British coach, Colin Livingstone was born at the same time as Keith Livingstone, having the same parents. Some claim him to be a twin, but Livingstone insists that despite shared upbringing, DNA , parents and name, that they are not necessarily related. “It takes a bit more than science or logic to convince me that anything is what it seems” said Livingstone, a natural leader with few living followers.

A European based writer and illustrator, Colin was a competitive distance runner in New Zealand, representing Auckland in national competition over road and cross-country from the 1970’s to the early 1990’s. He relished fast ‘bush running’ on the wild hilly tracks of Auckland’s west coast, long before the days of mountain running as an official sport. He coaches British and Welsh champion, Tim Davies, a three-time winner of the annual Snowdon International Mountain Race, and top performer at European and World level. Tim went from being 15th in Britain to 5th in the world within three years of this progressive endurance conditioning.

This is from quite a long letter/short philosophy course he wrote for a young athlete who wanted to follow the same path as Tim Davies. I thought it was pretty good!

(Keith Livingstone).

“In the developed world, too much emphasis is placed on the physiologist’s approach to exercise. It is expedient and curious, therefore, that the regions who currently lead the world in endurance running comprise mainly the undeveloped nations, with few facilities, physiologists or ’sports psychologists’. Many great runners come from North or East Africa ( Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea), Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.

Distance running is not about race, altitude or geography: it is about self discovery….a desire to train, attitude, training, planning (knowing when to relax, when to run hard, when to recover ) and gradually increasing thresholds and comfort zones. As I pointed out to one athlete who was trying too hard and years short of his potential, Seb Coe was not born with the ability to run a 3.47 mile. Training made him a 3.47 runner. All results in distance running come from years of gradual adaptation and conditioning. The youth who is near 4 minutes for 1500 at 17, could possibly, with very good coaching, run 3.35 at 23 and 3.30 at 28.

1    Exploding the mythology

Some people are more genetically disposed or ‘gifted’ for distance running, but this is not the deciding factor in reaching your potential . Numerous books and running magazines offer complex tips and schedules to readers on how to improve their running, when it is fundamentally a natural activity,simple and straightforward. 6′ 5″ John Ngugi of Kenya ran in bare feet over the red soil, grass and rolling hills of the Rift Valley, simply ‘running hard’ when he felt good and going easy and long for a few days to recover…in a continuing cycle of effort, recovery runs, steady running, fartlek, easy run with stride outs and so on.

2    If Perception is not reality…then self delusion is not the same as self belief.

When asked of his prospects, the humble yet great John Ngugi simply said ‘I will do my best, I will run as God made me’.

By contrast, a well known British heavyweight boxer has a Psychology degree. Somehow, despite this seeming advantage, this has worked against him. The world of professional boxing is based on 12-15 x 3 minute rounds and no protective headgear, as opposed to 4 x 2 minute rounds at amateur. Therefore, a professional boxer needs the stamina to compete at threshold for 36 minutes, like a distance runner throwing fists. So, here is this great prospect, 2000 Olympic champion, 6′6″ and 250lbs, a southpaw with great left jab, long reach, exceptional power and every reason to believe that he can be the Heavyweight Champion of the World. What went wrong ?

This boxer recently said of the ‘cruel’ treatment meted out to him by the media that ‘Perception is not reality’. True…yet, in his case, his ego ruled his perception to such an extent that what appeared as self belief was self delusion. The two can look remarkably similar,but are cruelly found out in the lion’s den of competition. If this guy had a Rocky like self belief , like Thomas Hearns, then he would have punched his heart out in a guts or glory, win or lose attempt to beat the heavyweight champ. In the hope that he had a 10% chance of a knockout, or at least giving the man a fight, self belief would have carried him through with courage…like the timid boy threatened by the school bully who suddenly finds the lion within him …fighting back, win or lose…he’s going to let this guy know he’s been in a rumble.

