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Event Information: Arthur Lydiard Tribute

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Tuesday 21 December 2004

Auckland

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Arthur Leslie Lydiard
6 July 1917 - 12 December 2004

This article was published in the December edition of “Athletics New Zealand News” in 2004.

This is a tribute to the coach who has had the greatest influence on New Zealand athletics.

Here's a look at Arthur’s life from various perspectives, including that of a Lydiard-influenced coach and a Lydiard-trained athlete.

Arthur Lydiard died while on a lecture tour in the States at the age of 87.

Lydiard's legacy is his pioneering method of training, which revolutionised middle and long distance running throughout the world. He single handedly led New Zealand's golden era in world track and field during the 1960's. In Rome in 1960 the stocky, nut brown, blue eyed Lydiard sent three men - Murray Halberg, Peter Snell and Barry Magee - out to win Olympic medals for New Zealand, immediately establishing himself as a coach of world renown.

Lydiard went on to coach Snell to the double gold in the 800m and 1500m at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Lydiard's methods were sought throughout the world and in Finland, Mexico, United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Japan, Australia, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Russia, coaches and runners run the Lydiard way.

Lydiard introduced the art of jogging for health to New Zealand, which was also introduced to the States by Lydiard. His methods extended to other sports and sports people in all fields use running as an essential ingredient of their training. He has possibly made the greatest individual contribution to world health and fitness in history and his promotion of jogging has influenced millions of people around the globe.

Lydiard was still in demand as a speaker and just four months ago toured New Zealand promoting his biography "Arthur Lydiard Master Coach". He was honoured by Athletics New Zealand last year, being elected to Life Membership of the Association. Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark said it was a sad day for New Zealand on learning of his death. "He was still touring, still lecturing and imparting his knowledge at 87 " she said. Lydiard will stay permanently in the minds of all visiting Ericsson Athletic Track in Auckland with the statue of Lydiard looking down on the finishing straight.

Arthur Lydiard’s Funeral
Over 800 paid their final respects to Arthur Lydiard in the Auckland Town Hall on Tuesday 21 December 2004 . It was a fitting tribute that so many turned out to honour and share in the final run of a great coach and motivator.

Murray McKinnon was at the funeral and witnessed the following speakers.

The service was led by one of "Arthur's Boys" Barry Magee, bronze medallist in the marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. Magee said that Lydiard had revolutionised the world of middle and long distance running and he had touched so many in the world in reaching their goals and stardom. In his last two lectures in the States, just days before he died in Texas, Lydiard received standing ovations after he had talked. Magee then asked the audience at the funeral to rise as one and give Arthur a standing ovation. It was a magic moment to start the funeral.

Recently Magee talked to Lydiard about his departure from this life, and Arthur told him that he would only go to heaven if he could have a beer there. Lydiard was an excellent predictor of races and he was just as successful picking the winners of the four-legged variety as well as the two-legged.

The Hon Trevor Mallard, Minister for Sport and Recreation, said that Lydiard was a person who helped make New Zealand what it is today. Mallard said that wherever in the world there is an interest in athletics, Arthur Lydiard has an instant meaning. Three things sum up Lydiard: Master Coach, Father of Training and God of the Jog.

Sir Murray Halberg said "He never wasted any words when talking to us, he lived life like a human dynamo." Halberg thanked Arthur's children, Roy, Gary, Fay and Bruce, for sharing Arthur with all the runners he coached.

Ari Hallenberg, the Finnish Consulate General in New Zealand, said that after the success of Lydiard in the 1960's Finland secured his services to help get Finland back on the podium at the Olympic Games. Lydiard had also started the jogging boom in Finland.

Pat Clohessy from Australia said that it had been a privilege to be part of one of Arthur Lydiard's tours with his runners through Europe. "He was a master of psychology, he showed that by running marathons you can increase your speed. Peter Snell ran a marathon in November 1961 and two months later broke the world mile record."

Two of the athletes that he coached in the local Beachlands area, Damian and Mathew Shirley, spoke of the ease with which Lydiard was prepared to help anyone who knocked on his door.

Dick Tayler said one of the greatest things that Arthur told him was to drink beer. "Thank God he never told me to stop." "Why did we do it, because Arthur said." added Tayler.

Garth Gilmour, author of numerous books about Lydiard, said that Arthur's greatest pride and joy was to see people out jogging.

Peter Snell was unable to attend the funeral and sent the following tribute from the States: "Today we bid farewell to a man who gave much of himself to inspire others to reach for lofty goals and provide the knowledge, tools and guidance for them to achieve success. I was one of those people and will be forever grateful for the way Arthur changed my life. I choose not to be sad about his death but to celebrate his unique contribution not only to the countless runners and sportsmen and women who applied his methods, but to those middle-aged and older people he gave new life to through his invention of jogging. It is with great regret that I cannot be present today but I am glad that I was able to dedicate to Arthur my presentations last week at a conference of coaches in Atlantic City. His legacy and place in history are secure. But more importantly Arthur you will be missed in all of our hearts."

Lydiard's coffin was carried out of the Town Hall by six of his nine grandchildren to Frank Sinatra's rendition of "I did it my way".

A Coach’s Perspective
By Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor, himself a coach, describes Arthur Lydiard as a master coach and friend. Here Brian writes about his influence and dispels some of the myths about Arthur’s training methods.

When our son Hamish was an 18-year-old runner and we had Arthur to stay at our house, Hamish very quickly found out that there was only one way to train properly and that was Arthur’s way. There was no argument or discussion. You did the training exactly as he prescribed it - after all, Arthur had spent 20 years working out his methods to get the best results from his runners.

