Ace

Arthur Lydiard, R.I.P.

December 29, 2004

Arthur Lydiard, who has died aged 87, was the New Zealand coach who is usually credited with the invention of Long Slow Distance Running. At the time, LSD was widely used to denote pounds (‘libri’ in Latin), shillings (‘sesteri’), and pence (‘dinari’) The “Flying Finn” Paavo Nurmo also advocated running long-distance, but he didn't train others. Lydiard experimented intelligently -- he ran over 200 miles a week at one point, and concluded it was too much. His regime stabilised at about 100 miles/week for the endurance phase.

Lydiard’s first major success was in the the 1960 Olympics where his athletes Peter Snell and Murray Halberg won the 800m gold (Snell) and 5000m gold (Halberg) almost back-to-back. In the 1974 Commonwealth Games a Lydiard runner, Dick Tayler, won the 10,000m gold beating the world record holder at the time, England’s David Bedford.

When he was coaching, received medical wisdom was that interval training was not only for runners but for heart patients and general health. Lydiard married — for the third time — when he was 80. His wife was 32.

Various obituaries and tributes:

• Hindustan Times


• Stuff.co.nz


• National Business Review (New Zealand)


• Guardian

Not entirely relevant, but searching for the above I found this excellent article on John Walker by Lydiard trainee, Dick Quax.

Updated 2 January, 2005. I received this email today; the interview is very good.

I read your Mr. Arthur Lydiard piece. I had the great pleasure of spending three days with Mr. Lydiard when I had him here for a lecture outside of Chicago in late October 2004. I have studied him since the 1970s, did a Q&A story on him a couple years back, and then the chance of a distance runner\'s life of spending a few days with him. Feel free to share this Q&A with your club:

http://www.chicagoaa.com/features/speedplaylydiard03.html

Also, my family is originally from Cardiff, and I spent some time there in 1975. When Mr. Lydiard was here in October, he told me that his family also came from Wales.

Best regards,

Mike Prizy

Posted by Dave at December 29, 2004 06:26 PM

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