Healthy Intelligent Training -- am I ever getting this book? (Read 1876 times)

I ordered this thing on 27 November from amazon and before I got my order it switched to "temporarily out of stock.  Now every two weeks or so I approve a delay for another two weeks.  Has anybody out there actually ordered and received this book?

Sorry, Greg.  We've been talking about making that book available at our website but, of course, like everything else, we are so far behind right now.  I'll ask Keith (Livingstone) what would be the easiest way to get it.  Why don't you shoot me an e-mail and we'll take care of that.  I've been involved in writing that book with Keith right from the get-go.  Great article about hill training in there (I wrote it)! ;o)

So it's temporarily unavailable...does that mean it's been selling so much or else???

 

Sorry, Greg.  We've been talking about making that book available at our website but, of course, like everything else, we are so far behind right now.  I'll ask Keith (Livingstone) what would be the easiest way to get it.  Why don't you shoot me an e-mail and we'll take care of that.  I've been involved in writing that book with Keith right from the get-go.  Great article about hill training in there (I wrote it)! ;o)

 

So it's temporarily unavailable...does that mean it's been selling so much or else???

Thanks, Nobby.  I sent you a personal message via RA (don't know your email), but all I said was that if you can find anywhere that has it in stock I'll gladly cancel my amazon order and order it there!

i know this is an old post.  I personally didn't like this book.  I LOVE LYDIARD but this book isn't nearly as thorough as lore of running or running to top.  It doesn't have very good workout plans for serious runners running 60+ miles per week.  I was very disappointed.  I have this book if anyone wants it.

Really?  I'm translating this whole book in Japanese right now.  I sent a few "blurbs" to some top level Japanese coaches and they ABSOLUTELY loved it.  I have at least 3 of them, all of whom any running people in Japan would recognize who they are, would be more than happy to give us a forward.  One of them, a former 2:06 marathon guy who now is a corporate team coach, harassed me to get it done quick.  

If you were seeking a simple sample schedule, definitely, this is NOT the book you'd want.  But if you wanted a schedule for 60+ mile runner, and if you find a good one for yourself right now, then what would happen if you get up to 100MPW?  Same schedule wouldn't cover it.  What if you were 40MPW?  The only way, besides getting our Running Wizard training plan (;o)), is to learn principles of putting training schedule together and how and why of that.  And I feel HIT conveys that really well (particularly Hill Training Chapter is brilliant!! ;o)).

I found this book way more worthwhile than any of the books Lydiard co-authored himself. Lydiard's other combined works talk about too many subjects at too many different times. People always wanted to know the answer to everything from Lydiard and the result is a few books that try to answer all of the questions, but miss one of the key points from Lydiard: that the answer you need might be different depending on what day you're asking.

HIT skips a lot of the little detail so that it can drive home the main point that a runner should have a huge aerobic base. Nearly every running book agrees that you need a good aerobic base, which is easy to say, and then go on to give the more specific training and sharpening workouts, which takes longer to write out. The result is that all coaches agree an aerobic base is important, but their books spend about 20% time on aerobic development and 80% time on the specific and sharpening training. The irony here is that running is 80% aerobic, so the average Joe just picks up a book like Daniels Running Formula, nods their head about needing a strong base, and then remembers the book as a guide about intervals because 80% of the pages were about it, so it seems like the most important part.

In my mind the best part of HIT is that it spends a majority of the book convincing you aerobic development is key and then leaves you in a spot to make your own training plan that keeps this in mind, whereas other books leave you to make your own plan and you end up focusing on the intervals. Let's say that athletes pick up different books and athlete A follows a Livingstone plan, athlete B follows a Daniels plan, and they both race the same result at the end of the season because the plans themselves aren't that different in theory. Now they put their books away and make their own plan. The Livingstone athlete is going to put a big focus on base and the Daniels athlete is going to put a big focus on intervals. Ideally, an athlete is well-read and maintains a good balance in training. The problem is that too many of the books spend so much time on late-season workouts that the athletes reading them start to lose focus of the importance of base training. In my mind every athlete should read HIT just to be reminded of the importance of base training. It's also one of the few rare books on the market that is not afraid to say that 100 mpw might be what you need to do if you're serous about succeeding.

