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Running is defined as either the act of progressing by advancing each foot alternately, never having both on the ground at once, or the act of proceeding by lifting one foot before the other is down. Neither definition is particularly complicated and neither places any limitation on the degree of forward momentum attained.

The art and technique of running and the processes of talking and writing about running should be equally as simple. Running, after all, is as natural as walking. Once a child has learnt to walk, no one has to teach it how to run.

This book, then, is written to be as uncomplicated as the principle of putting one foot in front of the other without ever having both on the ground at once. Its purpose is simple – to enable you go faster, and get both feet off the ground if you want to, or farther, or both faster and farther, according to your personal aims and aspirations. If you want to be an Olympic or world champion, this book is for you. If you merely want to jog in comfort around your neighbourhood in the interests of your physical well-being, this book is for you, too.

We set out the guidelines, the rationale, the simple principles behind the art and pleasure of running better; we offer schedules upon which to base your own programmes of training for whatever you aspire to. The rest is up to you.

Arthur Lydiard’s philosophy of running training is like none other, applicable to anyone who pulls on a pair of running shoes. He devised the principles of training now employed by leading coaches and athletes all around the world, in track and field and in many other sporting spheres; he invented the pure and simple exercise of jogging which has infected millions with its benign bug.

First tested and found successful in the 1950s, the Lydiard system has undergone some subtle refinements through the years. But it remains the same elemental theory that first placed a small handful of ordinary runners, from Lydiard’s immediate neighbourhood in an Auckland, New Zealand, suburb, at the forefront of world middle and distance running for more than a decade. Then, as Lydiard advanced from being a coach of runners to an international coach of coaches, it spread around the running tracks and training centres of the entire world.

Arthur Lydiard turned a simple, practical faith in himself into a world-wide nostrum for everyone seeking a method of running better. His name and his methods have won instant recognition in many nations. As gurus go in the modern world, he ranks among the greatest and, almost certainly, the most physically and psychologically effective.

For several years from the mid-seventies, the late great Japanese middle and distance coach Kiyoshi Nakamura brought teams of his top runners to New Zealand to spend months training in the remote vastness of the South Island back country behind Ashburton. These were the famous runners who, in a sudden spasm reminiscent of the explosion of the Arthur Lydiard-trained team into international running in the sixties, became a dominant world force particularly over the longer distances. The stars were the Soh brothers, then Toshihiko Seko, the legend who won three consecutive Fukuoka marathons, ran world track records for 25,000 and 30,000 metres in New Zealand and took the 1981 Boston marathon in 2:09.26.

Nakamura, one of the most respected figures in Japanese athletics, had an association with New Zealand that stretched back to 1936, when he represented Japan in the historic 1,500 metres which saw Jack Lovelock race away with a spectacular record-making gold medal.

But why, year after year, did he bring his teams of distance runners to New Zealand?

The first reason, he told New Zealand Runner magazine’s Tim Chamberlain in 1982, on his seventh visit, was that Arthur Lydiard lived in New Zealand.

Nakamura was one of the first Japanese runners to learn Lydiard’s methods, the first to invite Lydiard to Japan in 1962. He read all Lydiard’s books and came to believe he knew more about Lydiard’s methods than Lydiard himself because his studies made a vital link between Lydiard techniques, Christianity and Zen. That might be argued. What could not be argued was that Nakamura used Lydiard as the basis for his coaching methods and philosophy that fired Japan, for a time, into the forefront of international middle and distance running. He took his runners to nearly 20 Japanese records, several world records and a string of international successes. Among the Japanese, Nakamura knew Lydiard best. When he died, the vital spark that lit Japan died with him but he had made the point: The Lydiard system, once understood, was the critical factor between success and failure. Olympic marathoner and leading US coach Ron Daws was unashamedly a Lydiard fan. Lydiard’s name appeared on page one of Daws’ Running Your Best with the quotation, ”It’s not the best athlete who wins, but the best prepared.“

Of the Lydiard system, Daws wrote: ”A few aspiring kids approach a neighbourhood shoemaker to teach them to run. The shoemaker is a high school drop-out and retired distance runner whose own brand of torturous training methods have so far earned him little more than scorn and ridicule from the coaching community. He agrees to help and, although the runners are not the country’s best, not even the city’s best – just eager kids from the neighbourhood – the shoemaker promises them world records and Olympic medals if they can endure the workouts. The boy the shoemaker first publicly predicts will set a world record is crippled in one arm; and another runner, who the shoemaker says will be the best middle-distance runner ever, looks muscle-bound and awkward.

”A few years later, the country’s entire contingent of distance runners to the 1960 Olympics is coached by the former shoemaker. Thirty minutes apart, the crippled one and the awkward one win gold medals; a day later, another of his runners, seemingly athletically nondescript, takes a bronze. From these and other of the shoemaker’s pupils come most of the world records from 800 metres to the one-hour run and two more golds and a bronze in the next Olympics. Wild dreams? A fairy tale? Hardly, I’m just recounting the emergence of New Zealand’s Arthur Lydiard, guru of distance runners, father of the jogging craze, prime mover and motivator of Olympians world-wide … Lydiard has either directly coached or influenced more world record-holders and Olympics medalists than anyone. With seemingly endless energy, he has lectured up one country and down another, pausing periodically to serve as national coach in Finland, Denmark, Mexico and Venezuela. Ironically, he is, like many prophets, largely ignored in official circles in his own country.“

”When Peter Snell and Murray Halberg sprinted off with the gold in the 800 and 5,000 and Barry Magee won the marathon bronze in the 1960 Rome Olympics, the rest of the world was full swing into interval training. So ingrained is the Lydiard philosophy now, we almost have to force ourselves to recall that before him, the coaching of distance runners was aimed 180 degrees in the other direction. Lydiard was the beginning of a magic era; jogging became acceptable if not godlike … Lydiard was the keystone and he never lets us forget that, as an unschooled layman, he did what physiologists, theorists and professional coaches hadn’t been able to do. He was unsophisticated but he was smart and he had the tenacity of a bulldog.“

It was the Lydiard approach that turned my career around and it is the basis for my concept of efficient training. Lydiard’s methods are not geared towards immediate results. He speaks of progressing over several years and sacrificing early success to lay the groundwork for bigger victories later. Even within each season, you would not reach your peak until the last possible moment. Both of these concepts are implied when Lydiard wrote: ”You will come to your peak slower than many others and you will be running last when they are running first. But when it is really important to be running first, you will be passing them.“

The March/April 1992 issue of Peak Running Performance, a US publication which presents running-related research information, was entirely devoted to a study of Lydiard’s running philosophy.

”His legacy“, it said, ”can be seen in the training schedules of most of the world’s best middle- and long-distance runners. While Lydiard’s coaching days ended about a quarter-century ago, his breakthrough approach to training remains securely embedded.

”After his great coaching successes at the 1960 and 1964 Olympic Games, sports scientists and exercise physiologists around the world confirmed the scientific soundness of his methods. While Lydiard was not a scientist, his overall training approach was well ahead of the scientific community of his day.“

Lydiard’s programme epitomises one general but very critical concept related to exercise and sports physiology. This broad principle is gradual adaptation. While most athletes would call this “plain old common sense“, experience tells us that common sense is not so common – especially among runners who have a strong desire to improve their running.

The magazine illustrates the concept with the legend of the Greek strongman who lifted a calf when it was first born and continued to lift it each day until it was a full-grown cow. The day-to-day increase in weight was hardly noticeable although the increase over time was significant. With the Lydiard system, it says, this process of gradual adaptation can produce astounding long-term results.

Garth Gilmour