Nice post as always, tinman. You inspired me to reply
more fully.
What I mean about Hadd being like Lydiard is this:
Hadd tries to quantify Lydiard's guidelines about
1/4 to 1/2 to 3/4 effort, by using HR and lactate
levels in the beginning of training. His contention
is that when joe runner hears that he's supposed to
run "easy", or 1/4 effort, then he typically does it
too "hard" in the beginning.
Many of us, when we start running, don't have
any aerobic conditioning to speak of. We were so
eager to run and not jog (or walk!) that we worked
harder than we were supposed to (take a sedentary
person and strap a HR monitor on them, and force them
to stay below HRmax-50. They'll be walking for that
first 6 week mitochondria cycle).
So, for most of us, from the beginning our HR was
higher than it should be (there was no such thing as
"easy" running for us - easy running was anything that
wasn't redlining race pace). As a result, we trained
at too high a HR to stimulate mitochondria growth
and capillarization in all of our slow-twitch fibers
(though we did stimulate our fast-twitch). Also,
because of this, we were running more anaerobically
at a given pace than we would if we trained our
aerobic engine better.
Tinman, you've often given us posts along the following lines:
aerobic pace = 5K pace/.73
marathon tempo pace = 5K/.85
20min tempo pace = 5K/.90
(maybe I have the exact numbers wrong, sorry.)
Hadd disagrees with this, and here's his point:
Take two runners who both run a 5K at 75 sec/lap (so
5 min pace - 15:37.5 5K). According to Costill, if these
guys are "aerobically fit", they should both slow down
by only 4 sec/lap when you double the distance - so
they should run a 10K at 79 sec/lap (32:55).
Well, Runner A runs a 10K in 32:50. Runner B runs a 10K
in 34:05. Hadd would say that Runner A is aerobically fit,
but that Runner B is not as much.
The reason for this difference is basically that Runner
B is generating more lactate than Runner A at the same
speeds. You might find that Runner B is faster than
Runner A over 400m. So for shorter distances, B can run
as fast as A, because he's able to depend more on his
natural speed. But the longer the distance, the less he's
able to do this, and so by 10K, Runner B is faster.
Well, I ask you: should they both be doing 20 min tempo
runs at 75/.90 = 83.3 sec/lap? Hadd would say no. He'd
have Runner B run slower, in order to recruit those
slow-twitch fibers that are getting by-passed when he's
running anaerobically. 83.3 sec/lap may be a <4 mmol
run for Runner A, but I bet you it isn't for Runner B.
So Hadd would have B start a Lydiard-style program, but
using a HR monitor (or lactate meter) to limit B's pace
in the beginning. The point is to teach B what easy
means, so that B does the right training to stimulate
those slow-twitch fibers. In other words, we teach B
to run at the same _effort_ that A is running (A has
better aerobic fitness, hence lower lactate levels,
hence less stress than B).
In time, B would develop aerobic fitness, take more than
a minute off of his 10K time, and be running tempo runs
at the same pace as A (or faster, since his natural
speed is faster).
But Hadd's approach is basically to restart people at
the beginning of the Lydiard program, and teach them
what "1/2 effort" means.
By the way, Hadd's approach also copies Lydiard by
spending weeks 4-12 or so with 2 days/week of "3/4
effort"-type running. Again Hadd uses the HR or the
lactate meter to define 3/4 effort. His point is that
this pace should be just below the point where that
runner's lactate curve moves sharply upward.
Finally, Hadd himself says that his method is not new
at all, all really old research (the Costill stuff is
from the 70s, and the Lydiard stuff from the 50s of
course). He makes no claims at originality, just explains
in more detail how and why the beginning of Lydiard's
program eventually leads to the runner having a fitness
where (as described earlier in this thread) a 10 mile
run in 55 minutes DOES NOT FEEL HARD (probably <1.5mmol
for a 2:10 marathoner).