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In article <
[email protected]>, Young Goodman
<
[email protected]> wrote:
> OR, is LSD the total package of a workout with all the
> benefits that running has to offer on the cardio system?
Young,
Think of LSD as the foundation upon which you build the speed. Lydiard's perspective is to build a
strong foundatiion and then one can work and play on the speed.
For me the LSD is a time to play with smoothing one's form and style and practicing it well so that
when one goes faster, the entrainment is there...locked into the muscle memory.
In health and on the run, Ozzie Gontang Maintainer - rec.running FAQ Director, San Diego Marathon
Clinic, est. 1975
Mindful Running:
http://www.mindfulness.com/mr.asp http://www.faqs.org/faqs/running-faq/
From: "Kerry Wilson" <
[email protected]> Newsgroups: rec.running Subject: Re: Lydiard and not LSD
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 12:11:31 -0400
Lori Fisher wrote in message <
[email protected]>...
>>>Hello,
I finally was able to get a copy of Lydiard's book _Running the Lydiard Way_ (1978) and was a
little surprised at what I found. I had always been led to believe that he was the "father of
Long _Slow_ Distance," but "slow" is not what he is advocating. I wonder why they didn't
choose something to call it like "Long Aerobic Distance" or something because, if I am reading
correctly, he is not advocating that it be slow and warns against going too slow on runs. He
is advocating running as fast as possible without going anaerobic on the daily and long runs
(which would put the run at just under LT, right?). It should be as fast an aerobic pace that
can be sustained for the length of time of the scheduled run (which are pretty much all over
one hour on his marathon schedule). The only time he recommends "slow" running is to get in a
second run of the day, which he says can be done at a very slow pace if need be, just getting
the heart rate up above 100, to get in the extra volume of training. As with the thread we had
recently, he says that "volume" is "the most important aspect of marathon conditioning." Does
anyone know how what Lydiard is advocating ended up getting misrepresented as very slow
running once a week, which is what most people think he stood for because so many people
spread the idea that he "invented" our long, slow weekend runs? Any thoughts on this? Lori<<<
Yeah, LSD sure has gone south over the years. Lydiard's idea of a "slow" pace for competitive
runners was the fastest pace that could be maintained indefinitely -- in other words, at or near
lactate threshold. He was an advocate of fitness running, however, and recognized that training for
competitive runners differed from the kind of sessions that fitness runners would be able to do over
the long haul.
I think the descent of LSD into the realm of the truly useless began with the idea of the
"fat-burning zone." This idea caught fire immediately because it suggested that easy workouts
"burned more fat" than, say, workouts near lactate threshold. Since many fitness runners began
running as part of a weight loss program, the lure of such thinking was irresistable, and so LSD
came to mean trotting along at an easy pace that barely raised your heart rate. A new term, the
"tempo run", was adopted to fill in the void left behind, but because tempo runs are done at a pace
faster than LSD, it now had to be viewed in the world of fitness running as some kind of low level
"speed work". Haw haw! As if running at sub-10K pace could be viewed as any kind of speed!
Don't get me wrong. Tempo runs have their place, but I prefer to think of it as lactate tolerance
training rather than speed work. LSD runs in today's sense also have their place, as many runners
are beginning from a comparitively low fitness level, and need LSD runs to strengthen muscles,
ligaments, and bones. But the needs of fitness runners differ from those of competitive runners, and
the meaning of "LSD" is different for the two groups. In the case of fitness runners, the purpose is
to strengthen tissues and to establish or maintain a base level of endurance. For competitive
runners, it is to improve an already high level of endurance, and this requires a higher level of
effort than is commonly implied by the fitness-running use of the term.
The bottom line is that most of us who are out of college are primarily fitness runners who race to
challenge ourselves and motivate ourselves to improve to some level of competitiveness. But becoming
a truly competitive distance runner simply requires more time, energy, dedication, and, dare I say
it? -- mental toughness -- than most of us can afford.
--
It is not death that we should fear, but rather never having lived. -- Marcus Aurelius
From:
[email protected] (Rob Slater) Newsgroups: rec.running Subject: Lydiard Training (was:
Should I start doing speed work now, or wait?) Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 15:15:31 -0500
In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Mark Sandrock) wrote:
>
[email protected] (Rob Slater) writes:
>
> >Lydiard recommended 100 miles per week, with a 20-miler each weekend, for 3 months as base
> >training. Then one progressed to 6 weeks of hills. The hill workout was about 14 miles and it was
> >done 6 days each week. The 7th day was reserved for a 20-miler, again making for a 100 mile week.
> >Only after completing this phase of the program would Lydiard's runners go to the track (or run
> >measured distances on the roads).
>
> I own _Running the Lydiard Way_ and your descriptions of Lydiard's schedule sound incorrect to me.
> There is no way he would recommend 14 mile hill workouts six days a week. I'm sorry you did not
> find Lydiard's system more helpful.
>
> One cannot understand Lydiard from his schedules alone. You have to listen to his explanations of
> the _purpose_ of each type of training. Then it is possible to adapt his schedules to suit your
> own abilities and goals. And he says that right at the beginning of his schedules.
>
> Lydiard was a genius, imo, and the general training principles he has elucidated in his career,
> rather than specific schedules, are his legacy.
>
> Concepts like establishing an aerobic base, hill training, sharpening and peaking, owe much of
> their legitimacy to Lydiard's life work.
Let me clarify my point and apologize for any errors I made. I do not have Lydiard's book. My source
is Ron Daws' "The Self-Made Olympian". Daws was a US Olympic marathoner in 1968. As the book's title
suggests, Daws was self-coached, but he trained according to the original Lydiard book. From what I
understand, Lydiard's books are mostly out of print and can be difficult to find, particularly in
the US, so Lydiard's methods are somewhat mythical to many runners.