I would like to point out, at this point, that sometimes, self delusion combined with motivation, hunger, or an incredible work ethic can actually become self belief!…hence Winston Churchill urging a battered nation to victory…or the exploits of the amputee Spitfire pilot of World War Two, Douglas Bader, escaping from Colditz on tin legs !

Anyway, this boxer came to the Gladiator pit with self delusion, pride and a monster ego that would not face reality.An athlete with Self belief takes on board the reality and then works out what needs to be done, knowing this is going to be a maximal effort beyond anything he’s done before.Self delusion comes to the arena unprepared and unrealistic …and runs for cover like a stunned rabbit when the bombs start dropping or the punches land. The only way to get to world class is to reach national class first…,.then international class… by putting yourself in the Gladiator pit.
You are taking your hidings, wins and losses on the way, until you are the one dishing them out…you never underestimate the task, always respect your competition and conditions…and never expect a result without knowing what it takes. You go into a race with quiet confidence, healthy nerves perhaps…knowing that you have done everything in your preparation, willing to put yourself to the test with enthusiasm, excitement and spirit…not fear or uncertainty.

3   When lack of preparation becomes the enemy of achievement

Fear and uncertainty is the fruit of self delusion and poor preparation. Anxiety is the result of flawed thinking and the subconscious prospect of humiliation .How do we get over this? ..By preparing properly, keeping our mouths shut and our eyes open…and by not having foolish pride. By ignoring pride, or doing our best…we are warriors in the battle. The guy out there in the race is doing it. First or last, he is a winner because he is having a go.

‘Having a go’ and risking all was something our ex Olympic boxer hardly attempted in ten years. With millions of pounds of takings, he could not understand why the working man thought he was a wet blanket.He blamed the media, the BBC…everyone apart from himself for his poor, uninspired showings.He ignored world class agents, managers and trainers and even the advice and sparring prospects of Lennox Lewis. What better offer or opportunity than that?

4   So, what is the lesson here?

This poor guy became over hyped, over analytical and over anxious …and made one huge, fundamental mistake at the beginning of his professional career.He declared  to the world, that like Lennox Lewis, he would be the next great British heavyweight…the World Champ. If he did it once in youthful exuberance or bravado, this would be forgiven and understood, but he said it time and time again as a man in his thirties…without delivering like an Ali .

This is a vital point…but a psychology lesson he never learnt…NEVER expose your hopes and dreams to the world..never boast about what is yet to come. Keep your mission quiet and closely guarded, like a distilled treasure.The truth was that by talking himself up, the guy put incredible pressure on himself at every outing…with tight, inhibited, cautious performances of minimal risk. He never put his head on the chopping block, amassing a 20 knockout record against journeymen.Based on this seemingly unblemished record against mediocre opposition, he ‘convinced himself’ he was the Champ in waiting.

However, despite the Olympic title, he did not fool some. A few durable, tough journeymen went the distance, exposing his weaknesses and raising questions. By the time he fought the much smaller, unheralded guy at 6′2″ and 217lbs, he was knocked out sparco by a thundering right that came from nowhere. By underestimating others, avoiding serious competition, lack of running fitness and hard training, resting on his laurels and beating inferior talents, he was not raising his game or putting himself in the pit…he was giving himself no chance at all when the warriors came to call. By the time the WBA Champ came to collect, he was found wanting, exposed under the spotlights, unable to confront the task before him. If he was a quiet man who trained steadily over 10 years, gradually raising his game against worthy opponents…learning his trade, the outcome may have been very different. He could have been as great as Foreman, Lewis or Liston.

5   A parable perhaps

In running parlance, this is the same as a British runner, perhaps a 28.40 10k man with a national title running a marathon around 2hrs14. He knows that Gebreselassie sometimes runs over 150 miles a week at altitude and can run 10k in 26.20 and a marathon under 2hrs04..some 10 minutes faster. In order to give himself a chance, would the British runner chop his training, avoid tough domestic and international competitions, talk himself up and expect to somehow, magically arrive at world class…running down the Mall with the clock ticking at 2hrs06 at London ? No….of course not…but that is exactly what happened with the boxer…and many runners in Britain today. We are living in the gimme gimme, celebrity quick fix generation…and the Ethiopians and Moroccans are living in the tough, hungry world of hard, uncomplicated people who ‘go out there and run their hearts out ‘…where running 8 miles to school at the age of  7 is normal.

