Thursday, December 27, 2007

Merry Christmas to me -- Running Your Best by Ron Daws

It was quite a Christmas haul for me and my family. The kids got a Wii, which makes my wife and I Wii widows. We figure we'll see them again when they're teenagers. Rather than annoy everybody by not telling them what I wanted for Christmas, I made an amazon wish list, which works well since books, CDs, and electronics are all I ever want. Anyway, I actually got things I wanted. The real gem is Ron Daws's book "Running Your Best: The Committed Runner's Guide to Running and Racing."

I'd heard that Ron Daws explained Lydiard better than Lydiard and, 115 pages in, that seems to be the case. Of course I have no basis for judging that, but the approach he describes matches what I've gathered from reading what's on the Lydiard foundation web site and reading the Lydiardite's posts on the various running web sites.

It's a little dated (the discussion of winter clothing is pretty funny) but the nuts and bolts haven't changed. The book is also written in a direct style that I appreciate. For example, the mileage buildup section of the mile - 5km "Relative Beginner's" schedule says, "Few beginners should tackle more than 50 miles per week. Much less than 35 mpw isn't training." I'm guessing that last sentence wouldn't go well in Runner's World.

I was a bit surprised by how comprehensive the book is, discussing clothing, keeping a running log, stretching, strength training, plyometrics (he calls "resiliency training"), race tactics, and more. It's more like Bob Glover's book that Daniel's, coming in at about 280 pages, 40 of which are the schedules.

Training so far this week: 8.47/8:52/141, Rest (xmas), 10.94/9:07/144 (quite hilly), 7.51/9:12/138.

1 comment:

Adam said...

Perfect timing for this post Greg. Tonight or tomorrow I'm going to post some training ideas for people to discuss. You'll be a great addition to the conversation with this info handy.