lydiard speed training clarification

[Manwich5]

-------------Phase 3 anaerobic development phase Questions-----------------
I am a bit confused about the anaerobic training phase in the lydiard program (actually all of them except the base building phase).  He says that it doesn't matter what pace or how long you run in the workout as long as the repeats are  preferably 600 meter or longer in length and you run yourself to high amounts of lactic acid accumulation.  He recommends to do at least 3 miles worth of anaerobic work per session. 

He says you can do 1000 meter reps or run almost all out 5k or 10k distances during anaerobic training phase .  Just as long as you finish really tired.  I mean it makes sense if the goal is to have your body flooded with high amounts of lactic acid at the end of the workout.  You can do that with any lenght of rep or any paces above aerobic threshold anywhere. 

Do paces even matter at this phase regardless of mid distance or distance event just as long as you are running above the aerobic threshold and you run yourself to high levels of lactic acid???  So there is no difference of an 800 meter runner doing threshold runs during anaerobic training phase as apposed to an 800 meter runner doing 600 meter repeats at a higher intensity during this phase? I mean they both experience high levels of lactic acid.  Except one takes longer to experience that then the other. 


I am also wondering where does the pace work come into play with lydiard?  800 meter and 1000 meter repeats at 5k pace for a 5k runner during the anaerobic training makes sense but what about 800 meter runners?  600 meter repeats at 800 meter pace seems like it would be too hard. 



//---------Phase 4 coordination phase Q-------------------
Do you add pace work during the next phase??  Or is the time trials (under distance time trials) he includes in the coordination phase considered the pace work for you chosen event?? 


//-----------phase 2 Hill phase Questions-----------------
Now the second phase the hill phase.   Can the whole hill phase just be  composed of just striding up hills?  I am unclear at the effort of the hill repeats.  The whole point of the hill phase is to develop power and prepare for the anaerobic phase right?  So I would assume recoveries should be kind of long.  I mean high levels of lactic acid isn't the goal of this phase right?  What intensity is lydiard looking for during the hill phase?

//Phase 5 the final freshening up phase
In this phase you are just doing anaerobic maintenance work and further sharpening your speed from the coordination phase.  In this pahse you drop anaerobic work volume and increase intensity instead so that you get tired quicker without working out longer.  So instead of  3 miles of 1000 meter repeats at 5k pace you do 10 100 meter repeats at a fast pace with 50 meter jog in between.   right?


Thanks

[Ryan]

To be honest, I've never gone through these phases in true Lydiard style and I'm not sure his style is the best way to do these (if I thought it was, I would obviously have done it). That said, I'll answer this the best I can and hopefully, someone with more Lydiard knowledge/experience can fill in the holes or correct me if I get something wrong.

I'm going to do this in order of phases so it might be a bit different than the order of the questions you asked.

Phase 2: Hills

Lydiard recommended bounding hills. I believe there is a pretty good description of this at the Lydiard Clinic (check Lydiard Links under the Arthur Lydiard section here for a link to the Lydiard Clinic if you don't have it already). My understanding is that bounding Lydiard-style is a strength workout, not a high intensity anaerobic workout. He did suggest circuits where you would run quickly down a gradual hill on a soft circuit so there would be some short repeats also thrown in but with a lot of recovery.

Phase 3: Anaerobic

I believe you hit Lydiard's philosophy some on this one. His philosophy seems to have been flush the body with lactate in order to teach it to withstand and handle the lactate. I believe he would have runners do longer or shorter repeats based on the length of their race so an 800 meter runner would run 600 meter repeats at a faster pace, while a marathoner might do a hard tempo run. This would be somewhat race specific training, though not precisely.

Phase 4: Coordination

I believe the idea of the time trials was to run at roughly goal race pace for a distance shorter than race distance. This would be some specific pace work, though I'm not sure Lydiard was big on the idea of pace work.

Phase 5: Sharpening/freshening up

I threw in the term sharpening because that's how I always viewed this phase.Pretty much just as you stated, dropping that volume and doing short, quick work for final sharpening. Also, this is essentially your taper so you're dropping the hard work to let your legs rest up and absorb all the hard training.