uptake or lactate tolerance, butmerely better efficiency in getting fromA to B.

There is also evidence that the increasedforce of delivery at footstrike means

slightly quicker ground contact time ispossible, and this can translate intosustainable higher cadence. This is notdemonstrated in the above table.

Of course, near-maximal lifting willrequire a massive electromotive chargefrom the brain to the working muscle,and this will require activation of themassive IIB neurons and their attachedIIB fast twitch muscle fibers. A massiveweight near our maximal lifting capacitywill have to be lifted slowly, and bydefinition cannot be lifted quickly, butstill at the highest muscle tensionpossible. So this is not a speed exerciseby any stretch of the imagination.

The whole intent of heavy lifting is toreverse the size principle of musclefiber recruitment and hit the massivefast twitch fibers first.

For a weight to do the job of reversingthe size principle, the weight lifted hasto be very heavy, and that means at least85-100% of one’s 1RM. That means 5-7reps or fewer of a very heavy weight.We can’t lift big weights quickly, and itis ridiculous to think so. But once wehave increased the cross-sectional areaof IIB muscle fibers, we can certainly dopower exercises with body weight only(i.e., bounding, plyometrics, etc) toattune the neuro-muscular system. This isnothing new.

“I am convinced all middle distancerunners should train with weights usingthe accepted strength trainingtechniques of low repetitions and heavyweights. The pyramid system of thethree sets of not more than 6repetitions should prove ideal for themiddle distance runner.”Wilf Paish, former Great BritainOlympic team coach, 1978

Wilf coached 1:42.97 800m runner PeterElliott, one of the world’s greatest evermiddle distance athletes, and a multiplemedalist at all major championshipsover 800m and 1500m between 1986and 1990.

I have even seen in specialist strengthtraining books a recommendation that“power” exercises be done by liftingheavy weights as fast as possible. Thelogic of this escapes me. If a weight isvery heavy, it can’t be lifted quickly! Asa chiropractor, I can tell you that thiswould result in joint and muscle damageeventually, if the feat were eitherpossible or attempted. Those sorts of

exercises, with more moderate weights,are useful only for specialist Olympiclifters to get past “sticking points” incompetitive lifting.

If the number of repetitions can be keptvery low, at a maximal level that willkeep the muscle tension very high, itshould be possible to keep the load timeof the whole set under 10 seconds,particularly if the weight can be droppedat the height of the lifting phase. Perhapsa Smith machine can be adapted so that adeadlift can be done and weightsdropped on the springs, or perhaps largerubber-edged weight plates can be used.

The reasoning behind all this becomes

very clear if we realize that the shortduration is extremely important here. Ifwe dropped the weight back a bit anddid more repetitions, as we’ve beenbrainwashed to do over the years, wewill not get the result. Why?

The answer, as we already know fromearlier in the book, is that the alacticenergy system is primarily recruited, andthis almost totally involves the specificIIB fast twitch fibers, and their hugeintramuscular creatine phosphate energystores. If we spend any longer than about10 seconds lifting heavy weights, as faras the energy systems in the muscle areconcerned, then we’re in danger of goingfrom the alactic system (no real

acidosis) to the glycolytic system(exponential buildup of acidosis). It isthis acidosis that causes the “burn” inconventional strength training, andtherefore causes the “necessity” of daysof recovery from the cellular damagebefore new muscle proteins can beproperly synthesized.

So what are we saying here? Yes, to getmassively strong for your size, you cansimply bypass all the gym traditionsassociated with pyramid sets of 12, 10and 8 repetitions, etc. and lift veryheavily, in strict form, with few reps,and take as long a recovery as neededbefore repeating the dose, intermingledwith good core exercises and upper

body strengthening work.

The downside? What downside? Oncetraining regularly with weights, there’sno real muscle soreness, and you’llacquire a healthy local muscular systemthat can start synthesizing new proteinsalmost immediately after every workout.It’s the way everyone will be training inthe near future if they’re serious.

If this is true, then surely everyonewould train this way right now?

What we can tell you is that this isexactly the way the strongest weight-class power lifters and Olympic liftersin the world train, and they can’t afford

non-contractile muscle mass that wouldforce them up a weight category.

For detailed information on thesemethods, Barry Ross’s website is wellworth looking at(www.bearpowered.com).

Other Useful Exercises

I have always found that boxingexercises are terrific for upper body andcore work. Boxing drills after tracktraining are a fun way to get in somemuch-needed upper body development.

“Floor-to-ceiling” punchball exercises

develop excellent hand-eye coordinationand quick reflexes, and speedballexercises can develop powerful chest,shoulders, arms, and abdominals. Thereis a small but effective trunk rotation thatis repeated hundreds of times in a goodspeedball set, and this can be very goodfor oblique abdominal development.

The most famous proponent of speedballexercises in athletics was 1980 100mOlympic gold medalist Allan Wells, butthe conditioning system of intense circuittraining and speedball exercises hasbeen used for many years by“professional” sprinters in Scotland andAustralia.Work with focus pads provides

excellent conditioning, as does skipping.Skipping was an exercise used byLydiard’s athletes.

*Paavolainen, L., et al. “Explosive-strength training improves 5-km runningtime by improving running economy andmuscle power,” Journal of AppliedPhysiology Vol. 86, Issue 5, 1527-1533,May 1999.

Strength Training Terms

Muscle Actions

Concentric contraction: The muscle

shortens while it contracts: i.e., bicepscurl exercise. Eccentric lengthening: Themuscle lengthens while it still holdstension: i.e., lowering the weight in abiceps curl.

Isometric Contraction: The muscleholds constant tension while neithercontracting nor relaxing (i.e., holding theweight still halfway through the curl).

Terms for ResistanceExercises

Open-chain exercise: The extremities(hands or feet) are not fixed in placeduring the movement: they move away

from the body. (e.g., bench press pushesweight away from fixed upper body: Legextension lifts lower leg and weightaway from fixed knee and thigh). Theseexercises tend to isolate one joint, andbear very little resemblance to real-lifeactivities. They can put immense“shearing stress” onto joint surfacesdesigned for completely differentloading forces. Avoid these inresistence training for track athletics.

Closed-chain exercise: The extremitiesare fixed in place during the exercise.e.g., deadlift, squat: where the feet arefirmly fixed as the body extends andopens up. Push-up: Feet and handsfirmly on the ground during exercise.

Compound movements: Movementsthat involve several joints and musclegroups at once: these tend to mimic real-life activities, and many are closed-chain exercises. These include pullingand pushing exercises such as theoverhead chin-up, the push-up, as wellas the dip, the squat, and the lunge.

Plyometric exercise: Any exercisewhere there is a very rapid change froma lengthened (eccentric) muscle action toa shortened (concentric) musclecontraction, i.e., skipping, bounding ontoes. Also known as SSC exercise thesedays to confuse us further. (SSC standsf o r stretch shortening cycle). Theseexercises are thought to immediately

activate fast twitch IIB neurons andmuscle fibers.

Ballistic exercises: Ballistic means“airborne.” Concentric ballisticexercises include jumping and medicineball throws. Eccentric ballisticexercises include depth landings, like agymnast would perform, or catching amedicine ball. The airborne objectcomes to a sudden stop. These exercisesare thought to immediately fire IIB fasttwitch neurons and muscle fibers.

Part 11For the Nerds

A Review of RecentResearch

Physiology researchers all seem to usediffering expressions and conventionsfor various running intensities. Fromwhat I can see there is no “oneconvention,” and intensity levels are allexpressed differently in the variousendurance sports and in differentresearch papers.

So, in this review of current literature,I’ve standardized the terminolgies sothat I don’t confuse myself or you. (Myapologies to the researchers.)

For instance, vLTP (velocity at theLactate Turnpoint) mentioned in onestudy is exactly the same as vLT(velocity at Lactate Threshold)mentioned in another. I’ll just call it vLTin this chapter. Similarly, there arevarious ways of expressing maximaloxygen uptake and the pace at which it isreached: I just call it VO2max orvVO2max in this chapter.

Is There an Optimal

Training Intensity forEnhancing the MaximalOxygen Uptake of DistanceRunners?

This was the question posed by a recentstudy published in the journal “SportsMedicine.”

The bottom line appears to be that atlower levels of initial cardiovascularfitness, high volumes at lowerpercentages of VO2 max are all that arerequired to be run at to elicit asignificant training response, and thismay be true up to moderate levels ofperformance. In other words, the less fit

one is, the easier it is to raise one’smaximum oxygen uptake through volumetraining at lower intensities. However, itgets harder to elicit a noticeable changein VO2 max once very high levels offitness have been established.

This may be because “allcardiorespiratory adaptations elicited bysubmaximal training have probablyalready been elicited in distance runnerscompeting at a relatively high level.”

To quote further from the study’sabstract:

“Well trained distance runners havebeen reported to reach a plateau in

VO2max enhancement; however, manystudies have demonstrated that theVO2max of well trained runners can beenhanced when training protocols knownto elicit 95–100% VO2max are includedin their training programmes. Thissupports the premise that high-intensitytraining may be effective or evennecessary for well trained distancerunners to enhance VO2max.”

So the bottom line for Lydiard-systemathletes is that sub-maximal oxygenuptake and efficiency can increase foryears (explaining why performances canget better each year despite no change inmeasured oxygen uptake), and once thehighest possible level of aerobic

efficiency has been reached, intenserunning at 95-100% VO2 max isnecessary; i.e., longer intervals withequal or shorter recovery at 5000m to3000m pace but no faster.

Midgley, A. W., McNaughton, L. R. andWilkinson, M. “Is there an OptimalTraining Intensity for Enhancing theMaximal Oxygen Uptake of DistanceRunners?” Source: Sports Medicine,Volume 36, Number 2, 2006, 117-132(16).

The Relationship Betweenthe Lactate Turnpoint and

the Time at VO 2 MaxDuring a Constant VelocityRun to Exhaustion.This investigation examined therelationship between the runningvelocity at threshold pace (vLT, velocityat Lactate Turnpoint ) and the time thatVO2max can be sustained for (TVO2

max) during a continuous run toexhaustion at the minimal runningvelocity that elicits VO2 max (vVO2

The main finding of this study is that therelative time an athlete can hold atthreshold (vLT) demonstrated asignificant positive correlation with the

relative time he or she could hold atvVO2 max.

The physiological mechanism by whichthe lactate turnpoint may influence therelative time held at VO2max has notbeen elucidated, and further research isrequired to substantiate these findings.

In other words, the faster you can runat threshold pace, the longer you canhold your VO2 max pace.

The author’s interpretation of this studyfor athletes and coaches is that eachanaerobic intensity on the trainingpyramid depends on the level ofdevelopment of the intensity levels

below and, by definition, this continuesall the way down to the lowest levels ofaerobic threshold.

Midgley, A. W., McNaughton, L. R.,Wilkinson, M. “The Relationshipbetween the Lactate Turnpoint and theTime at VO2 Max during a ConstantVelocity Run to Exhaustion.” IntJournal of Sports Medicine. 2006. Apr;27:278-82.

Kenyans Need to Train atthe Right Intensities Too!French running physiologist VeroniqueBillat’s team analysed the trainingdiaries and physiological profiles of 13

male and six female Kenyan 10k runners.The major significance of this study isthat the subjects were élite athletescompeting on the international circuit.

The study focused on training time spentat three discrete physiological paces:

Training at vVO2max for the Kenyanstook the form of interval workouts – e.g.,20 x 400m or 6 x 800m;

Training at vΔ50 involved long

repetition interval sessions – e.g., 4 x2,000m – with short recoveries.

All other weekly distance not specifiedin the study was run at less than vLT,e.g., 90-minute runs at an easy pace.

