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If you want to be a successful runner, you have to consider everything. It’s no good just thinking about endurance and not to develop fine speed.

Arthur Lydiard

New Zealand’s Arthur Lydiard is one of the outstanding running coaches of all time – possibly the greatest. He dramatically changed the sport of running in two significant ways: training and popularity.

First, Lydiard developed and spread the idea of a periodized running program. He started runners with aerobic running up to 100 miles per week – that many years of trial-and-error lead him to believe was the sweet spot for aerobic development. Then he would progressively transition runners toward more anaerobic training specific to their target event. He did this before the words aerobic and anaerobic were popular training lexicon.

His program was so successful that, incredibly, Lydiard sent three local athletes to the 1960 Rome Olympics: Peter Snell (800m), Murray Halberg (5000m) and Barry Magee (Marathon) and all three made in on the podium! Snell and Halberg won gold and Magee a bronze. Four years later at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Snell would win gold in the 800m and the 1500m – a feat that has not been repeated at the games!

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