Running With Lydiard

I recently had the pleasure of reading Mike Salkowski's blog as he spent several months training for a marathon using the methods of Arthur Lydiard. One of the frustrating things about Lydiard's books is that he establishes a framework, rather than a recipe. A degree of interpretation tends to help a user to apply his methods successfully, and in the process, it becomes clear that Lydiard training is appropriate for runners (and other athletes) at virtually all levels.

I hate to risk ruining a good story, but if you want some idea of what Lydiard's training can do, consider that Salkowski just lowered his already impressive 2:47 marathon PB by about 8 minutes. What is more remarkable is that Salkowski felt that poor pacing had cost him several minutes during the race.

One of the most interesting aspects of this was following the discussions of Salkowski with his gurus, including Nobby Hashizume of Five Circles, on this thread on Let's Run and in the comments on the blog. As is often said, "The devil is in the detail." The effort that was put into getting details right was considerable, but it paid off. I credit Arthur Lydiard (whom I regard as THE greatest running coach) with getting me to Boston.