There were three groups studied:

M1 was one of two male groups, whosemembers performed faster-pacedinterval sessions with a significantproportion of weekly kilometers run atvLT (10.9 km), vΔ50 (6.8 km) andvVO2max pace (7.8 km). They averaged158 km/wk, with an average best 10ktime of 28:15.

M2 men focused on training at vLT(25.4 km/wk) with minimal vΔ50 work(2.4 km/ wk) and no work at vVO2max.This group averaged 174 km/wk. Theaverage best 10k for this group was28:54.

T h e F (female) group completedsignificantly shorter weekly distancesthan the men, but included fast-pacedintervals sessions at vΔ50 and vVO2maxpace, but no work at vLT pace. Theiraverage best 10k was 32:22.

M1 athletes were significantly fasterthan M2 athletes over 10k, a feature thatis associated with superior VO2max,vVO2max and vΔ50. vΔ50 and vVO2max

were the two biggest predictors of 10kperformance. vLT does not relate asstrongly to 10k performance, probablybecause 10k pace is at greater than vLTPpace – ie at v¢50.

A number of athletes in the M2 groupwere unable to reach a true VO2maxduring the step test as they fatigued tooquickly at the fastest running pace. Theirperformance was not limited by oxygenconsumption, as this had not yet reachedplateau. Thus it was not theircardiovascular systems that failed them.Their lack of training time at vVO2maxpace meant they were very inefficientwhen approaching this pace on atreadmill.

It does seem to make physiologicalsense to train at all three of these paces.

The Kenyan women in the study trainedin a similar fashion to the M1 group butdid no training at all with vLT. It ispossible that their vΔ50, and thereforetheir 10k pace, could be boosted byadding in sessions at vLT.

ReferencesMedicine and Science in Sport and Exercise ,

2003, 35(2), 297-304 and 305.

Aerobic Processes Far MoreInvolved in 400m-1500mRacing Than Previously

ThoughtIt appears that there are largeinaccuracies in the old methodologyused for calculating Oxygen Debt (TheOxygen Debt Method or OD method),and recent research has corrected this asfollows. The new and more accuratemethod is called the AccumulatedOxygen Debt Method, or AOD.

The consequence of this is that theaerobic work content of these distanceshas been significantly underrated bytheorists up until now.

References:AOD data: Spencer, M. R., Gastin, P. B. and

Payne, W. R. “Energy system contributionduring 400m to 1,500m running, NewStudies in Athletics, no. 4/1996.

Oxygen debt data: Newsholme, E., Leech, T.,Duester, G. “Keep on Running. TheScience of Training and Performance.” -1994 -John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

More Discussion on VO 2

MaxAnyone can achieve significantincreases in VO2 max readings bytraining at VO2 max intensities, butwithout working on the lower intensitiesto raise the aerobic ceiling as well, this

spectacular increase in efficiency andcapacity isn’t sustainable and definitelynot repeatable from year to year.

Other questions are raised about the truemeaning of a very high VO2 max reading;it is a measure of oxygen consumed, buthow effectively that oxygen is used inthe system or how long this maximalconsumption can be maintained are moreimportant.

We now know from good research thatthere is much more to world-classmiddle distance or distance performancethan a huge VO2 max. How fast one canget from A to B is what’s important, andthis can be dictated by factors

completely out of the oxygen uptakearena.

Many years ago, athletes of the caliberof Olympic marathon champion FrankShorter, world marathon record holderDerek Clayton, and legendary USOlympian Steve Prefontaine all had theirVO2 max readings accuratelyascertained. Prefontaine’s was well andtruly above that of Shorter or Clayton,however he was certainly not dominantover Shorter on a regular basis overtrack distances such as 3000m through to10000m. Shorter was able to perform atworld-class levels right down to 3000m.

Here are their respective best

performances, along with theirlaboratory-measured VO2 max readings:note that the three mile times,representative of 95% VO2 max pace,were done in the same race, whereShorter lead with 200m to go andPrefontaine just got by. It’s also apt topoint out here that Shorter was able tooutkick 1972 Olympic 1500m bronzemedalist Rod Dixon over 3000m in thelead up to winning his 1972 Olympicmarathon crown.

Shorter (VO2 max 71.3): 3000m:7:51.3 miles- 12:51.8, 5000m- 13:26.6,10,000m- 27:45.9,Prefontaine: (VO2 max 84.4): 3000m:7:45 3 miles-12:51.4, 5000m- 13:21.87,

10,000m- 27:43.6

When we realize too that the greatfemale marathoner Ingrid Kristiansenhad a VO2 max measured at 71.2 whilerunning the marathon at 2hr 21:06, andShorter ran the marathon in 2hr 10 atvirtually the same measured VO2 max(71.3) we see that there’s more to thisthan meets the eye.

To confuse things further, the greatDerek Clayton twice smashed theworld’s best marathon time in the 1960s,ending up with a 2:08.33: however, hisVO2 max was measured at “only” 69.7.

Despite a huge ability to consume

oxygen, Prefontaine was nowhere asefficient a runner as Shorter, and Claytonwas incredibly efficient. The actualamount of oxygen required to power anathlete through a 5000m at the elite levelisn’t as important as the efficiency of theathlete. The important factor is at whatlevel the body starts to run into acidosis;this is defined by the anaerobicthreshold, which is most safelydeveloped by running at high sub-threshold aerobic efforts, and byTVO2max: how long VO2 max pace canbe maintained.

Part 12Winter Running &Cross-CountryTraining

Winter, for any athlete not on theinternational circuits, is a time forgetting strong and developing theaerobic systems to maximum. Winterraces are all at “aerobic” distances, andtherefore a highly aerobic winterlongpreparation is not only a very good ideabut highly desirable for any serious

middle distance athlete wanting toimprove on the track.

Steve Ovett, 1980 Olympic 800mchampion and 1:44.0 runner, won UKtitles over 400m and cross country as ajunior. Sebastian Coe also won youthtitles over cross-country before

developing his speed and anaerobiccapacity. Peter Snell won a NewZealand cross country title as a senior.Rod Dixon was third in the world crosscountry championships twice. JohnWalker was 4th in 1975, his worldrecord year for the mile. Middledistance runners with an endurance basecan run cross-country extremely wellbecause they have usually developed alarge aerobic and anaerobic capacity,and cross country is often a series ofsurges and fast running interspersed withrelative recoveries. Who better trainedthan a 1500m runner to cope with thatsort of running? It is different from theunrelenting pressure of a road race,where anaerobic threshold dictates the

outcome far more.

It is not necessary to delve too far intoanaerobic sharpening work inpreparation for major winter races, suchas National cross-country titles over12km. VO2 max intervals on cross-country courses can be a very fun way ofgetting ready for an aerobic peak, andthese can be done once a week, oralternated between races.

Winter can also be a great time todevelop and sharpen leg speed, as thepreponderance of aerobic running canleave the legs quite nicely recovered. Awinter spent developing the aerobicsystems, and sharpening leg speed on

short easy days, can pay big dividends insummer.

Writer, historian, and cross-countrymaster Roger Robinson joins us here toexpound on the virtues of sausages inwinter. I include his very good writinghere because I believe Roger’s famous“sausage sessions” can be adapted toany team’s winter cross-countrypreparations on hard training days, andsausage sessions can be progressivelyraised in intensity as peak racing periodsapproach. Lydiard would call it astructured fartlek, but “sausage session”sounds like more fun.

(Roger is an award-winning writerwho made New Zealand and Englishcross-country teams to the worldchampion-ships, and was Professor ofEnglish at Victoria University,Wellington. He learned his craft atCambridge University in England, andthroughout the 1980’s was one of thebest masters runners in the world.)

Training for CrossCountry

A Study in Sausages

Roger Robinson

Winter is here. I can tell. InWellington, the wind has dropped. Thecat takes her fresh air by sleeping onthe chimney pot. My nylon fashionshorts feel chilly round the cheeks.Halfway through a run, I get cravingsfor beef tea. The moist earth,fermenting underfoot, smells richly as

you run along. It is the season forcross-country running, the second-oldest sport in the world.

First Principles

People have run cross country since thefirst sabertooth chased the firstcaveperson, and the first nymph ranaway with the first shepherd. WhenPheidippides ran his 240 kilometersfrom Athens to summon help fromSparta, he did so along mountain pathsdescribed to me by a historian of ancientGreece as “little more than glorifiedgoat tracks.” Not on roads, not even carttracks in 490 B.C. Nor did he go near

Marathon, but that’s another story.

For messengers and soldiers, shepherdsand goatherds, gamekeepers andpoachers, cross-country running throughhistory has been a profession, and forevery able-bodied person, a necessarypart of everyday life. Modern Africanrunners like Keino or Bayi who arereputed to have run awesome distancesto and from school look utterly normalagainst the full scope of human history.Those of us confined to cars andconcrete are the freaks.

Cross country is thus not only ancient, itis absolutely natural. The runner whodoes no running on the country is, in myview, missing one of the most essentially

human and innately pleasurable of allforms of exercise. Yet, too many newrunners of the modern running boom arecoy about cross country, reluctant to gettheir colourful shoes wet. You can seethem running wholly on the tarsealedroads in Cornwall Park and CentralPark. To be only a road runner is likebeing a swimmer yet never leaving themunicipal baths for the beach or theriver. We are mechanically designed torun cross country rather than on roads.

That is the second major point. Crosscountry, as well as being natural, isinfinitely varied, and thereforephysically beneficial and mentallystimulating.

The country changes from area to area,from season to season, from day to day. Iremember with delight how the 1976 NZNationals course at Invercargill was ahard-baked racetrack on Friday and aslushy swamp by Saturday afternoon.Things can even change during the race,as the ground cuts up or packs downunder the eager feet. I remember withless delight getting caught in spikes tooshort for the increasingly slimy topsoilwhen it came on to rain at Whangarei in1974. There is never a dull moment, andtraining must somehow take account ofall these eventualities and variables.

So the underlying principles of anyprogram of cross-country training should

embody these two essentials:

And the third, if you plan to race, or justto get maximum benefit from yourtraining, is

Why Run Fast?

One of the beauties of cross-countrytraining is that often the terrain does a lotof the work and makes many of thedecisions for you. Runners in cities fromDunedin to Aberdeen willing to venture

off the easy harbor roads gain enormouscardiorespiratory and muscle-buildingbenefits from simply running thoseformidable hills. At the top level, BryanRose and Jack Foster have shown thatconstant-effort running on rugged terraincan bring results that might take years ofmentally destructive track repetitions.

But one of the hidden enemies ofcontinued progress for any runner ishabit. You can get too good at one kindof training, and then you simply retain

efficiency at that session. More commonamong cross-country runners are themany I have known who operate all thetime at what I call three-quarter effort,and who fail to rise above that in races.To improve, you have to keep pushingthe body a little into the unknown. Thatis why I would qualify Jack Foster’sadvice that you should find a form oftraining that works for you and stick toit.

Yes, fine, provided that you havesomething of Jack’s adventurousness andirrepressible capacity for work. Ibelieve there should always be somemodification of the successful system, anew element, a new stress for the body

to learn and adapt to. The country doesmuch of this for you – a day of rain, astronger wind, a fall of leaves, and youhave got your new factor. You shouldalso build it in more systematically to awell-constructed program of speedrunning.

What I want to propose is a trainingpattern which makes possible that pushinto the unknown for runners ofabsolutely any level of ability. It is away of working for speed over theground – all kinds of.ground – thatremains faithful to the true character ofcross-country by being natural andvaried. It is suitable for a solo runnerand even better for groups. It works on

any kind of terrain. It is economical oftime, fun to do, and it gets results. It iscalled the sausage session.

