6 easy things to help you love running — and actually find joy in it
This is the way proven by many thousands (perhaps millions) of joggers/runners from beginners to Olympians on how to learn to love daily jogging and running
The simplest, low-barrier way to learn to find joy in daily running and jogging is illustrated below in easy-to-grasp words and phrasing (but there is some jargon, hang in there, you can grasp it). The path that I write about goes against the grain of the modern jogger. As a coach, I cringe at some people’s approach to running and want to help them so much, that I would like to grab them by the arm and stop them in their tracks.
If you do not run or are a competitive runner reading this, you have seen the modern runner. He or she is wearing an armband with a device and Bluetooth to the ear or a wire, listening to a podcast or music to distract or drown out the pain or boredom he or she is experiencing because they dislike running but reluctantly do it for weight loss or general health.
Sad.
Don’t let this be you.
Jogging or running should be a joy first and foremost — yes, a joy (caveat: or if you cannot run: walk, hike, ski, cycle, swim or log roll)
Jogging should be a joy to you. And perhaps an expression of freedom or a competitive outlet if you want that too. If not, freedom and fitness are a lot and of tremendous value to the glands that secrete the good things in your body like the good mood elevator dopamine.
Physicians should write prescriptions for jogging (or endurance activity), not always going to pill-form anti-depressants. Fitness is an anti-depressant.
Fitness is awesome and may lead to more fitness and great social interaction or you can do it alone — I do both. Or, one may become immersed and want an athletic challenge. Either way, a person who cannot seem to make a consistent habit of jogging or running needs to check out the proper way to get going again and stick with it this time.
By the way, the reason I write “jogging” and “running” as separate things is because as you get started, you should jog. Which to me, is a slower, casual, light approach to running. Running is more purposeful, in that you may run at a specific pace or effort or time or distance. Or do a hard workout. Also, once you are fit, you cannot run fast all of the time, so jogging continues. Check this out: Super competitive runners (the people on TV and YouTube) run 75 - 90% of the time: EASY. Yes, I wrote that. Easy and light and joyful.
For the beginners…
Starting slow and easy and without stress is important. You have seen the modern runner, always trying to run fast (fast for them). Ouch. Running fast all of the time causes injury, and burnout and is not always happytimes.
Run naked. Yes. Not naked as in completely naked — no. But run with nothing more than the following: Shorts, shirt (and tights and jacket if cold), socks and shoes. Wear a toque if cold, or a vented baseball-style cap if blasting hot. but no devices. No technology. Wear a running watch, but completely ignore it and everything it says. When done running, have a look at the data for information purposes only. DO NOT LOOK AT THE WATCH WHILE RUNNING.
No one cares. No one cares about your running. Learn this now. Guess what? Therefore there is no stress. You owe no one anything whatsoever. No one cares and no one is watching. If someone is checking out your running data online, you are making them want to run. Good for you, you beacon of joy.
Run again. “But, I ran yesterday (or earlier today).” Sure you did. Good. If you feel like it, run again. If you are hoping to get better at running and have been running consistently for a few months, try a second run that day (but EASY and on grass or sand or dirt). Start very slow and keep it slow. If you are tired and don’t feel like running, try running for 10 minutes slowly. If you still do not want to run, go home. There, you have a 20-minute run in the bank (it does indeed count toward fitness). After a day of work, a run will wake you up. You just have to step out that door.
Get your sneakers superdirty and stinky, they are not for show. Running on concrete, asphalt or similar surfaces is hard on the calf muscles and Achilles tendons. Do less of that to none of that if you can. If you have access to forests, dirt paths, boulevards, shoulders, parks, beaches, gravel, or mud run there. It is softer for the calf and Achilles and your shoes will last longer, they will just be muddy and maybe stinky. Listen. Do you see a surfer or diver wearing a dry and clean wet suit? Not if they have been diving and surfing! Get those shoes dirty. Running is not a fashion show. Feel free to wear no makeup, perfume/cologne, and let your hair be messy. No one cares. Don’t shave. Smile or grimace. Running is for you not for them. You are not responsible for the thoughts of others. Ignore.
Don’t pass anyone on a daily jog/run. Okay, if you can’t help it because they are slow, let it happen. Pass them when you get fit and you can do so without straining. Otherwise, no passing or pacing. Just. Don’t. Do. It. No one cares.
Run for transportation. Going to work and there is a shower? Put a spare set of running gear in the trunk of the car, because you never know when a jog or a run will present itself. I have run home from dinner out. Give the partner the keys and burn off the chipotle and cheesecake and beer or wine. Run to and from work. Run to drop mail in the box or deposit a cheque (check) at the ATM. Jog home after dropping the car off at the mechanic’s. Jog back to pick it up, and run around junior’s soccer practice. Etcetera.
But will always running slow make me a slow runner? Yes, no.