Some of the confusion, I believe, stems from the fact that Lydiard was apparently a bit vague
(perhaps purposefully) about exactly what his runners were doing in training. Daws writes
specifically that Lydiard recommended running the 14 mile hill workout 6 days per week (Lydiard
called it 10 miles, but that didn't include warmup and cooldown of 2 miles each) in "Run To The
Top" but that he later changed that recommendation to 3-4 times per week in a later edition. As
another example, Daws writes that he did not really know what Lydiard recommended on the 7th
day, but he assumed it was a 20-miler, since Lydiard recommended that during base and
sharpening. Also (6x14)+20=104, approximately 100 miles per week, the same mileage Lydiard
recommended during base training.
I agree that Lydiard was one of the greatest coaches in the history of running. I don't know if he
really invented the base-strength-sharpening system, but certainly he brought the state of the art
very far forward. It also didn't hurt that he had some very fine athletes to coach.
I did not mean to dispute Lydiard's methods, only the suitability of his published training
schedules for runners of more average abilities. The posting which started this thread was from a
runner who was training 25 miles per week and wanted other runner's opinions about whether or not it
was safe to start speedwork. One person replied something to the effect "No. According to Lydiard,
you don't have sufficient base mileage". Again I'll mention that the specifics of Lydiard's methods
are not widely known and the books are difficult to find, but what is most often remembered about
Lydiard is the high mileage his runners ran.
I'm aware of the specific base mileage levels that Lydiard recommended (100 miles/week) and since
the poster offered no further details, this was tantamount to saying that he believed it is
necessary to run 100 miles/week before anyone should attempt speedwork.
I seriously disagreed with that poster's response, and I made my point by describing just how
strenuous Lydiard's schedules are. Many people who read rec.running would like to improve their
performances in races and could do so with sensibly-planned speedwork appropriate to their level of
base training. Very few can (or desire) to run 100 miles per week, and to suggest that 100 miles per
week is the minimum training commitment leads these people to either:
1) Try to train at that level, resulting in probable injury
2) Not try speedwork, thereby foregoing the most effective way of improving their performances.
I think runners can enjoy the benefits of speedwork at much lower base training levels.
Rob
Posted around 2001
I got the videos from the public library of 100 Years of the Olympics and watched it last night -
about 3 hours. If my memory is correct from the video, Finland hired Lydiard to train the Finnish
distance runners with Viren being the outstanding performer. There's Lydiard on the tape in Finland
working with the athletes and talking about Viren.
The only "gold" Olympic medal Ron Clark received was one from Emil Zatopek acknowleding Ron's
greatness as a runner.
I don't know if it's a matter of who's right and who's wrong. After Paavo Nurmi and the Flying Finns
I think it was 36 years before they medaled in the Olympic distance events.
Kip Keino lead the way for the Kenyans. If you run from early childhood everywhere you go and it's
at altitude, that's training in the purest sense. Ernst VanAaken said kids between 4 and 8 run a 10K
or more each day but with about 400 stops in between.
When it comes to training, everything is training. That's what my 90 Hour A Week Workout is all
about. If you slept 8 hour a day and exercised 3 hours a day that 56+21=71 that would give you 97
hours that you are awake standing, sitting and moving. It's all part of the training. How you stand,
sit and move when your not exercising formally or when you're not thinking about it, in my mind's
eye, has always had a great impact when you have the best against the best.
I'll look forward to see what others have to share.
Ozzie
In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Jzstiner) wrote:
> I don't know how many of you read Owen Anderson's Running Research, but I wanted find how many
> people who do read his stuff believe what he said about Lydiard's training system?
>
> I really like OA, but this last RRN (OCT 99) "Gettting the Bugs out of your Training in time for
> Y2K" has me ****** off a bit. How can he be really reading the real Lydiard? So many people
> believe Lydiard is LSD, how wrong could they be!!!
>
> When Ron Clarke met with Lydiard during his younger days, Lydiard told RC to start running long, I
> think that he started @7-7:30 pace. Before RC was done he had run 10k in 27:38 I think, this being
> back in the late 1960's, not too bad. In my mind RC was one of the best of all time.
>
> Look at Viren his coach I believe was influenced by Lydiard. Maybe the strong Mexicans, should
> also thank Lydiard now because I believe he coached down there for a stint. Viren was also one of
> the BEST! Remember the pictures of him in the 76 OG!! SO FIT!
>
> Look at all of the best runners in the past & in the present time all have/are running bIG miles!!
>
> Look at Boston Bill he hit some huge miles in the winter of 75 before his break through race & his
> American Record of 2:09:55!
>
> Could OA put his finger on any group or single runner(s) that have stepped on the top step in any
> of the top championship races around the world?
>
> Is Gebrsselassie running 69 miles/ week? Who should we be looking to take his crown that is
> running 69 miles per week?
>
> Look no farther than our own David Morris, he trains in Japan & has said that he runs as high as
> 170per week, alot of the time between 140-160/week. Then he cuts back to 110 @ altitude during
> this fall. Shazam 2:09:32!! I ask did he forget that there are no benefits after 70/week? Does OA
> really believe this Horse ****??
>
> Moses Tanui running 180 /week at over 7000ft for the two months prior to the Chicago 26.2 miler.
> Khannouchi ran up to 125 as a high before the same race in which he put away Tanui & the WR!!!
> 2:05:42 speaks for it's self, I guess that OA could have gotten him down to what 2:04 with type of
> training, ya right!!
>
> What is the opinion of the masses out there? Who is right? The coaches like AL showed the way out
> of the interval mad first half of the century, only for us to foul up the mix in the last 15 years
> of the century.
)--~ I found LSD to be effective in losing weight and getting a great work out with