Lydiard training questions

first of all, which day would be best for what?

second, i can tell already you're thinking too much. get your ass out there and run, boy! it's not about "the program." it's about putting miles in the bank, STARTING TODAY. think accumulated volume...not "which day should i take off?" the only bigtime runner i know of who took days off was eyestone, and that was because he was into some weird mythology where his "god" told him he had to. day-to-day recovery is far important than annointing some day of the week as your sacred "day off."

i think lydiard wants you to run fast once in awhile (once a week?) so your mechanics don't go to shit, but this is a secondary concern. if you feel the need to get busy with your version of a lydiard plan, that says to me you aren't happy with your base. so go run! if you want to throw a rac in there oince in awhile that's fine too. just get busy now!

Well, Eyestone and I are on the same page with the whole "sacred day off thing". I don't run on Sundays. Period. Choice I made. So, I work from that point. The "best day" would be what day would be best for taking off?

As far as base goes, no, I have none, so, yeah, I'm concerned.

My problem is this: I live in the south. You can't do mileage through the summer. So, I either put in a few weeks of mileage, then, run through the peaking phases (which seems like a waste of time to me) or I just put in mileage through the summer and look forward to next spring.

Here's the basic plan:

M 2 hours

T 1 hour *somewhat hard

W 1:30

T 1:15 w/ 10 x 100

F 1:45

S 1 hour *somewhat hard, harder than Tuesday

S Off

First, I have to get my volume up. Then, I'll start gettig faster.

Will,

In all honesty Lydiard would never coach any runner who takes days off. If you are taking a day off for religious reasons, then it makes sense to you to do that. But, if you are taking a day off once a week because you think it is helping you, then you are fooling yourself. It you insist on taking a day off and you are following Lydiard's schedule then you want to take off one of the shorter run days.

As far as running 100 miles a week in the Summer in the South, that will be difficult. It can be done though, Shorter and Liquori trained in Florida and they ranked number one in the world at least 5 times between them and Liquori was following the Lydiard program with 6 months straight of base work.

If you are doing 6 months of base building ala Lydiard, running the occasional race won't hurt you too much. You could run a race once every 3 or 4 weeks or so in lieu of Lydiard's 3/4 effort tempo run.

You can do mileage in the summer in the South! Wake up early and run, run at night, take water, run where there is water available, run shady trails, wear a white hat, and a white coolmax shirt, etc. If you build up to it, of course you can run mileage in the South. Yep, it's gonna be hot, but you do get acclimated.

Enigo Montoya wrote:

You can do mileage in the summer in the South! Wake up early and run, run at night, take water, run where there is water available, run shady trails, wear a white hat, and a white coolmax shirt, etc. If you build up to it, of course you can run mileage in the South. Yep, it's gonna be hot, but you do get acclimated.

Perhaps it's just me, but, summer mileage kills me. Lydiard type numbers scare me even more, but, I'll definitely keep those suggestions in mind as it gets warmer. My only problem has been water loss. 12-15 pound pretty regularly...while drinking water. (That's about 8% for me.)

lydiard training is obsolete with the wide spread use of epo by the likes of el g. and geb.....

If I were good enough to use EPO to make a difference, I might care. Lydiard worked well before became a factor and since I don't plan on using any, sounds like a plan to me.

I know that John Davies would say to people, "if you need a day off, take a day off." Barry Magee sometimes tells his athletes to take a day off. But it's a here and there type thing, not a regularly scheduled thing.

If you want the day off because you find the schedule too difficult, Arthur would tell you you're doing the runs too hard. You need to go easliy enough that you can come back and do the schedule day after day; "train don't strain".

If it's for religious or family reasons that's a different matter. It won't make the program pointless, just less effective than if you normally ran 7 days a week.

Steve Cram was also following the Lydiard program and started to do mile-repeats in March-April, just distance-running during the winter.

Also Coe did except one 5k-pace session/week no anaerobic training from Nov-March, but tons of sprints and plyos.