Give it one year. Make it like brushing your teeth, a daily habit (you brush, daily, right?). After a year (or try running through all four seasons), then take the next steps to faster running. If you are under age 30, give it six months.That was eight things. Sorry, there are five things below. The five Lydiard principles. It is the next step in your reading if you have got this far, and like what you have read.
Oh, one more thing: Ignore almost every single thing you read on the internet about how to run. See how raw and basic this is? That is running. Running is not a fashion show and it is not a technology show and daily healthy, joyful running is not a race. Keep it dead simple and consistent.
Aphorisms of reality:
”If your doctor tells you to stop running, find a new doctor.”
— Arthur Lydiard.
”If your doctor tells you to start running less, start going twice per day.”
— Arthur Lydiard.
“All I want to do is drink beer and train like an animal.”
— Rod Dixon, four-time Olympian, NYC Marathon winner.
Fake news:
“Running is hard on the knees.”
No. It is healthy for the knees. This is a terrible lie created by people who do not run and have no idea what they are talking about. Running makes the knees healthier.
If you are a competitive runner and still reading, below the content is about the famed Arthur Lydiard method. You should read this too. The article (below) was vetted by four-time Olympian Lorraine Moller and she approves it. She is the president of the Lydiard Foundation, won bronze in the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Marathon, and won Boston and many other marathons. She started running barefoot with her dad. She first found running as a joy, before her thirty-year international running career. Now that she is more mature, she is just like many of you: a jogger-runner.
She is a best-selling author. Her book, On the Wings of Mercury, is a must-read.
The article below was published by me at Athletics Illustrated. Also, borrowed and or re-published in magazines and other websites.
The five Lydiard principles explained: World-class training for all abilities (skip past the preamble if you must)
The legendary Arthur Lydiard training program is often misunderstood, even by people who believe that they fully understand his methodology.
Lydiard training may not be what you think it is.
Some of the most well-known coaches claim that they coach based on the Lydiard principles and practices. They may, however, on the surface, there seems to exist conflicting evidence.
At a 2011 Canadian Endurance Conference in Vancouver, Coach James Li of the University of Arizona, who is known for coaching the likes of Lawli Lalang (13:00.95 – 5,000-metres – 3:33.20 – 1500m) and four-time Olympian Bernard Lagat, stepped up to the microphone and started his presentation with, “I coach according to the Arthur Lydiard method.” After his presentation, he was followed by the legendary Alberto Salazar, coach of Olympic silver medallist Galen Rupp. He has also coached Kara Goucher, Cameron Levins, Mo Farah, and many other international athletes. Salazar also began his speech with the comment that he too coaches by the Arthur Lydiard method.
Salazar is known to stew over the fine details of his athlete’s training program. In contrast, when Li spoke at the conference, he said, “I am not sure how many miles Lalang runs some weeks, sometimes his friends will go for a run and he will take off with them on not tell me. I guess he runs about 60 miles per week.”
Li may have had some ulterior motive. Either he was hiding training details on competing coaches who were in the room or he was referencing a period of training that included more quality work — closer to race time. During the 1980s, when Sebastian Coe commented that he ran just 60 miles per week it set off a generation of repetition-based speed junkies and subsequently caused a dearth in quality performances in North America and parts of Europe. Thankfully that has mostly come to an end.
Salazar’s athletes run roughly double what Li was suggesting Lalang trained up to.
So you may ask, how can two highly successful coaches be so different, yet both claim to coach the Lydiard way?
Lydiard training is not a set program or a specific weekly schedule that applies to all runners equally. Although his books contain schedules, they were added at the insistence of the publisher. Lydiard did not want to publish schedules as each runner and their situation is unique to them. Unfortunately, schedules sell books.
Lydiard training is governed by a set of five principles that apply to all runners of all abilities and all endurance athletes including cyclists, swimmers, nordic skiers, speed skaters, and rowers, for example. (He wrote the book, Swim the Lydiard Way and advised a medal-winning Olympic figure skater, speed skaters, and elite rowers).
Many believe that Lydiard training is exclusively about running 100 miles (162K) per week and running long slow distances, but this is incorrect. Yes, his Olympians ran approximately 162K per week, but he would coach anyone. For example, he was the first person to get cardiac patients outside walking and running to strengthen the heart, when at the time, it was standard practice to “recover” while resting in bed. It is now common protocol to recover from a heart attack via exercise; thank you Arthur Lydiard.
On occasion, he sounded as though he was contradicting himself. For example, when he would publicly speak and use the term “long slow distance” he was referring to one of two types of long runs and their relative pace compared to other running efforts.
One is a run that provides a very specific recovery purpose. For example, a burnt-out international athlete may have toured Australia, and New Zealand, followed by Europe, and then North America, racing over a very long period of time. The athlete would perhaps need aerobic refreshing long runs, which can be done extremely slow, sometimes back-to-back. One time, one of his athletes said that he felt stale after his long tour. Lydiard told him to go run for three hours, two days in a row, and as slow as possible. He did and returned to form soon after.