6    More self delusion…getting it right…getting it wrong.

Many British runners today have subscribed to the formula of effort=improvement instead of effort+recovery+ relaxed running=improvement. Several years ago, I read in  Athletics Weekly how a British International, running near 47 minutes for 10 miles, with a marathon around 2hrs14, was going to ‘drop training 120 miles a week at 6.30 a mile, and run 80 at 6.00 or better’. His rationale was that the ‘heavier’ mileage left him ‘tired and heavy’.

Therefore, if you are 10 minutes slower than Gebresellassie and know the best marathon runners in the world are running lots of supplementary running along with faster work, perhaps upwards of 150 miles a week…then why would you think that you are going to have a better chance …or that dropping 50 miles a week is somehow going to get you under 2 hrs 10 ? The Marathon is all about distance and endurance.

So, our British friend drops the training because he ‘feels tired’ when Gebreselassie and the Kenyans run it anyway, regardless of being tired, raising 6 kids in a mud hut, occasional packs of wild animals,a full day’s work reaping corn…or any other ‘obstacle’ that comes their way. Endurance running, above all, is about endurance…the ability to resist and endure. So, how can one be a distance runner without putting in resistance and endurance, the ability to run through tiredness ? Gebreselassie runs mileage, knowing that he can run still run 46 minutes for 10 miles when in heavy training…and well under 45 with a bit of peaking. Kevin Ryan, a great distance runner in New Zealand, could, if required, run a ‘heavy’ 49 minutes for a club 10 miles at the end of a 150 mile week, knowing full well that by tapering for a few weeks, he was actually capable of 47 over a tough, hilly course.

This British guy also named half a dozen other athletes he trained with on a regular basis.He did not consider the idea that his natural competitiveness and training with other good runners may have seen ‘recovery days’ become steady or faster running…gradually sapping glycogen, iron and ferritin stores, because he was not allowing his body to adapt and recover.Therefore, the slower, relaxed mileage is blamed, instead of the unnecessary, faster mileage.

At the time, I said to Tim that although this bloke would feel light and nippy on his feet for a few months, that by dropping the longer relaxed, ‘mitochondrial’ aerobic runs, his 47 minute 10 mile would go to 49, then 50…and instead of reaching that 2hrs10 marker for the marathon, he’d run 2hrs20 out on his feet.That is exactly what happened…

Now, to get to brass tacks…an idea of winter training

Your mission is to build yourself up, not drag yourself down. You want to reach your potential , thrive on your training and look forward to every session. Winter is about strength and getting the work in.Like Mo Farah, El Guerrouj or Bekele…you embrace the necessary.

One idea would be a varied cycle of weeks, with plenty of variety and differing terrains, in order to build a substantial base. It takes at least 6 weeks of progressive aerobic conditioning in order to adapt, but 12 or 18 weeks is far, far better. IMAGINE HOW STRONG you would be after 18 weeks of miles, followed by 6 weeks of hill springing…before the spring and summer racing season started !

I suggest something like the following. REMEMBER THIS IS TRAINING NOT STRAINING !

Sunday

A long, relaxed run over varying terrain, forests and hills of 2 hrs and 30 minutes, perhaps longer. DO NOT RUN HARD. This does not need to be at pace, as time on your feet will develop the mitochondrial, cellular development that we are after. You want to feel invigorated, worked yet good at the end, perhaps looking forward to that cup of tea and hot shower. A lot of runners do not realise this is the benchmark of many champions. You know in the early days that these runs are doing their major job when you finish on “tired, heavy legs”. Later, you trot around with nothing like that fatigue, and faster usually, as you naturally progress.

