10k advice from A Lydiard

a bit confused wrote:

Hi,

appreciate any help or advice based on personnel experience.

I'm currently following the advice of Lydiard on the 10K programme in his book running to the top. I've been putting in steady mileage from 60-75 mile a week (based on the times he advises you to run) for the past 3 months doing the hill work and the fartlek runs, striding etc. I noticed that as you get further on the programme the mileage seems to drop away and you do wind sprints, easy fartlek, 1500m time trial etc. with a 10K race in that week.

Should you keep to the programme and drop the mileage down during race weeks, wouldn't you lose endurance?

Thanks,

Well, there are a couple of posters who can answer this a little better than I can (Nobby,HRE,Kim Stevenson), but I'll bump it up with this comment.

You shouldn't lose any endurance during that period. The one long run per week should be enough to hold on to what you have built. Lydiard said that you can't race well if you're not fresh.

After a couple of months of racing you will then go back into the Marathon Conditioning phase and start the cycle over again.

Arthur always said that you can't race hard and train hard at the same time, so yes, the mileage would drop as you get to the co-ordination and racing phases. Most people who follow Lydiard will, as mentioned, keep a longish run on weekends. It wouldn't necessarily be the longest run you ever do, but it would still be long by whatever your standards are.

Another thing worth mentioning is that you don't lose aerobic fitness that quickly. If you keep a long weekly run and do some easy aerobic runs between hard runs you won't lose much fitness. Once your racing performances stagnate or deteriorate it's a likely sign that you need to have a break and then get back to base training.

Finally, Arthur did create a modified schedule for people who want to race year round rather than build to one or two annual peaks. That schedule resembles what almost everyone does now and has an ongoing mix of aerobic running and some intervals and time trials.

I concur with HRE. The loss of "mileage" can be minimal depending on how you approach some wotkouts.

For instance with the time trial, this is how we do it.

We will run for 20 to 25 minutes and include some light strides then run our time trial (effort workout) then run another 20 to 25 minutes. I use the 20 minute runs to discuss with the athlete what we are going to do and did (plus general conversation !!!).

Even with 15 year old kids we have been out for over an hour and could have covered anything from 9 to 10 miles in that time.

As HRE says there is also a Race week/non race week schedule which is very handy. I have used it (and modified versions) for years.

Thanks all for the advice,

I'll go with the race week programme for the rest of this week and see how fresh I feel on Sunday during the race.

Cheers,