The Structure of theSausage

The principle is easy. Instead of runninground a measured lap against the clock,you simply run repetitions of a period oftime, making up the route as you goalong. The permutations then arecountless. The “sausages” or efforts, canbe of any period of time from 1 minute to15 minutes (4 x 15 is marvelousmarathon training); or they can be mixed(alternating 2 and a half and 5 minutes

makes a good, psychologicallymanageable early-season session); orthey can taper up or down; as what wecall, not very accurately, a pyramid (e.g.2m30s, 5 min, 7m30s, 10min, 7m30s,5min, 2m30s: that’s quite a tough one).

Studying the Menu

I rarely know beforehand exactly whatform a sausage session is going to take.If it’s sausage-day, we gather and gossipas we jog out to the chosen area – about15 minutes warm-up. The last moment issoon enough to decide the format of thesession. Spontaneity is the essence.

But the main point is not to plan in toomuch detail. The route, especially,should be improvised as the sessionproceeds. Many places possess aspacious area of varied country likeAuckland’s Cornwall Park or London’sWimbledon Common or the numerousLincoln and Washington Parks aroundAmerica. Wellington, where I now live,is rather limited in this respect, but thefollowing typical mid-season 6 x 5minute session should give the idea:

And so on. In a single session, we haverun on at least six different surfaces andincorporated uphill, downhill, and fast,flat running, in the open, under trees,with the wind and into it. AtChristchurch, we used to mix the sharphillocks of Burwood Forest with thefast, open beach or springy sawdusttracks. Often the going changes radicallyin the middle of an effort, just as it willdo in a race. And there is still ampleroom for variation and initiative.

Leading up to the annual Vosseler Shieldwe may chase up and down the steepbank at the north end of Macalister Parkor even go on to Mount Victoria itselfwhere that precipitous race is run. Closeto championships time, I like to steer forall the muddiest patches. If you don’ttrain on it, you can’t expect to race on it,I have been quoted as saying.

Nutritional Benefits ofSausages

It is not easy to tabulate all the benefitsof this kind of training, but here aresome:

“Proprioception:” that is, that instinctiveself-awareness that enables us to moveover rough ground without necessarilylooking at it. This may indeed be thegreatest benefit of all. I suspect it is askill that can be severely damaged bytoo much road running.

The Story of Sausages

In Australia recently, I heard runners usethe term “sausage session” without theslightest comprehension that I had anyspecial connection with the phrase or thetraining method. So perhaps it is time totell the story briefly.

When I was a lad in the 1950s, theformula for success was track repetitionrunning. Bannister, Zatopek, Pirie – allthe greats were the product of intensive

repetitions, usually over 400 meters.Advocated by Germany’s WoldemarGerschler and espoused then by mostEuropean and American coaches, it is avery Germanic system – methodical,disciplined and measurable.

By the time I was at university, anotherwind was blowing, which had originatedin the freer atmosphere of Sweden’spine forests as Gosta Holmer’s idea offartlek (speed play) and then traveledround the world via the sandhills ofPortsea, Victoria. This was the ideal thatrunning expresses the runner’spersonality, and so, in Holmer’s words,“the training is fixed according to therunner’s own individuality.” Fartlek,

like repetitions, is fast-slow training, butthe efforts and recovery are dictated bytemperament and terrain, not by aconcrete kerb and the stopwatch.

“Sausages” blend these two opposingprinciples. As students, we triedeverything, from old-style English hare-and-hounds, with a fast “run-in” tofinish, to high-volume Zatopekian trackrepetitions. We began to move towardsan emphasis on long intervals, x 1 mileor x 2 miles, which may be an Englishpeculiarity, with Gordon Pirie in thosedays the leading exponent. I stillremember the day in 1961 when MikeTurner, then on the threshold of his longinternational career, ran 9 x 1 miles on

the Cambridge University track, wearingout a sequence of partners just as theinsatiable Roman Empress Messalinawas reputed to have exhausted herlovers. I submitted after seven. Aremarkable decade of internationalrunners was to emerge from Cambridgeunder Turner’s discerning butuncompromising inspiration.

From these long intervals on the track,we moved to long intervals off the track.Five minute repetitions on the road(usually 6 x 5 minutes with 2 minutesrecovery) became a Turner institution –three out, three back, no way to chickenout. Then, away from Cambridge forthree years, I adapted the idea of timed

intervals to a variety of 5 minute orapproximate one-mile sessions up anddown the sandy hills and heather-covered commons of south-west Surrey,where I was now living. Once or twice Iworked up to 10 x 5 minutes, each ondifferent ground. Meanwhile, back onthe splashy paddocks and glutinousploughed fields of Cambridgeshire,Mike was piloting a file of runnersround a regular 10-mile circuit, dividedinto efforts of 2 minutes, with one-minute’s walk as recovery. Because thissomehow resembled a long successionof bulges separated by a short string, itbecame known as the sausage session.

I returned to Cambridge for research in

1964. Mike, also working on a PhD, wasnow an established international, and Iwas the Surrey (i.e., provincial)champion. We wanted a lot of hardrunning over the country, but we tooksessions at least once a week withgroups of younger student harriers. Somy series of cross-country miles and hisstring of 2~5 minute efforts becamecombined into the general practice ofrunning intervals without any set route,but measured by time rather than aknown circuit. How far we ran in each5-minutes depended on the going. In thatfenny mud, it was often not very far.

We still called them sausage sessions,but the string now tended to become

tangled as the leaders veered around topick up tiring runners who had droppedoff. We could have called them “Followmy leader” or “Country Reps.” If thecomputer age had been born, we mighthave called them LIOCROW (LongIntervals On Country Run On TheWatch), or FRIGS (Free RangingInterval Group Sessions). But sausagespre-date computer language.

Sausage Groups: LegalizedCornercutting

Sausage sessions are probably the bestform of group training ever invented.The basic principles are again very

simple. Take it in turns to lead. Give theleader complete freedom to choose theroute. Give those following completefreedom to stray off that route if theylike. Like many social breakthroughs, itthus depends on the legitimizing ofcrime, in this case cornercutting.

What happens is that the leader shouldrun in a series of curves or bends,looping around completely if the ability-range of the group is wide. The slowerrunners behind simply cut the corners.Or, if a slower runner is taking a turn infront, the faster runners behind run wideat the corners to increase their distance.The only rule is never to go in front ofthe nominated leader.

This means that the better runners travelfurther than the slower ones, buteveryone, fast or slow, runs the samesession, n x n (4 x 5 minutes, orwhatever). They all get the same effort,the same recovery, the same terrain, thesame benefits. Nobody gets left behindor deprived of recovery time, nobodygets “beaten.” And even a top runner canprovide for an off day by a few sneakysavings on the corners. The moreunscrupulous cut the corners to savestrength so they can run everyone else’slegs off when it’s their turn to lead.

Everyone in the group also gets the samebasic experience in the pressures ofracing: experience at leading a panting,

spluttering, heel-tapping mob overdifficult ground, and experience athanging in with that mob, runningrelaxedly among feet and elbows withbits of mud in your eyes and mouth, andexperience at positional running, tailingor flanking the group, lining up yourapproach to the corners, hills and jumps.The jostling pressures of the cross-country race will then hold no surprises.

One “caveat.” Big, mixed groups arefine in the early season and do a lot forclub morale. We used to have packs ofmore than 20 runners scampering roundHagley Park in the early Seventies at thebeck and call of Brian Taylor, the othergreat name in the history of sausages.

But by mid-June, when the pressurecomes on, it’s best to subdivide intosmall units of relatively even ability.

Sausage Country

Solo, you can run sausages anywhere.I’ve done them along the San Franciscowaterfront and across the prairies ofIllinois, in Buckingham Palace Gardens,and on the palmy beach of CastawayIsland, Fiji. For a group, you need fairlyopen country. Sports fields, farmpaddocks, golf courses, beach-and-dunecountry are all good.

An area like Cornwall Park, Auckland,is ideal. Narrow paths are no good, asthey prevent cornercutting and string outthe group too much. After dark, it’spossible to run a session on a floodlitsportsground or alongside good streetlighting.

My own sausage intake is twice a week

in the racing season. One session is thelonger intervals I have just described,aiming at about race pace. The other isshorter and faster. Typically, this will bethe infamous 75/45’s, i.e., up to 16repetitions of 75 seconds fast, with 45seconds recovery. It’s really just asession of 400s, with emphasis onrecovery rather than sheer speed, andrun on the free-range principle instead ofconstipating yourself round and roundthe same circuit.

(Editor’s note: the above constitutes anexcellent VO2 max interval session)

Find good, grassy footing on pleasantsports fields or parkland. Not everyone

will want this session, but personally,having muscle fibers that range betweenslow twitch and dead-stop, I find itindispensable if I’m to be at allcompetitive. This is the opportunity topractice wearing spikes, too, which toomany runners neglect in winter.

A Monday-Wednesday or Tuesday-Thursday pattern is easy enough tomanage, though the exigencies of worksometimes intrude. With quieter daysbetween and a long run on the weekend,this makes for an interesting, honest andprofitable week’s running.

The Sausage Season

One major point remains to be made.Sausages provide a wonderfully flexibleand controllable training structure. Therunner or the coach can controldevelopment of fitness over the seasonto a nicety. Quantity and intensity of hardrunning can be planned long term andfinely tuned short term.

Again, the principle is simple. Justincrease the total quantity of fast runningas the season progresses. Total “qualitytime” is the guide. I tend to use thecolloquialism “20 minutes’ worth” or“30 minutes’ worth.” At the beginning ofthe season, April in New Zealand orOctober in the Northern Hemisphere, 20minutes quality is enough.

Edge it up. Senior men should get to 30minutes’ worth by the end of May, whenthe first races are coming, 35 in June and40-45 in July. Women and juniorsadjust, of course, according to racedistance.

So this is another secret ingredient ofsausages, the quality-time factor. If youare used to running at race speed for thefull race time, over varied country and inall weathers, you are equipped to do thesame in the race. You will thus be in asmall and privileged minority when the

gun fires. Plenty of your rivals will haverun more miles, or have better speed orskills, but not many runners have trainedto race all the way in cross country. Yes,it’s hard to convince yourself on a coldJuly or January day to do yet two moreefforts of 5 minutes. But those are thetwo that will matter on the last lap of thechampionship three weeks ahead.

Sausages for Beginners

Whether you are a sub-30 minute 10kgun or a novice coping with his or herfirst cross-country season, you canbenefit, I believe, from much of theabove. You have to be dedicated to

handle repetition 800 meters on thetrack, but anyone can enjoy a few 2minute stride-outs at their own speed onpleasant country.

You should probably not try anythinglike the full sausage program until youare running close to an hour every day,more or less. But even before that, trypopping in a couple of one-minute“efforts” into your next daily run, then dothree or four next week, six a week later.Forget about taking your overall time.Never mind the length, try for quality.Train your body to recover as well as tosuffer.

Scientific Sausages

I have written about this training inpersonal and layman’s terms, but youwill find nothing inconsistent with thelatest studies on oxygen uptake,proprioception, the capillary system, orpeaking. There are other effects, such asdeveloping conditioned recovery-reflexes in the heart, which I suspecthave not yet been studied. But my hearthas its secrets, as they say in the Mills &Boon romances.

One possibly controversial point is themixing of anaerobic work with racing. Ican only say that provided you don’trace too often, or train too hard close to

the race, it works. What the sausagesystem provides is a perfectly balancedprogram of aerobic and anaerobic work,with the flexibility to fine-tune thebalance between them from week toweek and day to day. I always hadreservations about the rigid divisions ofthe phases of training that Arthur Lydiardused to advocate (buildup, hill-springs,etc.), and I’m glad about his move overthe years towards the kind of “adjustablebalance” that a sausage programprovides. Jack Foster, Rob de Castellaand Steve Jones use much the same mix.

Winter Sausages inSummary

I have seen D team runners become Ateam runners, and club runners becomeinternationals, on a diet of sausages.Juniors and veterans are lifted to higherlevels by them. Clubs can betransformed, as Canterbury Universitywas in the 1970s (provided, of course,they are lucky enough to have a greatorganizer-motivator like Brian Taylor).

