History

Arthur Lydiard is often thought of as the father of modern distance running. His training information is widely available, but often times misunderstood. People often make the mistake of equating Lydiard to Long Slow Distance.  While his training has changed throughout history,  it’s would be beneficial to look back and see what “original” Lydiard training…

Percy Cerutty was an eccentric, yet often overlooked coach, in a historical context.  He trained many of the greatest distance runners of his time.  His  most prominent athletes was Herb Elliott who captured both the 1960 olympic gold medal and a world record in the 1,500 and mile.  Cerutty also trained numerous other succesful runners…

West German coach Bertl Sumser was an early pioneer in taking a scientific approach to training. He carried on in the tradition of Woldemer Gerschler in designing his training with a heavy tip of the hat to the physiology known at their time.  In a 1962 article published in the Fred Wilt’s book , Sumser …

Harry Wilson was most known as the coach of world record holder and gold medalist, but he also coached other notable British runners.  Before we get into the core of his training beliefs, looking at some of the extra stuff he had his athletes do is needed.  Wilson seems to have placed some emphasis on…

The Beginning Years(1800’s-1920’s Finn’s) The simple reason to run intervals is that it allows the runner to hit specific paces or training zones (such as LT, VO2max, Lactate tolerance, etc.) for a longer amount of time then would be spent in that zone if you just ran for a continuous run.  Now way back in…

Most people attribute “jogging” or an emphasis on long slow distance running  to Arthur Lydiard.  While he may have popularized the idea of building a big base of steady running, others around the world were coming up with the same idea at similar times.  In 1947, Dr. Ernst Van Aaken first published his ideas on…

John Landy is the 2nd man to go sub-4 in the mile. His most famous race was the battle he waged with Roger Bannister in the Empire games, where he took 2nd when Bannister swept past him in the home stretch as Landy turned and looked to his inside. Landy ultimately set the mile world…

The sport of track and field has a long history dating back to the Ancient Greek Olympics and other festivals in which athletics played a key role.  There have been many books and articles detailing the ancient Olympic Games and the modern Olympic games, which began in 1896.  However, few have looked into this sports…