Monday

a RELAXED run over 70-90 minutes. If you can afford twice a day training, perhaps an easy 70 minute run in the morning, followed by an easy 30-40 minutes in the evening, with 12-15 x relaxed 60-70 metre stride outs on grass.

Tuesday

PM   Warm up for 15-20 minutes, then run for an hour at a steady, strong pace, not racing or time trial….but at a comfortable strong pace that is well below the anaerobic threshold where one starts to get out of breath. You want to get back pleasantly tired, knowing you’ve done a solid block of work that will challenge the higher aerobic systems without overdoing it. Remember, it is very safe and sure to push up your “anaerobic threshold” up from below. For a 50 minute 10 miler, 58 to 60 minute pace might be okay , no need to run quicker than 55 at this stage ! You should feel strong and invigorated, with plenty in the tank. After 6 weeks, the 58-60 pace might come down to 55 or 57 without any perceptible effort, after 12 weeks…you may run 53 to 55…but you do not want this run to become a time trial. At the end of the conditioning phase, a  50 minute 10 miler looking to run 48-49 may well run a strong aerobic Tuesday session in 53. No need to run any faster for this session to fulfil its purpose…which is to develop your higher aerobic zones and ‘anaerobic threshold’  by steadily “pushing it up, from below.” .

Again, perhaps a morning jog of 30 minutes if time allows.

Wednesday

A relaxed longer run of at least 1 hrs 30, perhaps up to 2 hrs if you want, in a forest. Today is about longer recovery, flushing the system, invigorating and stimulating the aerobic system…putting money in the bank !

Thursday

AM   Easy 30-40 minute jog.

PM   Warm up for 15-20 minutes over a good forest trail, golf course, grassy park or similar…then perhaps run 12-15 x relaxed 60-70 metre stride outs …like you are running for a bus, not sprinting after Usain Bolt. Plenty of easy jogging after each; maybe do one stride a lap on a grass track or sports field. This is alactic (without lactic acidosis), developing relaxed speed and turnover, good mechanics and balance, without endangering the aerobic system with the cumulative sprint fatigue you would get with 150 metres, for example. Anything over 10 seconds in length starts to wander into the lactic acid system for most athletes. However, most athletes can stride 60 metres at near top speed, alactically, many times over, without entering the lactic system too much.

After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then run 30-40 minutes of relaxed, invigorating fartlek, perhaps rolling, hilly bursts with efforts of 2-3 minutes, mixing it up in an enjoyable, varied pace session. This stimulates your aerobic capacity and develops your VO2 in a fun manner. You could do next week’s session over hills, but those 2-3 minute injections of high aerobic pace are what create the desired reaction. The ideal workbout should not exceed 3 minutes at 3000 metre pace…in order to create a powerful running stimulus.  Jog a 10 minute warm down afterwards.

Friday

Relaxed run of an hour, any reasonable surface.

Saturday

After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then perhaps run 12-15 x relaxed 60-70 metre stride outs. Jog for 5 minutes, then do one of the following sessions. I have plenty of other variations, but these will start the system response for now. NOTE: the uphill efforts are on very long steep hills in Wales, home of fell-running. So long as you work the uphill efforts hard, you’re developing VO2 max without running at the high speeds usually associated with it.

1  Race tempo practice run of 15-20  minutes (3-4 miles) on good, firm surface, at pace between 10k or 10 miles race speed. 5k is a good distance, so if you are a 30-31 minute 10k man, a 15.30 to 15.40 is reasonable. Warm down jog of 15 minutes. As you get in better condition, towards 12-18 weeks, this could get whittled down to 15 minutes without any perceptible increase of effort. This is quite a tough session, somewhere between anaerobic threshold and Vo2 max pace, but if there’s plenty of steady aerobic all around it during the week, it’ll just be a good “toughener”. Club races have a similar conditioning effect.