I've seen too many people read Daniels and then try to squeeze blood out of a turnip during years of 30 mpw. Anyone can pick up Daniels and see that he endorses base training, so where do they go wrong? It's obvious that so much of the book's popularity has to do with the intervals and pace charts. I think every athlete should read Lydiard, most concisely accessible in Livingstone's HIT, so that they can read a rare book that spends 80% of its pages focusing on what's 80% important to the puzzle.

I ordered it just after Christmas and got it a week...maybe ten days later.  I read it through quickly once and am at it again taking it more thoughtfully.

Kelly:

 

Hmmm...  Interesting.  You are probably the first person who said Running Wizard may not have enough quantity but more quality.  In fact, I was concerned we may have too much (aerobic base running) particularly, say, for 5k training plan.  For a 5k runner, we still go up to 2-hour range and we thought people may wonder why they'd have to run that much just to run 5k...  For a marathon, if you're starting out at 2-hours, you'll be running 2:30 on weekend with another 2-hour.  That's probably more than most programs expect you to do.  Of course, mileage depends on how fast you run--if you run faster, you get more mileage within the same duration.  The only thing with that is that the volume of intervals is not dependent on the level of fitness so maybe that's something to continue working on...

 

Our biggest challenge was to accommodate "everybody".  One of the first things Keith (Livingstone) said was "Arthur would have never prescribed 4-days-a-week training!!" ;o)  Well, we sort of have to compromise, not as much to approve 3-days-a-week!!  As a matter of fact, if you look at 4-days and 5-days, the biggest difference is that we dropped down the quality from 5 down to 4.  That is because we didn't want to remove "junk miles" and keep too much quality.  I guess we did make it a bit more forgiving but its main reason is because we expected the "first-timer" to use this.  Not so much a beginning runner; but first time trying out a complete training cycle like Lydiard's.  Hills, yes.  We started out very forgivingly but that is because we assumed that we are not dealing with a seasoned runner; most probably people who had never done lots of hill training.  This is probably where we expect most injury-possibility.  We have fair amount of fast running after hill phase, yes.  But we still kept it fairly forgiving.  Besides, by then, you should be ready to handle fast running.   

 

Speaking of Peter Snell, we did get his blessing too so keep us updated with your progress.  

I am only saying that it seems to have more quality and less quantity than the philosophy I gleaned from HIT and from the planet fitness PDF.  They seem pretty strict at doing 600 minutes of running a week... (100 miles a week at 6 minute pace, or adjust to your pace.)

Running wizard is telling me to run mostly 8 minute miles, and only about 65 of them. So that's like 520 minutes or so. I expected 75 miles a week at 8 minute pace.

(Both tell me to supplement that with additional runs at a slow pace.)

Running wizard has 2 fartleks, an out and back, and a strides day every week. It only has 2 regular easy runs. The PDF shows 4 days of 1/4 effort, 2 at half, and one at 3/4. Both have the 2+ hour long run.

I am only starting my 3rd week, so I haven't delved into the other phases much. 

I can completely understand why it is what it is. The PDF seems to be geared almost entirely to elite or near elite runners and coaches. HIT has that "If you want to be your absolute best, do this" theme to it too. Those are great for the more hard core or those who have or are coaches. But running wizard seems to be more balanced for the average Joe that buys an online training chart but who still wants to get better...

I noticed that you had an option in the initial interview to check if I had already done at least 2 complete cycles.  I didn't check that, but perhaps I should have... /shrug.

This is all just my musings and opinions. And I guess it's a lot of text to say that I completely agree with you Nobby. I only met Lydiard once, and wouldn't dream to know how he really taught and coached. I don't want to be one of those guys that says this is Lydiard or that isn't. I'd just like to run faster...

And I'll have to be the oldest person ever to break the 4 minute mile to get close to Snell's marks... 

(BTW, I am on the 1500 training plan. Not sure if that makes any difference yet.)

-Kelly