In essence, what I have been describingis neither a magic formula nor a pseudo-scientific ‘method,’ but just a practicaland interesting way of carrying outcertain simple and traditional trainingprinciples. It has been called “fierce”but I prefer to see it as purposeful fun. Itgets you into the country of your choice.It makes you fit. It is natural and varied.It sharpens the appetite. As a way ofgetting through the winter, it’s a lotbetter than watching television.

Ten Rules for Racing

Part 14War Stories &Real CaseHistoriesThis whole chapter is a smorgasbordof true running tales that the athleteand coach may relate to. No matterwhat level you’ve reached, if you’vemessed up a major race, take solace inthe fact that you’re not alone!

The author and his former trainingpartners made a number of classictraining mistakes, which they arehappy to share with anyone else who

fancies taking the step to the nextlevel.

At the end of the day, carefulplanning, execution of the plan, and acool head win out over wild adventureevery time. Take it from some“could’ve beens” who know!

How Craig Mottram CameBack from the Dead

In 2006, Craig Mottram made a stunningcomeback from a patch of very poorform in Europe. After a greatCommonwealth Games campaign where

he dominated the 5000m final and brokeup the African pack a kilometer out, hewas outclassed by the brilliant Kenyanyoungster Augustine Choge over the last200m.

After a short phase of recovery and moreendurance base running, he returned fora European campaign in good form,recording a stunning 7:32 winning timeover 3000m early on his tour, but theemotional and physical toll of hisprevious summer caught up with him,and he lapsed into a series of poorresults. His results becameunpredictable, with finishes at the backof fields that he would have beenconsistently dominating a few weeks

earlier.

Craig’s 3000m time dropped from awinning 7:32 in a world-class field to an“out the back” 7:47. His flat-out 1500mdropped to 3:38, and he finished about18th in a stacked field doing that. Sothings weren’t looking good for adefence of his IAAF World Cup 3000mtitle that he’d won 4 years earlier.

News reports filtered back from Europethat he was considering pulling out of theOceania team for the World Cup andcoming back early from his Europeantour because he was so jaded.

Somewhere, a month or so out from his

World Cup, he had a change of heart. Hedecided he was going to “stand up” anddefend his title, rather than going back toAustralia with his tail between his legs.So the first thing he did was straight outof Arthur Lydiard’s bag of tricks.

He jogged very slowly. For day afterday, until he felt more like his normalself. Then he introduced some moderateuphill efforts on the parkland near hisLondon base, without bursting his boiler.Then he did some longer anaerobicthreshold runs, and relaxed and jogged alot. His “snap” was returning veryquickly, and the decision was made todefinitely defend the 3000m title inAthens. A very late entry was world

5000m record holder and multiple worldchampion Kenenise Bekele of Ethiopia.

What would you do in the final daysleading up to a race against one of thefastest finishers in world athletics?Especially if your form had been poor?

More speedwork was needed, right? Ifyou’re like 99% of modern athletes andcoaches out there, that’s exactly whatyou’d do.

And more speedwork was exactly whatMottram didn’t do. On the Friday beforethe Sunday race, he went to a track anddid several 200m strideouts at hiscurrent perceived 3000m pace. He took

plenty of easy recovery.

If you can call this relaxed session“speedwork,” then this was it. The timesfor the 200m strides? 30 seconds. A timeschoolgirl athletes could do in training.But 30 seconds for 200m, repeated 15times in a row, is 7:30 for 3000m.

He jogged easily the next day andfronted in Athens ready for action. Hetook off for the line well before the lastlap, with Bekele right on his hammer,and in the last lap exploded away againto win by about 4 seconds in 7:32.19, anew Oceania record. His last lap wasabout 53 seconds. This was a stunningupset.

“I just ran well and he didn’t. Thathappens in running sometimes” saidMottram later.

Kynan had been training religiously with

his club in suburban Melbourne foryears but had made no real progresssince his late teens and early 20s. Hehad once reached times as good as 1:51for 800m and 8:50 for 3000msteeplechase and 3:50 for 1500m. Infact, despite training harder and harder,his running had come to a standstill andhe was on the verge of giving up. Hewas a 31-year-old graduate chiropractorwhen he came to stay with me on aclinical residency.

We analysed Kynan’s typical regimenand even in winter we found a clubtraining culture that revolved around“speed training” several days a week.This would entail repetitions of 200m,

300m, and 400m, with short recoveries,all at hard fast paces. The repetitionswould consist of sets of 2 x 200m, 2 x300m, and 2 x 400m, and the paceswould average around 26 seconds for200m, 41s for 300m, and 58 seconds for400m. Of course, the average speed formost of these was faster than hissustainable 800m speed, and had norelevance to the aerobic systems thatwinter training should be developing.His hard days were Tuesday, Thursday,and Saturday, which was either a race ora hard time trial over something like1000m. The days between the hardsessions were devoted to short recoveryjogs during the week, or a longer run onSunday of 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 40.

The bottom line was that when Kynanentered at my clinic, he appearedterribly unhealthy. His face was puffyand swollen, and his skin was stretchedand tight. He was continually eatingsweets, salted potato crisps, and strongcoffee with several sugars. His urinewas as dark as molasses. His last racehad been a disaster: 10k road in over 36minutes going as hard as he could. Heused to be able to do about 31 minuteseasily. He was exhausted from themoment he got up. His blood pressurewas elevated.

His symptoms represented classicaladrenal gland exhaustion. The puffy face,fluid retention, and frequent “hits” of

sugar, salt, and caffeine were all signsthat his endocrine system was highlystressed. Essentially, he was self-medicating to restore some semblance ofnormal function in his highly stressedsystem.

The adrenal glands sit on top of eachkidney, and they are involved in multiplehormonal pathways that can regulateblood sodium and blood sugar;therefore, they regulate blood pressureand energy levels. The adrenals alsoproduce adrenalin, a natural chemicalthat closely resembles heroin andmorphine, and is used medically to bringpeople back from the dead, literally. Inthe cortex of the adrenal gland, the stress

hormone cortisol is produced. This isclosely related to the drug cortisone. Theadrenals are nick named the “stressglands” or the “get up and go” glands. Inthis case, Kynan’s “get up and go” hadlong since “got up and gone.” Theconstant high-level demands of trainingwithout aerobic restoration runsbombarded his endocrine system intosubmission, and the next step along theline would be early Type II diabetes andCushing’s syndrome, a disease ofadrenal exhaustion.

The OutcomeWe got Kynan to take large amounts ofvitamin C and vitamin B5 (pantothenic

acid) which are “stress vitamins.” Wegot him to drink pure water only and eathealthy meals high in fresh vegetable andfruit content. He also had to throw hisstopwatch away and spend his morningsjogging as slowly as possible in a localforest until he actually felt his strengthreturning. His residency was about 12weeks and it took six weeks of slowjogging before Kynan felt that he wasenjoying his running again. At first, 20minutes of jogging wiped him out all daybut eventually he found he could go forup to an hour and totally enjoy theexperience. His aerobic systems wereslowly returning to normal.

In six weeks, he lost over 7 kilograms in

fluid retention alone, and started to looklike an athlete again. He no longercraved chips, sweets, or coffee. He wasable to run aerobically at speeds thatwere impossible two months earlier.

As his aerobic systems improved, Kynannaturally started to feel an urge to runfaster. So I got him to run a “steady-state” time trial over a flat 8-kilometercourse, which he covered easily in 29minutes. This was equivalent to the paceof his last 10km road race.

He went back to two more weeks ofvery slow jogging in the forest, withsome runs extending out to 90 minutes,and did another time trial over the same

distance. This time it was a veryrespectable 26 minutes, done easily.

Eventually Kynan returned to enjoyablerunning and won a number of fun runsaround Melbourne. “Compartmentsyndrome” injuries that he haddeveloped during his “silly training”period prevented him from getting backto a high level in track racing, but he ishappy and healthy now, and capable ofgetting well under 2 minutes over 800mas well as enjoying long runs.

Stephen

Stephen, 27, a former schoolboychampion, had not run anywhere near hispotential since leaving school and goingto university. The main problem was his

enthusiasm. As a youngster, he had wonmost of his schoolboy 800m and 1500mraces off natural talent, some goodaerobic training, and a taste for a “bigkick” in last laps.

As he moved into senior ranks, hemoved into a pattern of intense weeks oftraining followed by leg soreness,illness, or outright injury. Some injuriesbecame chronic, and to compensate forlost training time, Stephen would traineven harder. He had never learned to runeasily on a daily basis, as his clubtraining group tended to place a focus onfast track-based preparations.

When he came to me, he was also on the

verge of giving away the sport. He hadspent the previous years “playing” withsports as diverse as cricket, AustralianRules football, and karate. The footballand karate training had kept him inreasonable physical condition, but therewere also old heavy bruising injuries tothe leg muscles, which compromised ourapproach later.

The approach with Stephen had to bevery cautious. Although he had a ton ofnatural speed and copious naturalendurance ability, these were the verythings that could harm his progress. Hewas such a tough customer that he could“push” his training and not realize theearly signs of fatigue. So we devised a

very cautious training plan aimed atgetting Stephen back near where heshould be over a number of months.

He was under strict instructions togradually build up his weekly mileageuntil he was able to handle 9 or 10“slow” hours of running a week onparkland and trails. This he did, and hereported to me in April 2006 ready for awinter’s training. In the meantime, hehad hopped into a heat of the state 800mchampionships in February and poppeda 1:56 time off 150 kilometers a week injogging. This race had not been plannedfor or advised, but it showed that he hadsome real potential.

Since Stephen had missed so muchtraining time over the years, his reallevel of performance and experiencewas about the same as the junior athleteswe had been training. He made the same

basic mistakes, too. We had to makesure that Stephen went to great lengthsnot to push long runs too hard. With acouple of months of more aerobic base,including a weekly “strong aerobic”session around a hilly park trail, herecorded 31:13 for a 10km on the road.He had a couple of promising cross-country results, too.

The whole winter was geared to gettinga decent aerobic base back into Stephenprior to exploring some of his potentialon the track. Even that plan had to berevised at one stage when he’d been“pushing the envelope” with late nightsof study and part-time work; he promptlycaught a nasty flu that lingered for over 6

weeks during the major cross-countryracing period and had him bed ridden.When he got back to running, he kept re-injuring a groin strain. I checked him outand found an imbalance in his low backthat was aggravating his hip flexors:chiropractic adjustments and somemuscle balancing work got Stephen overthat hurdle, but it meant he had to stretchall major muscle groups on a daily basisand be super-careful in his approach.

With the scheduled winter races thatcould have prepared him for a winterpeak wiped out, we were running out ofoptions. He had a few weeks to preparefor his Australian National cross-countryrace, which he’d entered. The only

viable option was for Stephen to jogvery slowly week by week until hisstrength returned and do a couple ofsessions approaching high aerobic racespeeds in the weeks leading to hisNationals. His earlier aerobicbackground along with the restorativeaerobic running did the trick, andStephen ran the National cross-countrytitles strongly, finishing 22nd amidstmany hardened competitors with muchlonger racing pedigrees. This was agood run and yet again demonstrateduntapped potential.

With the summer racing seasonapproaching, Stephen set himself somechallenging goal times over 800m and

1500m. His main goal was to establishhimself at state level over 1500m andget into the national 1500mchampionships.

We decided to continue an aerobicpreparation for as long as possible intothe summer track season beforecommencing race-specific anaerobicwork. Stephen would need all theaerobic base he could get to be able torace well at the end of the summer.

We decided to pair Stephen up with atrack training partner, Tony, 39. Tonywas experienced and cautious, but stillfast enough and fit enough to make tracktraining tough for Stephen.

