And the Winner is…Sincerity
Jan. 15, 2021 — When Arthur Lydiard visited Japan for the last time in 1991, my friend, a runner and a writer, Mifuyu Komatsu asked him: “What quality would you like to see in the athlete you coach?” She expected the answer like: sprinting speed…, good form…, long legs perhaps…, or never-give-up spirit!!? Without hesitation, Lydiard replied: “Sincerity.” (I asked the same question on Page 14 of THIS interview with Lydiard). In the Academy Award winning movie, “Chariots of Fire”, there’s a scene after Harold Abraham won the gold medal where Harold and his coach, Sam Mussambini, are drinking beer in a dumpy old pub. Not a glamorous scene; but I really like this scene. Harold, not quite fully understanding what he had done, looks lost. Mussambini, on the other hand, says he had waited “thirty bloody years” for this, being a bit of an outsider to the officialdom, no support from federation — just like Arthur Lydiard was. Being more as son-and-father than athlete-and-coach, Mussambini says: “…You care! You care about things that really matter. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have come within a mile of ya…”. This line just reminds me so much of Arthur Lydiard.
Lydiard was known as a “Maker of Champions”. His legacy includes coaching numerous champions like Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, Barry Magee, Bill Baillie, Jeff Julian, Ray Puckett, John Davies…to name just a handful. But he really was “Everybody’s Coach” as I like to call him. When we launched Lydiard Running Wizard, I received an e-mail, criticizing my creating 4 or 5 days a week plans. “With Lydiard, 7-days-a-week is minimum!!” True. “But,” I responded, “I have seen Lydiard explaining a busy housewife runner who could only run 3 or 4 days a week at best how she could arrange her weekly training program as if he is explaining training program to an Olympic champion…”. And that was the kind of a guy Arthur Lydiard was. “I don’t care what other people think of me. What I think of them is what’s important…” he said. And, to him, if you run, you are a runner PERIOD— speed is irrelevant. He would tell you; he had had unfavorable experience with some of champion runners in the past. “Once they start winning, they’ll forget you. They think they did it all by themselves…” Once, Toshihiko Seko’s coach, the late Kiyoshi Nakamura, kicked out Seko from his group. It was after his second Fukuoka victory. With all the commotion, he forgot to thank his coach. Lydiard liked that story! Being a fast runner didn’t mean that much to Lydiard. He would have treated a 2:15 runner just the same way he would have treated 5:15 runner. It’s how much you would pay attention to him “sincerily” and, to that, how appreciative you would be to his paying attention to you.
Don’t get me wrong; there are wonderful champion runners all over the place too. “Boston Billy”, Bill Rodgers is one of the nicest champions if not one of the nicest persons!! His 1976 USA Olympic teammate, Don Kardong is another super-nice guy. I am very impressed with just how nice, modest and pleasant Anne Audain is!! I really enjoy just chatting with her, even if it’s nothing to do with running (she can be a bit political but in a very friendly way!!). But sometimes “fast runners” may get tendency to be self-righteous with entitlement — something Arthur hated. Lydiard’s legacy is forever tied with champion athletes simply because of his well-balanced training method that revolutionized modern endurance training approach. But it didn’t take long for him to realize that the same Principles could be applied to ordinary “mortals”, us recreational runners. That was the inspiration to founding the world’s first jogging group in 1962. When I accompanied Lydiard at various clinics, there were naturally tendencies that fast local runners wanted to have a chat with him, trying to pick his brain to squeeze a few minutes off their marathon time. “Ordinary” runners, beginning joggers, young kids hobbled around, somewhat intimidated…. I always tried to include these people, though in most cases, I didn’t need to. Lydiard was always “Everybody’s Coach”.
My purpose of creating Lydiard Training & Academy is to keep his legacy alive. That means explaining the Lydiard Training Principles in details, of course, but also “sharing stories”. Florida coach, Jonathan Mederos, who PodCasted me a few months ago (anybody interested, it’s HERE), after visiting our Lydiard Training & Academy website, called it “Lydiard Museum” which actually meant a lot to me — THAT is exactly what I wanted to create!! Jonathan also introduced a term which I like a lot and have been using since (copyright??? :-D): “Spirit of Lydiard”. To elaborate the story of “sincerity” mentioned earlier: years ago, this lady contacted me and asked me to help her husband’s training. I gave him a prototype Running Wizard plan and he improved his time from 5:30 to 4:50 (!!). They offered to pay me. I refused. The reason why I created a Non-Profit Organization (Five Circles and later Lydiard Training & Academy) is so I wouldn’t have to charge people (hopefully we get enough donation….). So she baked some chocolate-chip cookies and sent them to me!! I couldn’t have been happier! When Jonathan said “Spirit of Lydiard”, this was the story I thought about. THAT is Spirit of Arthur Lydiard. I think the Old Man would have been proud of what I did and how I did it. Lately I’ve noticed some people are using Lydiard’s name simply to make money — some even trying to slap Arthur’s face on the T-shirts to sell!! Knowing Lydiard, his comment toward those people would be quite colorful and harsh; that’s the kind of things Arthur would have totally despised!! Sadly, there are always pretenders, wanna-be’s, and opportunists without substance…
The first time I talked to Anne Audain, she told me that all she wants to do is to keep the legacy of her late coach, John Davies. When she told me that John wanted her to run Commonwealth Games (fall of 1982) even though she was still banned from running international track competition, he just said: “You should run for New Zealand…”. That, I thought, was so “Lydiardesque”!! “I’m a proud Kiwi!” Anne said to me. I could sense this Spirit of Lydiard though John Davies and now Anne Audain; a proud Kiwi! In the article Vern Walker had written on Arthur Lydiard (soon to be added on Noteworthy page), Lydiard talked about all the different places around the world he had been. In fact, I remember talking with Arthur about this while we were driving, coming back from running on the beach in the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand. He was telling me about beautiful forest around a lake in Finland…, miles and miles of trail covered with pine leaves with firm yet kind-to-your-legs dirt path run over by thousands of runners for many years in Denmark…, and he told me his favorite city in the USA was San Antonio…. “With all those places around the world that you had visited,” I asked Arthur, “where would you like to be if you have to pick one?” He continued driving (thank God!!) and point downwards with his index finger and said: “Right here, in New Zealand.” Like the answer “sincerity”, he didn’t hesitate. Like Anne Audain, and like her coach, John Davies, Arthur was a proud Kiwi. When he was coaching, he didn’t charge a dime. Why then did he do what he did — coaching all those champion athletes and for totally FREE? Once he told me: “That was for New Zealand…”. Like I said in my first blog (HERE), he was presented with a silver plate by New Zealand Federation after 1984 Los Angels Olympics where several kayakers he “advised”, led by Ian Ferguson, won FOUR gold medals. On the plate, it was read: “In Recognition of Outstanding Service to New Zealand Sport”…. As a proud and honorable Kiwi, what he did for New Zealand — and consequently ALL runners around the world —is much bigger than any of us can imagine; and cannot be measured simply with the number of medals. — Nobby Hashizume