The extent to which his distance training methods worked was that he produced champions - not just from New Zealand - not even from the same city - but from the same suburb. His methods at that time were so different that they produced results that were far ahead of everyone else’s training. Now the global results of his training are legendary, as we all know. The total effect, especially after his methods were analysed by physiologists in Europe, was to influence runners from dozens of countries who produced Olympic medals and world records.

Arthur was able to dispel three commonly held myths of the past - views still held by many coaches to this day.

1. That long running makes you injured!
Very few runners who trained exactly as Arthur prescribed became injured and this included very young runners.

2. That in order to run faster at the end of a race you should do more “speed work!”
Arthur proved through runners who used his methods that long running actually made you faster at the end of races. His training showed that a properly conditioned runner, having done a great deal of long distance running, could run closer to his or her maximum speed over the end of the race. It was this factor alone that enabled runners to be able to run so fast at the end of races to win.

3. That long running makes you become slower!
Arthur also proved that lots of long running done in the right way during the conditioning period would make one much faster over traditional sprint distances.

Physiological analysis of his training substantiated why his methods were so successful. Out of this various terms emerged which are now used frequently to describe the various aspects of running training. These included slow and fast twitch fibres, oxygen uptake, aerobic threshold, anaerobic tolerance, etc.

In recent years Arthur had become frustrated at the way many coaches in New Zealand have rejected his methods, claiming quite often that “We have moved on from his training to newer methods”. His frustration was often recounted in newspaper articles and reports. He knew that nothing had changed in how his training worked. What had changed was that coaches and runners wanted quick returns rather than the patient strategic approach that was characteristic of his methods. Apart from one or two exceptions he had seen a general drop off in top distance performances in the traditional track and road distances that New Zealand international runners excelled in over in the past. This had become of great concern to Arthur.

I have always been an avid follower of his methods and have always appreciated his support and encouragement. The young group of runners I work with have also appreciated his encouragement, and now are one of the few groups using his long running approach to great effect. The results they are achieving have surprised me as I thought it would take much longer. However Arthur had always predicted that improvements would happen much sooner than I might think. Yet again he was correct.

We will all sadly miss his enthusiastic support, his dynamic personality, his keen sense of humour - but most of all, his generosity and love of life.

Arthur Lydiard – an athlete’s perspective
By Damian Shirley

Damian Shirley was one of many athletes coached by Arthur. He subsequently won a number of Auckland Titles over 800m and 1500m and ran for New Zealand in the World University Championships in Spain in 1999.

Coach, motivator, father figure, friend, and leader are just some of the terms that have been used to describe Arthur Lydiard. Arthur was all of these things to a large number of people throughout New Zealand and the world. He would give freely of his time to anyone that approached him. That included anyone from a social runner to those standing at the top of the victory dais. He once told a story of how a grossly overweight individual came to him and asked him if he could help him to lose weight and run for three hours. Somehow the press got hold of this and thought it would be a great story with the headlines along the lines of “Jogger Drops Dead”. So after months of training they decided to put him to the test. The press turned up on their bikes to follow the man around and capture the story. As the story goes the jogger made it and proved a point. The pressmen on the other hand were so unfit that they were nearly falling of their bikes at the end of the run.

It would be fair to say that a lot of New Zealanders owe Arthur Lydiard for improving their quality of life and in some cases significantly extending their lives, as Arthur was instrumental in pioneering the jogging movement in New Zealand. A number of heart patients approached Arthur for his advice. The General Practitioner at the time said that anyone with any heart condition should rest up. Arthur told them to see a cardiologist called Doctor Reynolds. If he said it was okay they should literally put on their running shoes and run for their lives. In time this approach was proven right.

Arthur told of the time that he was on a plane back from Christchurch and was sitting next to Colin Kay (former Mayor of Auckland). Colin told Arthur that he was badly out of shape and asked whether he could help. Arthur agreed. When they got back to Auckland Arthur got Colin to also get his overweight business friends to come along. Arthur then marked out a mile at Mission Bay and got them to jog and walk between the lampposts. They gradually built up their fitness from this point and some of them went on to run marathons. They also started up a club called the Auckland Joggers that went on to start running events such as Around The Bays.

What started Arthur Lydiard off? We put that question to him and suggested that Jack Lovelock’s amazing triumph at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 could have been the catalyst. Arthur responded that he was aware of what Jack Lovelock had achieved but it wasn’t the motivating point for him. At the time he was badly out of shape and overweight and spent time down at the pub smoking and drinking like the next guy. He started to get interested in running after reading a book by Webster called the Science of Athletics. From here he developed his ideas that endurance was a governing factor in athletic performance. He spent the next few years using himself as a guinea pig to prove his theories that he subsequently applied to Snell and Halberg to great effect in the 1960 and 1964 Olympics.

It is a great sadness that New Zealand Athletics did not get the full benefit of Arthur’s coaching brilliance. There were no professional coaching positions offered to him so he was forced to go overseas to take up these positions as he had a young family to support. We asked Arthur what needed to be done to improve the standard of athletics. He said that it needed to be led by having a good coaching structure in place. This would involve having a national coach that worked together with other coaches throughout the country, promoting endurance based training and ensuring that the full schedule was followed properly.

Finally, Arthur was a person that had a hugely positive impact on so many people’s lives in so many different ways. He is one of the great New Zealanders that can sit comfortably beside the likes of Sir Edmond Hillary in our history pages. It is with certainty that I say that Arthur’s positive influence will live on through other people for a long time to come.

The Legend
There is a road race in memory of Arthur Lydiard, called “The Legend”. It follows the famous Waiatarua route (set in the Waitakere Ranges) previously used by Arthur Lydiard to train his prodigies - elite athletes such as Peter Snell and Sir Murray Halberg.

Information on the 2008 race is available here