Stephen recorded his current PB of 3:51in winning his heat of the Victorian statechampionships, easing up. The next dayin the final he couldn’t back up, mostlikely because his recent aerobic basewas sufficient for only one PB in aweekend, not two. He needs severalmore years of aerobic running to reachhis potential.

In the national championships, he missedout on the final by a couple ofhundredths of a second, but placedhimself well tactically before beingswamped by men who’d recorded1500m times under 3:40 that season. Soall in all, he did well for someone whowas about to give up the sport.

To cap his summer, he did a couple ofweeks of easy aerobic work after hisnational 1500m attempt and won anEaster road mile in Bendigo with a bigfinish in front of a crowd of severalthousand. This is a good start for hiswinter preparation, which will befocused on consistency, avoiding injuryand illness, and accumulating miles inthe legs before some faster sessionsaimed at bringing his aerobic systems tomaximal capacity for a winter cross-country peak.

Tony, 39, had recorded some excellent

400m and 800m times as a youngster, buthad never progressed from there. After awinter of long running in his first senioryear of competition, Tony did a lot offast track training with a middle distancecoach and recorded 48.6 for 400m and1:49 for 800m. Thereafter, he did ablend of short aerobic runs, hill reps,track reps, and “long” runs of under 1hour, which kept him at a high level, butnever improving for the next 16 years.He never approached his PB times fromhis first serious season again. He hadnever run for more than one hourcontinuously, or more than 100kilometers, in any one week in all thattime.

We put Tony onto a whole-winterregimen of upping his aerobic volumesconsiderably. Because he was well-usedto short fast runs, the lower intensitylonger runs were no problemmechanically. It took Tony severalweeks to get used to the different feelingof fatigue that long runs induced and alsoto get him used to slowing the pace.Eventually he managed to run 2 hours ormore every Sunday in the hills and holdan average volume of 150 kilometers aweek. This was a huge change for Tony.He maintained his leg speed with regularsprint drills on Thursday nights beforeaerobic runs on parkland. Tony recordeda 32-minute 10k road time early inwinter and ended up getting 12th in the

state half-marathon championship on theroad in awful conditions, just a coupleof minutes behind the winner. Not badfor a jumped-up 800m runner pushing 40years of age.

The first track race was to be a 1500mrace at the Victorian Milers’ Club. Thisrace was merely to start the season and

establish a frame of reference, so theonly “quality” training that was donewas early-season hill-work to prepareStephen and Tony for later track work.Stephen found that the hill training madehis legs very stiff and sore, even thoughwe started with only a few shortrepetitions and nursed him along verygradually, with easy aerobic joggingdays in-between hill sessions.

Tony, who was far older, didn’t haveanything like the problems Stephen didbecause he had an unbroken string ofyears of running under his belt. Tony didcomplain of feeling “washed out” after afew early low-key sessions though. Thiswas typical of the excitatory effect of

hill training on the central nervoussystem, even though slow bounding andspringing seem so “easy” to do. InStephen’s case, we felt that the hill workwas exposing old injury sites and scartissue in his calf muscles to new trauma,so we stopped doing it and got him to doeasy striding exercises on the flat duringaerobic runs for several weeks.

The first race came and Stephen ran 3:59feeling like a “tractor.” The winner ranaway in about 3:51, and there wasnothing that either athlete could do tomaintain contact at that stage. Tony ran4:03, feeling like he was “flat out” thewhole way!

As the summer progressed, we gave bothathletes hard sessions based on realisticgoal 1500m and 800m times onTuesdays, and these were designed tofine-tune the preparations for Saturdayracing. Aerobic Sunday runsapproaching 2 hours were continueduntil January, when we reduced thevolume of these runs to enable therunners to freshen their glycogen storesamply before commencing very fastwork. Easy recovery runs of an hour orso continued every second day, andmorning jogs on track session dayscontinued.

Both athletes competed a number oftimes over 800m and 1500m. Even

though Tony was able to push Stephen tothe limit in some track training sessions,even “beating” him in some, he wasn’table to find the right race situation tochurn out the times his sessionsindicated he was capable of.

Tony would make basic mistakes liketaking off too soon in an 800m to “get atime,” rather than concentrating on goingfor a “win” in a slower time. In fact,because he was 39, he was starting tofocus on Australian age-group timeseach time he ran, rather than simplyracing to win.

Stephen recorded 1:52.9 for 800m thatseason, even though he was often shaded

by Tony in training. Tony recorded1:54.1 for 800m, his best time in over 8years. In one tactical race, he split twomuch younger athletes who had recentlyrecorded times around 1:51. 800mracing requires near-perfect conditionsand pacing for a PB to be possible, andthese don’t always appear on cue in atrack season.

Over 1500m, their natural difference inendurance showed up more. Stephen gothis time down to a PB of 3:51, whileTony recorded 3:57, his fastest since hewas 21.

In 1987, Chris Pilone had come backfrom the United States absolutely “fried”from a racing tour. He plunged back intoa diet of hard sustained running that tookhim further “off the boil.” By the end of1987, his running had reached such alow ebb that he wasn’t even listed in thetop 30 New Zealand contenders for theup coming 1988 World Cross-Countrychampionships to be run in Auckland.From memory, his flat-out 10,000m timehad gone way over 31 minutes, whichwas merely his cruising speed a fewyears earlier when he had won Aucklandtitles over 10k track and 10 miles road.

We talked about things over the phoneand decided to look at what Chris had

been doing. What I saw straightawaywas screamingly obvious, looking fromoutside the box. Too much hard“grinding” training of one type, withoutany let up. No leg speed running. Norunning approaching VO2 max. Justsustained runs at or near anaerobicthreshold. Then long sustained Sundayruns, which were also too fast. No easyrecovery days. So he was a glycogen-depleted, tired, ratty distance runnerwho had no hope of getting down to hispotential times in the near future if hekept going the way he was.

Chris is now a terrific coach, havingcoached Hamish Carter to Olympic Goldin the triathlon, as well as managing a

large group of elite athletes. A lot of hisunderstanding is based on havinglearned the “hard way.” At that time,neither he nor I knew much, but wedecided that we could “tweak” hisprogram successfully by picking eachother’s brains.

The first thing I think we did was get himto jog very slowly twice a day overshort distances on Monday, Wednesday,and Friday each week. Then we got himto drop his regular repeated “effort runs”straight up Auckland’s steep conical Mt.Eden, where his heart rate must havemaxed out. Although the cardiovascularsystem was getting a workout, he wastoo tired to benefit, and the intensity

would be surely depleting the glycogenhe needed for fast race-specific pacerunning for shorter distances.

Then we replaced that hill sessioninitially with sessions of 1000mintervals at around 29 minute 10k pace,which was within Chris’s earlier scopeand was a realistic target to get him ontothe team. Chris found that his systemdidn’t tolerate these intervals with equalrecovery very well; looking back nowthey were a little too fast for hisrecovering state. You need goodglycogen stores to be able to run 1000mintervals at potential 10,000m race paceor faster.

It was clear to me and Chris that heneeded something to kickstart his systeminto a higher realm, so we dropped theinterval distance right down to 400m at

about 65-66s, with 200m float recoveryin about 45 seconds. He would do about8x 400m, and we called this a “VO2

max” session at the time.

This work he could cope with better,and he recovered quickly. We wouldalternate a Tuesday session like thatwith a short leg speed session onThursday (4-6 x 150m stride, 250m jogrecovery), and then look for a race onSaturdays to get him back into racingshape. Eventually the Wednesdaybecame a longer easy recovery run, butMondays and Fridays were incrediblyeasy for Chris after his notoriousovertraining episode: they were justshort recovery jog days. Sundays were

still a good long run, with no need to runhard.

Chris thrived off this change and prettysoon this translated into a rejuvenatedathlete who decided before Christmasthat he was going to make the NewZealand team in the February trials ordie trying. My brother Colin and I wereboth building up his morale with eachsuccessive good track result, and like alot of athletes, he just neededencouragement, a little shift in outlook,and a light at the end of the tunnel.

To cut a long story short, he pushedclassy New Zealand 3:35 1500m runnerPeter O’Donoghue over the whole last

lap of the Auckland 5000m title, inhumid conditions, with a thumping lastlap around 60s, for a time around 14:11.Considering Chris’ 1500m best at thetime was 3:58, this was very promising.

Later he did the same in the NewZealand 5000m track titles, finishingsecond with a similar thumping last lap,pushing 3:37 runner Phil Clode thewhole way and demolishing many finerprospects on the way through. He was aman on a mission.

In the interim, in the New Zealand cross-country trial, with 8 men to qualify, andwith Rod Dixon guaranteed a spot, itwas all on for Chris. He ran himself

right out to qualify in 7th place.

By the time the world championshipshad arrived, his confidence and focuswere 100%. Chris ran his guts out tofinish as 2nd New Zealander home inabout 73rd place, outkicking highlyperforming Australians Brad Camp andPat Carroll in the final straight. Thecrowd went berserk. By this stage, he’dacquired a cult following in his quest,and legend has it that he didn’t need tobuy himself a beer for many months inAuckland.

But, as you’ll soon see, our futuresuccessful Olympic triathlon coach stillhadn’t learned enough! Like a good

computer, he needed the informationpunched into him!

Part 15NZ Coach ChrisPilone on EasyDays andOvertraining

It’s the simplest rule there is when itcomes to any type of training.

Stress + Rest = Adaptation.

It’s also probably the rule that is ignored

the most as well. Stress without restusually leads to poor performance,illness, or injury and, in some cases, allthree.

In setting up any training program, I thinkthe most important part is to define whatan easy day is. An easy day allows thebody to not only recover but also adaptto the previous stresses placed upon it.In simple terms, this means that in keytraining sessions you should be able toperform the same or slightly better thanpreviously.

Have I overtrained? You bet I have, andI remember those occasions well! It wasthe late ’80s or possibly 1990. Myflatmate Ken Moloney, a very wellperforming 10km runner and I decidedwe would train for the RotoruaMarathon and perhaps another marathon

later in the year. We launched into 100plus miles per week, some of it donevery hard. About this time Phil Clodeshifted to Auckland and, along withseveral others, we had a pretty goodtraining group.

At first we were running what we calledour basic 15-mile loop in 1:32 to 1:35.We would do this loop every Tuesdayand Thursday morning and run again atnight. One Tuesday or Thursday morningMoloney and Colin Livingstone, whohas contributed cartoons to this book,proceeded to carve out the “Basic 15” in1:22. Colin later described it to me onthe phone as an “aerobic cruise”, butthen proceeded not to run another step

for three months!*

The “puncture rate” among some of ourtraining partners was pretty high! Injury,illness or just being plain stuffed werethe usual reasons. Our easy days orsocalled easy days were 30 to 50minutes in the morning and 60 to 70

minutes at night. The pace wasn’t sloweither. The hard days in some casesbecame horrific. For various reasonsnone of us seemed to have jobs! PhillipClode’s capacity to absorb hard trainingand emerge still talking became legend!Moloney at one stage became soannoyed with this habit, he didn’t talk toClode for about a week despite being ongroup runs with him on a regular basis.

Between three and four weeks before theRotorua Marathon, Moloney and I ran 26miles over a hilly course in close to2:30. In those days, we ran for TakapunaHarriers, and the club with Moloney andme plus others thought we had a verygood chance to win the teams’ race. I

think it was 4 or 5 runners to count.

In the Rotorua Marathon itself I wassitting in the lead pack quite comfortablyat half-way but then proceeded to blowup and descended backwards through thefield like a stone! I ended up running inthe 2:40s and relied on a wellmeaningspectator to hand me jelly beans to giveme enough energy to get to the finish.Moloney started a bit slower than me butwas in the top 4 or 5 at 30km and quiteclose to the lead. He then blew in asimilar fashion to me and was trying toget jelly beans off the same person asme!

