Lydiard or Speed Endurance?

[mr brightside]

I was getting my overalls off after work today and i overheard some of the road runners from the company running club going on about how 'you've got to get the miles in'; and it got me wondering again about how you reconcile the performance gains with the potentially high degree of joint wear. From what i know of the club, they are basically 10k runners with the odd HM thrown in.

I've always considered this approach to be in line with Lydiard's approach, as he advocated that all under his program should be able to run a marathon regardless of their competing distance. Personally i prefer Seb Coe's method which i believe was known as Speed Endurance. It seems more logical to me to train at and below your competing distance, and there seems to be a good deal of focus on aerobic fitness through intervals of various lengths; though i guess sets of intervals may take you over your competing distance on occasions. It has been proven that interval training gives noticable boosts to V02 Max. Furthermore, i can't see how anyone but a professional athlete can hope to properly execute the complexities and give the required time input to the Lydiard method.

I can see that if you are a regular face in the FRA champs then you're going to need to train for AL races and do some equivalent milage, but for runners in the Bofra champs long slow runs must effectively be junk miles.

[steadyeddy]

I would have to disagree Mr Brightside, Coe trained for events lasting either 1:4X mins or 3:3Xmins, massively different from the 15mins or so a Bofra is usually won in. Even when considering the downhill it still means 10mins of 'effort' running which is far closer to 5km as an equivalent. If you look at any half decent 5km runner they will be doing no less than 70-80mpw with most world class runners nearing 120mpw if not more. Aerobic development is unavoidable and there is no better way of attaining this than easy/steady miles ala Lydiard, infact most 1500m will do a fair distance and i'm sure Coe regularly went well over race distance. If you have a search this a good documentary on him on youtube. A good website for reference is www.runnerslife.co.uk it has a number of international runners from various event who post training and gives a great insight into exactly what they do week in week out.
It is believed the poor period of distance runners we appear to have just come out of is due to a theosophy of low mileage, back in the 80's (Golden Era) it was well accepted there were no short cuts and 100mpw was the norm.

[CL]

I would have to disagree Mr Brightside, Coe trained for events lasting either 1:4X mins or 3:3Xmins, massively different from the 15mins or so a Bofra is usually won in. Even when considering the downhill it still means 10mins of 'effort' running which is far closer to 5km as an equivalent. If you look at any half decent 5km runner they will be doing no less than 70-80mpw with most world class runners nearing 120mpw if not more. Aerobic development is unavoidable and there is no better way of attaining this than easy/steady miles ala Lydiard, infact most 1500m will do a fair distance and i'm sure Coe regularly went well over race distance. If you have a search this a good documentary on him on youtube. A good website for reference is www.runnerslife.co.uk it has a number of international runners from various event who post training and gives a great insight into exactly what they do week in week out.
It is believed the poor period of distance runners we appear to have just come out of is due to a theosophy of low mileage, back in the 80's (Golden Era) it was well accepted there were no short cuts and 100mpw was the norm.

According to an interview Said Aouita never ran further than 16km in training but in my estimation is the best 5000m runner ever. He used training methods that meant he didn't have to churn out 120mpw. Yes he was gifted in terms of having a body built for running fast but it was his methods that made him excel.

It is too easy to put Britain's present/past poor results down to a lack of mileage as I've shown with my example.

[Trog]

According to an interview Said Aouita never ran further than 16km in training but in my estimation is the best 5000m runner ever. He used training methods that meant he didn't have to churn out 120mpw. Yes he was gifted in terms of having a body built for running fast but it was his methods that made him excel.

It is too easy to put Britain's present/past poor results down to a lack of mileage as I've shown with my example.

Are you trying to suggest that SA had it right and every 5/10K runner since who does put in 120mpw is wrong?

[Trog]

According to an interview Said Aouita never ran further than 16km in training but in my estimation is the best 5000m runner ever. He used training methods that meant he didn't have to churn out 120mpw. Yes he was gifted in terms of having a body built for running fast but it was his methods that made him excel.

It is too easy to put Britain's present/past poor results down to a lack of mileage as I've shown with my example.

Are you trying to suggest that SA had it right and every 5/10K runner since who does put in 120mpw is wrong?

[Dynamo Dan]

When I was cycling at a high level training was all about building a base and then a short period of intense turbo work. After I stopped the coaches at British Cycling changed their approach to favour more quality over quantity and we all know what happened next........

[CL]

Are you trying to suggest that SA had it right and every 5/10K runner since who does put in 120mpw is wrong?

You've repeated your post Trog. In answer to your question I'd say any 5km runner doing 120mpw hasn't the slightest clue about the philosophy of training. Oh and for every runner you point to as proof of your argument I'll show you 100 runners who failed using the same methods. An intelligent approach means discovering methods of training that'll give the best results for the least amount of time invested. The reason for this attitude is simple: Who in their right mind wants to spend 2-3 hours pounding the pavement? Together with the negative consequences of such a regime like joint wear and tear, anxiety and other health problems, high mileage is fool's gold.

Aouita had a simple but effective formula, "if I feel good I go to track, if I don't feel good I don't go to track." Today's athletes go to the track even when they are knackered because they follow a schedule regardless of the negative consequences.

[Trog]

You've repeated your post Trog.

Ooops, I must have pushed the post button in double quick time.

120 mpw for a 5km runner on the face of it does look excessive, but of course is that this week, next week and every week, or just the first phase of the programme.

Being more specific, I am currently aiming for a race in late April of 12 plus miles with 2000 ft of climb. I am aiming to break 100 minutes. I have no intention of training anywhere near 100 mpw, 50 would be more realistic but I intend to have one run (out of 7) each week of at least 100 minutes.

If you are suggesting that I can achieve my aim with far less or smarter, I am all ears and will happily be your Guinea pig

[mr brightside]

Coe trained for events lasting either 1:4X mins or 3:3Xmins...

I don't actually know what these ratios mean, can you simplify?

[Yaks]

Think he meant 1 minute forty something, and 3 minutes thirty something