Who are we?

Lydiard grew up in Owairaka West Auckland in the shadows of the Waitakere ranges and founded the Owairaka Harrier club which still draws members today. He was working class and juggled full time work with his famous 100 mile a week training, his old state house on Wainwright Avenue is still often visited by runners today to start his legendary Waiatrua run. Lydiards coaching career began in his twenties when he decided to do something about his declining personal fitness. From then on Lydiard changed the way we think about running coaching forever. His methods emphasised the aerobic base building period which is where his hundred mile weeks stemmed from where runners would cover long distances at a steady pace over the undulating terrain found in the Waitakere Ranges to build an effective base from which the athlete could build his strength with hill repeats and more incorporating more anaerobic sessions while still maintaining high mileage. Splitting training up into phases like this was a world first pioneered by Lydiard and was one of his key innovations as a coach. This method was dubbed periodisation and incorporated several phases of training starting from the base and working up to the tapper period where Lydaird was famous for having his athletes precisely peak on race day. Lydiard’s periodisation as well as his implementation of hill strength training and hill bounding, which was specifically designed to promote running economy, enabled Lydiard’s theories to preside over the golden age of New Zealand running and kickstarted the jogging age with the Auckland jogging club being founded in 1961. Jogging was promoted by Lydiard for personal health and longevity and is similar to the more recent practice of kenyan shuffle. Jogging is a slow paced run where one's running gait and stride are kept short while the runner strikes the ground with their forefoot to prevent a full running stride from being achieved resulting in a slow running movement that is more easy on the body than a running stride. The comparatively fast moving landscape of New Zealand running attracted overseas attention, notably from American track and field coach Bill Bowerman who was convinced of joggings effectiveness by Lyidard and spread his teachings to the states which enabled Lydiard’s teachings to receive the deserved endorsement and attention he was denied by old school coaches in New Zealand at the time.