As we both groveled to the finish,

various Takapuna team members camepast us. Despite being two of the betterrunners in New Zealand, we didn’t evenmake the Takapuna counting team!Considering Moloney had a 28:19 10kmPB and I had run 2:20 or 2:21 at theRotorua Marathon twice previously,(Chris was a previous winner of thisevent) to say our results weredisappointing was something of anunderstatement. My next marathon withsimilar training was also a disaster. Ithink I was a DNF.

These were the words I uttered yearsearlier, about a month before the

Fukuoka marathon. Colin Livingstoneand I had just pounded out a Waiataruacircuit with two miles added in 2hrs 19mins. We averaged 5m33s per mile overthe whole course. My subsequentFukuoka marathon was not memorable.

Looking back it was quite apparent thatsome of our training was too hard andthat the recovery between some of thehard or long running was totallyinadequate. We got caught up in theeuphoria of some of the hard training wewere doing and adequate recovery wentout the window!

So what is an easy day?

To me it means a considerable reductionin both intensity and duration. As far as Iam concerned a long run, even if atquite a slow pace, is not an easy day!For an elite runner doing between 70and 90 miles per week an easy daycould be maybe a jog of 30 minutes inthe morning and possibly 20-40 min atnight. Intensity should be low.

For those doing less, it could be that ashort run of 20 to 40 min would be quitesufficient. In simple terms, an easy dayshould be a considerable reduction inboth volume and intensity. In somecases, it may mean a day of completerest. For the athletes I coach, I haveeither hard days or easy days. There is

nothing in-between. A hard day couldconsist of long running or some type ofeffort session or perhaps speedwork.Generally I use a combination of thefollowing hard and easy days.

Don’t do speed work or effort work onsuccessive days. In extreme cases, I willget a runner to use a heart rate monitor tomake sure they run slow enough on easydays. So make those easy days reallyeasy and you will go a lot better on yourharder days and, in the long term, willprobably perform better in races.Making your easy days very easy and

having a good definition of what they arewon’t make for fancy mileage totals inthe training log but the boost in yourperformance could be huge.

FootnoteMany years (quite a few actually) afterthe great Rotorua Marathon debacle Irevisited the Rotorua Marathon. It couldhave been in 1996 or ’97 and I wouldhave been in my late 30s. I was jogging30 to 40 min on my easy days. I haddone some good long runs and once perweek was doing a session of slowaerobic type hill reps, probably atlactate threshold intensity or a fractioneasier. I couldn’t tell you how many

miles per week I was running (it wasn’ta hell of a lot!) but I do know I ran 2:28or 2:29 in the marathon quitecomfortably. Age and experience hadtaught me a lot, and it was far lesspainful than the slow drawn out grovelto the finish line some years previously!

Colin Livingstone maintains that ahilly 15-miler in 82 minutes wasreasonably routine in hisovertraining phase, but as he wasalso gainfully employed mowinglawns all week, it certainly affectedhis racing. It didn’t stop him fromrunning, though. As a true trainingmonster, the running continued.

Part 16More OnOvertraining

Malcolm: His IntenseTraining Story

When I was running at national level inAustralia in the 1980s, one of mytraining partners was MalcolmNorwood, an Australian juniorchampion who had smashed Robert deCastella’s Australian U-20 3000m and

5000m records and had won everythinggoing around. He’d run times as good as1:50 for 800m through to 48 minutes for10 miles, at 19 years of age. On thetrack, he’d run 13:43 for 5000m at 18.He was used to dominating his usualtraining group and would train very hardfrequently. Often he could absorb thetraining, but sometimes in a big racesituation he would be vulnerable.

When he changed his running to a farmore aerobic program under ChrisWardlaw, his 5000m came down toaround 13:29, and he later ran a 61minute half marathon in the IAAF worldchampionships. His marathon debut atthe Twin Cities Marathon in October

1991 was victorious in a world-class2:12.11. But he never ran anywhere nearhis ability in international championshiptrack races on his earlier high-intensityprogram.

I believe Malcolm was “over-cooked”with his intense sessions, which werefaster in chunks than most state levelrunners could run in a flat-out race. Hecould do sessions such as 3 x 1500mwith 3 minutes recovery, averagingunder 3:55, but there was no need forthis type of intensity so often.

Despite his impressive sessions, orbecause of them, I have a distinctmemory of lapping the poor guy in

Australia’s annual Zatopek 10,000mtrack race. He did one hard session toomany, too close to the race, and hadnothing left. When the glycogen tank isnear-empty, the racing carburetor willsputter under pressure, and the athletewill have a curious fatigue that doesnothing for confidence or racepredictability. This is both aphysiological and psychological thing,and has to be avoided at all costs.

This potentially world-champion athletedid similar yet faster sessions a coupleof years later leading into the 1990Auckland Commonwealth Games10,000m final that I believe he was

capable of running away with. Instead,he ran well below his best. In earlieryears he’d run away at will from top-class fields to win New Zealand andAustralian senior cross-country titles indominating displays. He was also one ofthe very few Australian athletes to havebeaten Steve Moneghetti over crosscountry in a state title. At the time,Moneghetti was consistently in the topsix in the world cross-countrychampionships.

Keith’s Story: How IThrived on AerobicRunning

Lydiard’s long run rescue works for lotsof people, especially if they have a goodnatural endowment of slow twitchfibers. Long running certainly neverhindered me as a youngster, even thoughI was a bit too enthusiastic sometimesand paid the price.

Barry Magee, at the end of this book,recounts how he was instructed byArthur Lydiard to run the Waiatarua hillcircuit of 22 miles on three consecutivedays, because he’d had a form slump atthe end of a racing season. Shortly after,he experienced stunning form onceagain.

I was coached by Barry for several

years before I left New Zealand. Once,when I was 20, I’d run poorly in theAuckland Road Championships over tenmiles. My training partner, Chris Pilone,easily won the title in close to 49minutes. I was totally out of sorts andfinished 3 minutes back. I was lucky toget selected onto the Auckland team forthe upcoming National RoadChampionships. I think I’d overdone afaster session a few weeks earlier and itleft me in a hole. This was all frominexperience and not being in tune withmy body.

I’d placed highly in several quality roadraces earlier in the season, and on oneoccasion broke a record at my club’s

annual 5-mile road race, recording23:30 to smash the existing record by 90seconds, easing up in the last halfbecause I’d caught all the back markers.It felt fun. The previous record holderhad been Commonwealth Games10,000m finalist, Phil Watson, so myrunning was looking promising. Mytraining was basically aerobic runningmorning and night, and plenty of it, withweekend races.

In physiology terms, it was all mediumpace aerobic to sub-threshold aerobicwork, with a Saturday threshold effortevery week or two. A too-fast session of200 strideouts upset the applecart.

After my failure in the Aucklandchampionships, Barry instructed me torun two consecutive Waiatarua circuitsthe following weekend. This I did, witha steady 2 hour 24 minutes on theSaturday, followed by a 2 hour 23minute effort on the Sunday.

The next week I hopped into a track raceover 3000m. I jogged about 8 miles tothe track for my race before runninghome. I ran 8:23 for 3000m pretty easily,with the next guy running over 9 minutes.Then I ran home the same way. I’d doneno fast work recently whatsoever apartfrom the 200s a month earlier. The nextday was another long run in the hills.About 40 miles for the weekend. At the

time, I think my PB was 8:20, done in atrack race with very good competitionthe summer before.

The next weekend was the New Zealand10-mile (16k) road title on a hilly circuitin Whangarei, Northland. For somereason, I didn’t get enough warm-up in.When doing decent mileage, I alwaysresponded very well to a long warm-up.

The gun went off, and I didn’t feel likebeing there. I just put one foot in front ofanother, feeling sorry for myself as I washeading to another bad performance. Atthe halfway mark, an official yelled outthat I was 33rd and my time was 26:33.That really annoyed me, and as I was

going to bomb out anyway, I thought Imight as well sprint for a few hundredmeters to see if I could snap out of thedoldrums.

This sudden change of gear probablyjolted my system back into VO2 max. Iwent past runner after runner over thenext 8 kilometers, and pretty soon I waslooming up on a group of top guysfighting it out for the finish. I justwaltzed right past very good guys who Ithought I had no business doing that to.One was new Auckland champion ChrisPilone, another was the extremelyconsistent Dave Sirl, a multiple NewZealand champion over track, crosscountry and road, and another was Bruce

Jones, a former Australian cross-countrychampion.

I finished seventh in 49:31, about 45seconds behind the winner, Kevin Ryan,who’d beaten Paul Ballinger (later a2:10 winner of the Fukuoka marathon)and Tony Good from Canterbury. Inthose days, every man and his dog rangood amounts of strong mileage, andreputations meant nothing if you hadn’tbeen putting the work in. From memory,the then-40-year-old Professor RogerRobinson, who has also contributed tothis book, finished about 5th in 49:26,making him the fastest distance veteranin the world at the time.

New Zealand Runner magazine said thatI was the “fastest man on the road in thelast half,” but if the halfway time wascorrect, my berserk negative splitresulted in a hilly last 5 miles about 30seconds faster than my recent PB, set ona flat course. It certainly felt that good.

Interestingly, the winner was trained byMagee, the second-placegetter by ArthurLydiard, the 4th man, Max Cullum, wastrained by Magee, and I was 7th, alsotrained by Magee!

What did Barry Magee do with me toturn my season back on? Chris Pilonesays it was this simple: 1. Recoveryweek 2. Big Aerobic Volume stimulus

weekend 3. Small VO2 max stimulus(3000m track race) and AerobicStimulus (long run) 4. Aerobic RecoveryWeek. I believe Barry Magee’s rescuetactic of two consecutive long runs intwo days kickstarted my aerobic systemto a higher level.

Unfortunately, two weeks later, whilerunning, I injured my lower backjumping out of the way of a car that wasspinning out of control on a wet night,and that was that. I stiffened up overseveral days and from there ondescended into weeks of sciatic pain andrespiratory infections. Having left mysecure, creative job at Radio NewZealand to train “full time” before an

anticipated US road racing tour, myposition was precarious. Eventually Icame back to running, but it was a longhaul.

I repeated that tactic the next year to winthe Wellington 10 mile road title, goingaway in the last 2 miles to win by acouple of hundred meters in a good timefor a hilly course of 49.33. I was with apack of four good runners before I burstaway. That win was very satisfying,coming off about 8 weeks of solid steadymileage and nothing much before that.I’d had no decent training for 6 months,and I’d been told by one physician thatI’d probably never be able to run decentmileage again.

That’s when I discovered chiropracticcare and its commonsense application tolife and sport. Chiropractic care enabledme to get back to athletics with hope. Aweekly or fortnightly check-up whilepiling on the miles saw me clear ofmajor injury or illness for an 18-monthperiod of very high-level training. Butthat’s another story in itself. It certainlychanged my life direction, enough to“swap running for a career” as my coachBarry put it.

When I started training again I movedcities, started another job with RadioNew Zealand, then got 43rd in theWellington cross-countrychampionships, but 8 weeks of gradually

increasing mileage in fantastic newrunning territory saw me retrieve most ofmy aerobic background as if I’d neverbeen away from the sport. There isdefinitely a “body memory” that allowsa trained athlete to quickly resume highaerobic training levels.

Three weeks after winning theWellington 10 mile road title, in thenational road championships, with moreeasy long miles in the tank, I came froma long way back at halfway to waltzthrough the field again to finish 4th.Cullum won on this occasion in a closefinish with Ballinger. On that occasion, Iwas very surprised to be able to runaway by about 7 seconds over the last

800m from Geoff Shaw, who was anextremely promising distance trackrunner at the time.