Perhaps science can give us the physiological reasons why those dead-slow long runs refreshed fried athletes, but we know it worked.
Also, a long-run pace or effort is about perspective. In comparison to how fast his elite runners raced an 800-metre or 1500-metre or 5,000-metre distance event, a three-hour-long run over big hills is comparatively slow – long-running wasn’t done before Lydiard as part of a training program for middle-distance athletes. Those runs were not necessarily slow as long runs go. Lydiard himself said, “We were not fooling around out there,” as they ran over the 22-mile (35/36K) Waiatarua hills.
There is also a story of Olympic gold medallist and world record holder in the 800-metres, Peter Snell sitting on the side of the road totally dejected with his 2:40, 22-mile long run. He was not running long and slow, but long and steady without straining.
The five guiding principles
General Conditioning First
At the beginning of any Lydiard training cycle, there is a long phase of aerobic running to build endurance and lay the foundation for fast training and a good performance on race day. The “aerobic” or “base” phase as it is commonly known could last from as short as eight weeks to half a year. Commonly eight to 12 weeks was undertaken, depending on the runner. During this phase, no anaerobic training is done, so no racing or hard repetitions.
For most runners, this means you may enjoy the benefit of easy, medium, steady, and strong runs done mostly in relaxed efforts. A once-per-week or every-other-week “out-and-back” run could be added, where you run the same route out and back at an even, but strong effort. As the weeks go by, your runtime becomes shorter or the distance you cover in that time becomes longer, voila! You are becoming aerobically fitter. Keys are to run at the same even pace the entire time and to run very strong, without straining. One should finish the run saying, “I could have run faster if I had to, however, I am glad I didn’t.”
For those who believe one must stay in touch with their speed, there is a weekly fartlek session that is run by feel. Additionally, easy strides are incorporated on a recovery or easy run — neither of which should be anaerobic.
Response Regulated Training
The Lydiard way allows you to adjust your effort levels based on how you are responding to training stimuli to optimize your fitness improvement.
Today we have the luxury of heart rate monitors to tell us if our heart rate is running high. When our heart rate is running high we likely haven’t recovered from training or are under the weather. This is a time to train lightly until fully recovered. The next principle is about training by feel, and relying on your instincts. But it is important, whether you develop the powerful instincts to be able to tell if you are recovered or if you rely on an HRM, to be willing to adjust your training efforts and distances according to these signals.
Lydiard coined the phrase “train, don’t strain.” There is a time for running really fast, but first things first. A properly developed aerobic foundation allows you to run more speed volume than you may otherwise be able to withstand when it is time to do so.
Feeling Based Training
Learning to accurately interpret the language of your physiology allows the runner to stretch the training envelope while avoiding the perils of overtraining.
Lorraine Moller wrote a wonderful article titled Becoming a Body Whisperer. These two principles: Feeling Based Training and Response Regulated Training can be done best when you unplug completely from devices for some or all of your runs. Rather than be distracted by your HRM or pace via your watch or music or podcasts. Listen to your own breathing and the feedback your body is naturally providing while on a run. Tuning out via music distracts from your very natural ability to read body signals. With Lydiard training you are not “surviving the distance,” you are striving to be better at it.
Sequential Development
Rather than train for everything at the same time, train in order. You will hear runners talk about their hill training and speed work and tempo runs and time trials or races and long runs, all done during the same week. This is not optimal.
There is a process for runners of all abilities which starts with the base phase first and ends with sharpening so that the runner is completely ready to perform on race day. This training is based on the methodology of developing the building blocks like a pyramid so that you are ready on race day to perform your best. The peak of the pyramid can sit higher if the base at the bottom is bigger (and done first).
Ever notice a fellow runner has a poor race and immediately after finishing he or she begins to talk about what the problem could be, guessing the whole time? When a runner haphazardly throws all the ingredients into the weekly training program, they get mixed and random results which they have no real explanation for. The answer is usually to throw more so-called “speed work” at the problem, compounding the issue.
Peaking
The later phases of Lydiard training are designed to sharpen the runner to a point where they are in peak condition — like the top of the pyramid. So that on race day the athlete (of all abilities) is in an excellent position to run the best race possible.
I have seen race winners, age-groupers; mid-packers, and back-of-the-pack runners all start their watch as the gun sounds and then click stop at the finish line when the race is over. Everyone looks at their watch to see how they have done. Almost every single participant has a time or placement goal even if they keep it silent, no matter how modest or elite that goal may be.
Running the Lydiard way isn’t just for serious athletes; Lydiard would never refuse to coach based on ability.
There are many misconceptions about the Arthur Lydiard method of endurance training. Following the sequence of training and adhering to the above five principles will provide a sound foundation to train whether under the guidance of a coach or on your own.
“If your coach cannot explain why you are doing any particular run, get a new coach.”
– Arthur Lydiard.