2   Fartlek session. After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then run 30-40 minutes of relaxed, invigorating fartlek, perhaps rolling, hilly bursts with efforts of 1-2-3-5 minutes, equal recovery or whatever it takes to get comfortable again, mixing it up in an enjoyable, varied pace session. Jog a 10-15 minute warm down afterwards.

3  Hill VO2 session.After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then run 15 x 60 metres stride outs…followed by 6 x 3 minutes uphill, perhaps a 25% to 30% climb, with recovery of perhaps a minute to 90 seconds. Uphill VO2 works the entire aerobic system without tearing muscle fibres. Alternating this with leg speed is a great, stimulating, invigorating session. Tim’s Todleth cross country course or our Pant Glas road session are good.

4  Hill VO2 session.After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then run 15 x 60 metres stride outs…followed by 3 x 8 minutes uphill, perhaps a 25% to 30% climb, with recovery of perhaps  3 MINUTES MAX.

5  Club race or pack run, not exceeding 10k at full pelt. Any efforts at this stage are purely ‘development runs’ or time trials that push the development of the energy systems above anaerobic threshold intensity.

6   After warm up of 15-20 minutes, then perhaps run 12 x relaxed 60-70 metre stride outs. Jog for 5 minutes, then “VO2 run” of approximately 8 minutes (OR 3000 METRES) on good, firm surface, at your best, well judged pace. This run should only be used once a month in winter conditioning as a stimulus…then more regularly as a pure VO2 session or time trial in lieu of a race, while sharpening up to a peak.

Tim may run this in 8.38 in the middle of winter mileage, yet come down to 8.20 in the summer. Before 5th in the World champs, he ran 8.29, 8.26 and 8.23 with 3 days relaxed running and stride outs between each, over a final two week taper. In the final few days, he ran an easy 2k around 4.45 to 4.50 mile pace…as a bit of an effort without risk, whilst counting down the hours.

Later, he ran an 8.16, an 8.14  and an 8.12 on an accurate road loop course before winning Snowdon and top European performances. I feel he was right on the ‘knife edge’ with these performances in training, however. My recommendation is 95-% of that intensity in future i.e a strong 8.25 in training will not take any edge off a race, where an 8.14 might, for a world-class mountain runner.

Hope this all makes sense, call me if you have any queries.

Cheers for now,

Colin

I have had several emails lately asking why I haven’t posted for a while. Well- the fact is I have five children, a wife, and a fox terrier, and have been busy in my other life since I came back from the USA in May.

So what I’d like to do today is have a go at a “BIG ONE”- drugs in sport.

We don’t know what to believe today, with all the drug scandals involving world-class athletes over the last decade, do we?

Apparently, there was a survey done some years ago amongst world-class athletes who were asked what they would do if given a choice between:

1. Taking a wonder-drug that was undetectable, but enabling them to win a gold medal at the Olympics, but be dead soon after…and…

2. competing unassisted and living to a healthy old age.

The astounding thing is that a large proportion of these dipsticks chose Option 1.

I can’t cite this particular study, or say where I read about it, but it did stick in my mind. What an indictment on the whole meaning of sport, where short-term glory and not getting caught are more important than honest effort and fair play.

A good friend of mine was at the 1988 Seoul Olympics as a marathoner, and out of curiosity she went up to Florence Griffith Joyner in the Olympic village on the pretence of getting an autograph. Really, she was just curious to see what a ‘woman’ who had run 10.49s for 100m looked like up close and personal. Pretty scary, apparently.

Think “Five o’clock shadow” emerging from beneath caked tan makeup. The poor woman was dead at 38. The coroner’s report said she’d suffered a massive epileptic seizure in her sleep that followed on from the rupture of a congenital anomaly in her brain (‘cavernous angioma’). There was no immediate association with possible steroid abuse, but this was 10 years down the track. Later, allegations surfaced that the US Olympic Committee of the time was aware of 19 serious drug violations amongst its athletes that went unreported. So the system is corrupt from the top down.