It showed me that Barry Magee’sdescription of aerobic “strength-speed”was certainly true and well worthpursuing. It is a different type of strengthwhere one can access nearly all of one’sreserves at the business end of a race,and keep pulling more and more out ofthe engine. This type of strength isattainable by nearly anyone who wishesto put the work in.

Poor footwear choices had resulted inme “carrying” minor Achilles tendonand plantar foot problems, so my track

preparation wasn’t done on the trackmuch, and I compensated by keeping mymileage up and hopping into weekendtrack races.

The ensuing track season saw me do thesame sort of “negative split” on severaloccasions, coming from well back in thefield on a hot December day to finish2nd in a 5000m trial for the PacificConference Games to Rod Dixon, andlater on in the season, to convincinglybeat the surging Japanese front-runnersin an international 3000m race inWellington, before the Games. I nevergot selected for those Games, with theNew Zealand selectors going for moreestablished runners who failed to

perform anyway.

The Japanese duo ended up each gettinga medal in the Games, over 1500m and5000m. That was my personal educationabout selection policies, and at that stageof my life, I concluded that it wasprobably even harder to get chucked offa New Zealand team than to make one. Itfurthered my decision to move toAustralia to study, a decision fueled byyouthful impatience.

While I kept up my steady mileage, oneach occasion, when I launched forhome, there was plenty of gas in the tank.I lapped every competitor except the 2ndplacegetter in the Wellington 10000m

track title for a windy 29:41 debut. Thesecond placegetter Dave Hatfield was58 seconds behind, and as he’d run14:08 for 5000m earlier that season, thelong easy miles I was still runningobviously had no ill effects.

In one 3000m race, still racing off thesteady mileage base, I kicked away fromRod Dixon and a top NZ field, with300m remaining. The whole field hadbanked up with a slow penultimate lapof 68 seconds, and the lanky Dixon andequally lanky Peter Renner werehemmed in. Dixon sounded like he wasworking hard so I took off. Dixon tooksome time to respond, but when he did itwas like the night train from Chicago

thundering past. He certainly showedwhy he was an Olympic medalist.Renner and the others didn’t get past;Paul O’Donoghue did; but it wascertainly a surprise to be able to kickpast athletes of that caliber without anytrue speed training.

It was only when I started to do hardtrack sessions after recovering from myfoot and achilles tendon troubles, that myform became erratic. A course ofantibiotics for a nasty boil made mytraining lethargic, so I compensated bytrying to run my track sessions harder;another mistake for beginners. Ascheduled steady mile time trial in 4:20for the Wednesday before the National

5000m became a grinding solo 4:11, justenough to take the wind out of my sailsfor the Nationals, where I was alackluster 5th. I still haven’t explainedthat one to my coach.

So what is the conclusion here? Whetheryou’re a freakish talent like CraigMottram or John Walker, or a contenderlike me, well-planned and scheduledlong steady running can be of immensebenefit. Do it. Take easy aerobicrecovery days afterwards to absorb it.But don’t do it too fast. And do exactlywhat your coach says.

You Can Do Too Much of a

Good Thing

The following winter, after a goodsummer, I embarked on an ambitiousbuildup program where eventually I wascovering my aerobic long run distancesmany minutes faster than in the previousyear.

I lived in the center of Wellington’s cityarea. Whereas the year before I wascovering my version of the “Makara”long run in 2 hrs 44 minutes, in winter of1981 I whittled that time down to aconstant-effort 2 hrs 29 over severalweeks, and then for another 6 weekskept repeating the dose each Sunday,hitting 2hrs 25 a couple of times with a

hard last 2-3 miles. Apparently theregular Wellington “Makara” group,which comprised several national-levelmarathoners, was never going faster than2hr 39m for a course that was probablya couple of miles shorter. The “Makara”had some very challenging climbs anddescents, including one monstrous climbup the back of Mt. Kau Kau, and I neverdid get to measure my exact course, butit may well have been over 24 miles. Iwould end the afternoon sitting in a hotbath for a couple of hours, eating endlesstoast and marmalade. I had a toaster, akettle, and all the goods set up beside thebath. Somehow I never got electrocuted.

My steady “fifteen miler,” which I’d

been plodding around in 1hr 44 the yearbefore, when I had such good raceresults, came down to a fun and fast 1 hr24, a couple of nights a week. This wasnot on the advice of my coach, Barry.

One would think that with a base likethis my race results would’ve beenstupendous. Wrong. “Erratic” would bea better way to put it.

I raced solidly in a couple of earlywinter cross-country races, then in onerace all the training and racing cametogether for a stupendous unplanned-for“peak.” I took off from the beginning inNew Zealand’s hilliest annual cross-country race, the “Vosseler Shield,”

expecting a very tough battle fromprevious winners Derek Froude andRoger Robinson. The recent 2005 WorldMountain Running championships wererun on the same hill.

According to newspaper clippings, I ranthe second half faster than the first andwon by 27 seconds. According to theway I remember feeling, I felt likevomiting and pulling out at halfway, thenthought of Ron Clarke, who’d said hefelt like pulling out at halfway in everyone of his world records. The secondlap was a breeze, and it was surprisingto be able to run away from someonelike Froude, who was 2nd in the NewZealand cross-country champs later that

year and eventually became a two-timeOlympic marathoner. It was all Froudecould do that day to hold off Roger, whowouldn’t lie down for anyone. Frommemory, Derek ran a 2hr 15 marathonthat year and Roger a 2hr 18 debut for3rd in the Vancouver marathon, as aveteran.

The effort of that race, on top of my hardmileage, meant that there wasn’t muchleft in the tank for the serious cross-country races leading into the NationalChampionships. My subsequent racingwas uninspired and lethargic, andperhaps with hindsight, the very fastdownhill running did nothing for my legsover the subsequent weeks. Needless to

say I was a participant, not a factor, inthe National cross country that year,finishing 13th, while Froude finished anexcellent second to Ballinger. He andhis coach had a knack for balancing hisprogram beautifully. Froude actuallyunderstood what his coach was trying toachieve, unlike me.

I retrieved some form by running easiermileage for the road season, runningsome strong road relay legs. I managedto defend my ten-mile road title on avery windy day in a shade over 50minutes. Froude was ten seconds back atthe finish. My reserves were stillprobably replenishing from the previousovertraining and needed another month

or two to come back to a decent level.

Three weeks later in the Nationalchampionships, I went out hard with theleaders, Shane Marshall and PaulBallinger, for most of the first 5 miles.They went so fast that I was about 100meters back in 23 minutes 40 seconds byhalfway. I’d always found a steady startbetter but decided it was time to placemyself in the middle of the action rightfrom the start if I was serious aboutbagging a national title. Marshall won in47 minutes 30 seconds, in a frantic finishfrom Ballinger, 2nd for the third time ina row.

Several runners snuck past me in the

second half, including Froude, who ran awell-judged race to finish 3rd in about48m 30s. This was hard to swallow, asI’d beaten him handily in a road relayleg and the provincial title in earlierweeks, but I had to admit his carefulpreparation and intelligent racingyielded dividends my wilder approachcouldn’t. In the last 800m, BrianKennelly, a hard man, also went past me,and my characteristic finishing burstcame to nothing. The tank was empty. Sothat year there were three good chancesfor national honors and three misses.Ouch. The next year I was off toAustralia for 6 years of study and a lotmore learning.

The learning is continuing as I coach.

In the years since I raced as a youngster,I have seen many cases where not-too-inspiring juniors just piled on the steadywork, and several years later reachedworld-class. I can remember two juniorswho finished well down in the field inthe national junior 5000m in 1978, butwithin a few years were winningeverything. One was Olympian RexWilson, who ran a 2hr 10 min marathon,and the other was Derek Froude, whomade it to two Olympics as a 2hr 11marathoner.

New Zealand athletics history is full ofstories of solid, persevering athleteswho eventually reached national orinternational level by doing this work. Ifthey can do it, then perhaps you can too!

Keith’s Classic Mistakes

Always look at the big picture of yourlife when you’re training and racing.When you’re very young, this is naturallyquite hard to do, but it certainly is worththe effort. If necessary, grab anexperienced “old hand” or club coach totalk things over with regularly. It doesn’tmatter if the older person knows“nothing” about athletics; what matters iswhether they know a bit about “life.”

In mid 1987, when I had finallycompleted my degree, I felt exhilaratedthat finally I could run again and pursuea high level of training without worryingabout shuffling part-time jobs, tutorial

loads, and endless exams. Unfortunately,a few months earlier, my father, aterrific guy, had been smashed up badlyin a nasty car accident and suffered amajor stroke. He was nearly 70.

He was hospitalized of course and partof my final year of study involvedseveral frantic flights from Australia toNew Zealand because he was expectedto die at any stage. Being an old soldier,he didn’t die as expected. One day Ifound him congested with pneumonia inboth lungs, looking purple and grey, withmultiple wires and tubes connected tohospital equipment. “Hi Dad, how’s itgoing?” I said. Slowly, over minutes, hespluttered “Could be better, could be

worse.” And so he continued, graduallyfighting his way back in a see-saw battlewith numerous hospital infections overmany months.

To add to my emotional layering, agirlfriend had just dumped me, too!Looking back on things now, thisprobably wasn’t the time to attempt a“comeback” to athletics, but I was a manon a mission!

I chose the ostrich approach andploughed myself into hard training. I’dbeen experimenting with a pattern oftraining that quite suited my physiologyand circumstances, and it was based onmoderate mileage (usually less than 60

miles or 100km a week) and hard fastcross-country intervals of 800m-2000mwith short recoveries.

I adapted this regimen because as astudent I found that the very long runswere using the same glycogen fuel thatmy brain needed to be able to studywell! Long runs of about 15 miles at agood clip interspersed with regularcross-country intervals or tempo runskept me in the game quite nicely though.

A few years earlier, on this regimen, I’dplaced 6th in the Australian cross-country titles, won state medals over5000m and 10000m, and was always afactor in any race. It worked because I’d

had a massive mileage base from earlieryears. However, it was probably 6 yearssince I’d done regular high-mileagetraining and my base was beginning todiminish.

My twin brother, who I was nowcoaching, also thrived on this regimenfor a short while, as previously he’dbeen doing compulsive mega-mileageover bush tracks in Auckland’sWaitakere ranges where he lived. Whenhe cut back his miles and sharpened, hestarted to be consistent for the first timein his life and ran a number of goodraces, despite a big weekly workloadmowing lawns all around Auckland.

So on my temporary return to NewZealand, we found ourselves trainingtogether regularly for the first time inyears, but with the emotional overflowfrom the struggles of our old Dad, wehammered each other and our trainingbuddies. We’d have been so much betteroff just putting in steady “bread andbutter” aerobic runs in the many scenicareas around Auckland and “smelling theroses,” but adrenalin begets adrenalin,no matter the cause, and hard fast cross-country intervals can give a “rush” thatis addictive.

One Thursday session was spent atCornwall Park, where we did sustainedhard efforts around the hilly perimeter,

leaving our training partners wellbehind. We felt inexhaustible that day.The other guys were experiencedinternationals and wisely just let us go.The next day I knew I had done afraction too much and felt strangely“empty.” A few days later, on theSunday, we took off like scalded cats inthe first kilometer of a local 10k roadrace, and unsurprisingly ran out of steamto finish in 2nd and 4th. The winner, asolid performer, just had to run steadilyto pick up the pieces. The winning timewas well within our compass a few daysearlier, so that was an opportunity thatwas blown by compulsive training.

The rest of that winter season was an

erratic mix of good and bad results forme, involving bad stitches in majorcross-country races, fastest lap times inroad and cross-country relays, and anasty flu right at the time of theAustralian cross-country championships.“Stress” was obviously a major player,and with no planned coping strategy Iwas forced to “rest,” even if it took theflu to do that. A later bout of chronicachilles tendonitis was predictable too,in that it forced me to stop “pushing”myself.

So “headspace and tactics” expand intothe realm of everything else you chooseto do. Nothing is separate from yourtraining and racing. All have to be taken

into account.

More Crazy TrainingStories

Just to prove that I had learned nothing,three years earlier I had run a session of800m intervals on a Thursday, threedays before a Sunday 10km road race.My training partner that day was formerAustralian Junior 5000m champion JeffChambers, and we pushed each otherhard, with neither of us willing to easethe effort. We ended up running four800m intervals with 800m jog recoveryin an average of 2:02, with my last onebeing 2:00. This was totally unnecessary

and way too fast to have relevance towinter race distances at our level ofdevelopment. However, the session wasa “blast,” and we were very pleasedwith ourselves.

On the following Sunday, in a 10km roadrace in Brisbane, I was still so full ofadrenalin that I “cruised” the first milein about 4:20, leaving a class field 100mbehind, then died a slow and inevitabledeath to eventually finish 5th. If we dotoo many hard short sessions, realisticrace pace at longer distances like 10kmwill feel like a Sunday stroll, so thetemptation is to go out at a pace thatfeels “fine” but is unsustainable.

On that occasion, I had another race thefollowing week over 10km on the road.This was part of a national circuit ofroad races sponsored by the BudgetRental Car firm. Having just run anembarrassingly bad race throughstupidity and poor preparation, I dulyjogged all week for about an hour a dayuntil my strength came back, then wentdown to Hobart, Tasmania, for the“grand final” of the series.

This race was over a road circuit aroundHobart’s Domain, and the terrain closelyresembled the sort of hills I was used toin New Zealand.

There was a team from the Institute of

Sport in Canberra, who’d won their legof the series. They were confident ofknocking off our all-conqueringGlenhuntly road team that had cleanedup successive legs in Melbourne, Perth,Sydney and Brisbane.

The too-hard and too-fast 800m intervalsession combined successfully with thetired Sunday 10km road race and 5 daysof easy recovery jogging to bring me upfor a “good day at the office” and Isurged away from Gary Briggs, anational steeplechase and cross-countrychampion, on an uphill section to wingoing away by over 30 seconds fromGary and another AIS athlete, DavidForbes. To top the day, our team won

overall anyhow. I felt so good afterrelative rest that when Gary decided toput in a hard surge uphill, I went withhim and kept on going.

However, the erratic nature of theseperformances was entirely unnecessary,and with a more intelligent andcontrolled approach, and with thebenefit of hindsight, we now have arational and predictable system forbringing athletes up for a good raceperformance within a Lydiard context.It’s not rocket science. Just don’t dohard sessions too close to races, and jogeasily in the lead-up days.

“I Feel Like I Could HaveDone it Again!”

An extremely experienced coachcontacted me recently about his (female)athlete who had reached top regionallevel on the track over 1500m and3000m last summer. His athlete haddone a full winter’s aerobic preparation,with some good winter races. Despite agood block of early season hill work andVO2 max work (longer intervals withshort or equal recovery), and somepromising early-season results, shewasn’t able to tap into her high-outputglycolytic anaerobic stores in races.

She described the feeling as “I felt as if Icouldn’t get at my energy reserves,” and“I felt as if I could’ve done it again,straight away.” The athlete is a hard-working girl who has a good head forracing, so she was quite disheartened to“go off the boil” coming into NationalChampionships.

A possible answer here is that someathletes just don’t have a very bigglycolytic/anaerobic “tank”. So we haveto tread carefully when prescribing forthese athletes. They can be very fastover 100m, showing a good endowmentof IIB fast twitch fibers, and they can bevery competitive aerobically, showing agood endowment of Type I slow twitch

fibers. They can have a high oxygenuptake, and the heart of a championracehorse, but they can’t nail thoseglycolytic reps and come back smiling.There seems to be a deficiency oftrainable IIA (glycolytic/oxidative)muscle fiber and so the lactate tolerancesystem can be overloaded very easily.

This DOESN’T mean that an athlete withthis challenge can’t compete at the verytop level: it just means that she has tocontrol training efforts well and hoardthe lactate tolerance “reservoir” untilrace day. If the reservoir is depleted, itcan’t be accessed, can it?

If she’s one of these, then she really

shouldn’t be doing sets of fast 800m-pace glycolytic/lactate tolerance reps(i.e.: 300s/ 400s/500s @ race-pace).Try two or three sets of threshold-pacesteady state lapping (i.e.: 1200m) before2-3 reps with good recovery over 150-200m @ 800 pace. Just dip into the high-power output lactic tank a tiny bitwithout killing it. That has been shownto solve this particular problem with aninternational level female 800m athletewho is similarly challenged but can‘kick’ with the best of them.

One tip for athletes like this is to makesure that each week or training cycle intrack season includes scheduled steadyefforts of 2-5 km on the track at higher

aerobic levels or even at anaerobicthreshold, as well as paying attention toVO2 max. It pays to look back at trainingdiaries to see how athletes respond totheir sessions. You may have to fiddlearound a little bit to get it right.

One of our good male athletes, Daniel,had run 50s for 400m and 1:52 for 800,and 3:45 for 1500m before Christmasoff, VO2 type training on Tuesdays, thenwent off the boil in the new year whenhe started bringing in glycolytic reps. Sodespite his speed potential, his systemjust seemed to rebel with the fast hardreps at 800 and 1500 pace. He wentback to his pre-Christmas form when westeadied him off with Tuesday sessions

starting with leg-speed drills, thenadding 4-6 laps of steady running at histhreshold pace (about 3:15 per km), then3-4 x 800 or 1000 at VO2 pace (for him,about 2:50 per km, or 2:20 per 800m).Anything like fast 300s or 400s or 500skilled him, so we didn’t do them!

Nic Bideau’s Comments

(Nic’s elite squad includes world-beating Australians Craig Mottramand Benita Johnson, and England’sMo Farah, now the owner of a 13m09s 5000m time)

I had this kid come to me last year, age

20, who’d run 49s for 400m and 1m 52sfor 800m but a year out of school hisnatural aerobic fitness had declinedwhile his size had increased. He wasstruggling to break 2 min for 800m andtold me it was because he lacked speed– despite having done a load ofspeedwork and no running beyond halfan hour in between.

He came down the track one Tuesdayand tried 2x1mile with a 15 min 5krunner I have – he did the first one in5min, jogged a lap and then could onlydo 5.30 for the 2nd one. The 5k kid didhis 3rd rep in 5 min and then proceededto do some 4x300m in about 47 secswith 100 jog. I got the 800m boy to join

in for those, and he blasted the 5k kid inrunning 43 secs or better.

He was pretty happy with himself at thatpoint so I suggested he try a 1500m racethat Saturday against the 5k kid –suggested it be a bit like the hare and thetortoise. He assured me he’d thrash the5k kid in a 1500m race and off he went.

I rang him after the race and asked whowon, tortoise or hare. Embarrassed –and no surprise to you – he told me thetortoise beat him 4.05 to 4.10.

It was enough to convince him to try myway for a couple more months, whichgot his 1500m down to 4.00 and he’s

now persisting with an aerobic fitnessprogram during the winter. I don’t knowif he’ll run what he thinks he’s worth butI’m damn sure he’ll run faster over 800mor 1500m than he would had he stuck tohis bulk speedwork method.

Just another story to pass on.

We have coaches in Australia who tendto be able to convince athletes that speedis the be all and end all when anyoneshould be able to see that as the eventswe’re dealing with are mostly dependenton aerobic efficiency, then aerobicdevelopment is the key area we shouldbe focusing on.

But strangely enough they reason that byimproving their ability over 400m by 1sec, they will improve their 5k by 30secs without considering that by doingall the work to get a faster 400m, theyare abandoning the key element of fitnessrequired for 5k running and, even worse,tearing their aerobic efficiency downwith a load of anaerobic work.

ONLINE RESOURCES

ANY QUERIES?

•To purchase signed copies of thistitle, or to contact the author with anydetailed questions: go to

www.hitsystem.com.au

TO PURCHASE OTHER LYDIARDtitles and the excellent range ofMeyer & Meyer titles for varioussports: in Australia and NewZealand, go to

www.anacondabooks.com.au

There are several other excellentresources online at present that will helpyou understand this training philosophymore.

• The LYDIARD FOUNDATION isfound at www.lydiardfoundation.org

Lydiard Foundation Coach GregMcMillan is getting excellent results.For more information on how eliteathletes are applying Lydiardprinciples in the USA:

www.mcmillanelite.com/index.html

• Coach McMillan also has anothersite that is full of useful information:

www.mcmillanrunning.comGARY MOLLER has a fantastic

•resource site for nutrition,biomechanics, and all kinds of detailedtraining articles, and is readilyaccessible for online advice.

http://www.garymoller.com/index.pasp

• COLIN LIVINGSTONE, illustratorand writer, can be contacted on

www.dreamtree.co.uk.(colin@dreamtree.co.uk).

Photo & IllustrationCredits

Coverphotos: Neil MacDonald, fotolia

Coverdesign: Sabine Groten

Otherphotos:

Colin Livingstone, ChesterLivingstone, Diana Mills,Gavin Harris, Barry Magee,John Meagher, Sue Coloe, TimCrosbie, Daniel Dineen, KeithLivingstone, Trevor Vincent,Tim Chamberlain, Barry Ross,Chris Pilone, Robbie Johnston

Polar Electro GmbH (p. 28,140, 142, 171, 193, 199)

Illustrations&Cartoons:

Colin Livingstone(dreamtree.co.uk),

Keith Livingstone (graphs)

The Long Run: DO’s andDON’T’S

Run every day. Then ease yourselfgradually into longer runs, by running afew extra minutes every second day ifpossible.

• Wear correctly fitted and balancedrunning shoes.

• Buy several good pairs of shoes toalternate daily during the base phase.Run most of your mileage on firmsurfaces that won’t pull your legs aroundtoo much. This can be parkland, dirt, orasphalt, but concrete can be too firm.

• Loose sandy surfaces can be hard togain traction on and can cause jointproblems because there is no consistentfootfall.

• Vary the length and intensity of yourruns day by day.

Try to eventually fit in two medium-longruns and one long run each week. Atwhatever level this represents for youcurrently.

• Increase your total mileageconservatively.

• Eat well and healthily.

• Get ample sleep and easy recoverydays.

• Every few weeks have an easier week toconsolidate.

If you’ve never done long aerobic runs

before:

Run very evenly. Start on a flat courseand try to run out for a set period oftime, and run exactly the same time forthe return distance.

DON’T

Take carbohydrate supplements (gels, etc)during long runs unless it’s in a long race.You’ll lose the training effect on the fattyacid system and the glycogen-sparingeffect.

The Book

Healthy Intelligent Training is for all seriousmiddle distance athletes and coaches. It isbased on the proven principles of NewZealand’s Arthur Lydiard, the Runner’sWorld ‘Coach of the Century’, who trained amotley band of neighborhood kids intofeared Olympic medalists, and kept on doingit, around the world.

These principles have since guided athletesfrom many nations to world records andOlympic Gold medals. Now you can planyour own campaigns, and understandexactly what you’re doing at every step. Thisbook can be used and understood byeveryone.

A former national-level runner and racewinner over track, cross-country, and roadin New Zealand and Australia, Dr.Livingstone, a coach and chiropractor, hasjoined forces with fellow enthusiasts,Olympic-level coaches, and Olympicmedalists to provide a simple, logicaltemplate for you to plan your own winningprograms.

You’ll be taken through each successivelayer of the training pyramid, andunderstand what type of work fits in at eachlevel leading to peak performance.

You will understand the physiology veryclearly and simply so that you will knowwhich workouts will help, and which willhinder.

healthy intelligent training - run-meirionnydd.co.uk intelligent training, 2... · healthy...

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