Sport should be about developing persistence, belief, and character, in the face of all the odds. These traits are not developed at the end of a needle. Anyone who needs to resort to drugs to feel that they belong on the podium must be totally lacking in confidence and therefore be a mental midget, or otherwise have no remorse whatsoever and be a certifiable sociopath. I’d like to see sports cheats jailed, actually.

Sociopaths (aka psychopaths) are everywhere. Apparently 5 out of 100 people in western culture have strong sociopathic tendencies, and 4 of these 5 would be male. Two of the characteristics of a true sociopath are an inability to empathize with another human being, and having no sense of remorse. I daresay about the same percentage of Olympians have these traits, if we can extrapolate to another population sample, but perhaps, because the Olympics is perceived to be all about getting to the top of the heap, no matter the cost, the proportion of sociopaths can exceed that in the rest of society. A sociopath is not necessarily a serial killer, but he or she will quite happily assassinate your character, self-esteem, and confidence if it serves his or her purpose. Sociopaths are very cunning, and can imitate and act out what they observe to be decent human traits of empathy and vulnerability, again if it serves their purposes.

Remember the tears and grief from Marion Jones when she was first accused of drug use? Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth! The idiocy of her situation was that she likely had the talent to win all her medals regardless of drug use. The drug she allegedly used was EPO (erythropoietin), which is about the most stupid drug that a sprinter could choose. It has definite uses in endurance sports which require access to maximum oxygen uptake, but as she was a power athlete and her longest event was 200m, there was not a lot of thinking going on.

There is a coldness there that allows drug cheats to lie with impunity. These people can justify anything to themselves. From the workplace bully to the halls of the US Olympic Committee, sociopaths are crawling over each other like cockroaches to get to the top of the dung pile. And they get threatened by anyone who could spoil their end-game. Which is literally on the top of a heap of dung.

I’ve just finished reading Charlie Spedding’s remarkable autobiography, ‘From Last to First’, where he stated quite openly that although he reached international class as a distance runner when still in his 20’s, it was only when he realized that until his self-confidence and belief matched his training that he had his major breakthroughs as a London marathon winner, Olympic bronze medallist (1984) , and also Olympic 6^th (1988). Charlie somehow managed to ‘perform down’ to his self-image for years.

Charlie started off life behind the pack, academically, physically, and possibly neurologically. He says that he had a “squint” as a child (this is a sign of hemispheric imbalance, and consistent with learning difficulties), and he was 41^st out of 42 in his class in Primary School. He was uncoordinated and introverted, but he was persistent.

Charlie’s story is one of gradual awakenings, and the key is persistence, all the way through his tale. He went through more achilles tendon surgeries over the years than seems possible to recover from to a world class level (from what I could read, too much intensity at a young age and not enough long steady easy running- but that is only my opinion- I wasn’t there).

The more he persisted at the one thing he seemed to be able to do well, running, the more his self-esteem rose, and he took this confidence back into the classroom, eventually graduating as a pharmacist like his father.

One of Charlie’s best observations is that the development and realization of one’s ability is a slow process that takes many years, and is the exact opposite of “instant success”.

There are huge disadvantages that ‘steroid queens’ (male and female) create for themselves, mentally and physically. Sensible hard training with excellent nutrition and recovery is far more reliable, and can turn in results as good as any achieved by cheats.

Hitsystem co-coach Johnny Meagher’s champion Marcellin squad won the Australian teams Schools cross-country titles in the 16 yr age group for the 10th year in a row this year, and won the annual trip to Europe to compete against the best schools from around the world, this time in Slovakia. The squad finished as the 3rd best school team in the world, beating the best United States and UK high schools, amongst others. Busy Johnny is the current world age-group champion (45-49) in the Olympic distance triathlon!

To top this off, young-gun Kyle Martin-Alcaide won the individual title by several seconds, breaking away from a pack of Morrocans and Turks on a very steep uphill about 500m from the finishing line.

Barry Magee’s girl athlete Margot Gibson from Christchurch won the individual girl’s title for New Zealand.