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Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/7/2009 01:56PM By: Bob Wildes

Fantastic Nobby. We can all learn a lot from Seko's training.

I know that Bill Rodgers was upset that President Carter boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, because he felt he had a great shot at a medal, even gold.

I think Seko was even more of a favorite for Gold there. What a shame for both of them and many others.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/7/2009 02:19PM By: Nobby

Welcome, Bob!

Yes, I liked President Carter as a person but that really was a big lost point to me for sure. He, or anybody else, should NEVER bring politics into Olympics.

There's always a talk in Japan that it was a chance for Japan to sweep in the marathon. At that point, all 3 of them, Seko and both Soh brothers, were a head and shoulders above MOST of the rest of the world. But I heard Nakamura publicly say that he (Seko) would have not won--simply because he never actually happened; so you just have to accept it as it is. Cierpinski would have been tough to beat (for whatever the reason) in 1980; but I personally think Seko would have easily won silver.

In his book, Seko said that he feels 1983 Tokyo marathon (after 2 and a half years of break due to injury) was the best marathon he ran (his PR of 2:08:38). He said the training went exactly as they (Nakamura and Seko) expected, the race went exactly as they expected, and he said he felt he just could not be beaten. To me, however, 1983 Fukuoka was the most impressive one. That last 100m sprint was...well, if he did that in 1980 Moscow Olympics, nobody could have matched him.

And thanks to Juan Martinez, the clip is available at: http://www.juanjosemartinez.com.mx/seko.html. Go all the way down and click "Fukuoka 83". You can actually see Seko glancing at Salazar at about 40k mark and decided to go after Ikangaa. Salazar was the world record holder going into this race and Seko was to follow him. At that point, and I've read Seko say this afterward as well, he realized that Salazar wasn't going to be a factor. Also note how Seko almost went around and pass Ikangaa just after entering the stadium. Seko could have passed him right there and then. He was just toying Ikangaa. Reportedly, Nakamura was watching the race at his hotel room but fell asleep. He said, afterwards, he knew exactly how the race would be run so he had no worries.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/7/2009 04:08PM By: Bob Wildes

Seko put on a blazing kick.

I know there is no correlation, but 100 meter sprints with 100 meter jog intervals were Ron Clarke's favorite "change of pace" type of training. Seko appeared no stranger to 100 or so meter bursts.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/7/2009 06:42PM By: Nobby

Perhaps another interesting trait of Japanese training, and certainly with Nakamura school; they look at the runner's form and try to assess if his/her Basic Speed is coming back or not. They would thow some sprint work at the end of time trial or build-up (another interesting signature workout); things like 200m + 100m + 50m... This is not necessarily all out run but run fairly fast. If, afte 200m sprint, the athlete look right, the workout will then be done. If not, 100m. If still not quite done, another 100 or perhaps all-out 50m sprint. You don't want to "over-do" it so it's quite delicate balance. I've experienced both not-enough and too-much situation with the athlete.

Another thing they did quite often was 50/50. When I visited Nakamura, he showed me several weeks worth of training schedule of several of his athletes, including Wakihurii. It was a few weeks before spring competition and there were several of 50/50, distance of 2000~3000m. "We took this from Lydiard," he told me. Of course, in actuality, Arthur always said he took this from Igloi.

In his book, he talked about the importance of the last 195m (in metric, marathon is 42.195km). "You'd have to develop adequate stamina to be able to run the final 195m all out," he said. Sounds familiar.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/7/2009 09:23PM By: HRE

Remember Don Kardong's assessment of Boston one year when Seko was running and he said, "Sekio's the man to watch."

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 01:12AM By: Nobby

Interestingly, one of the signature training of Seko, according to himself, is jogging. Japanese like to use a term "leg building" in their training. Greg McMillan and I had discussed about this before--and, incidentally, he likes it. Seko says that there's a minimum line of "jogging" one should do if he/she wants to be competitive in the marathon. And it's a long-term process. He said his monthly mileage, well, actually kilometers, when he first joined Waseda University was only 369km. That's only a little more than 12km a day! It's not that he emphasized speed; but he just couldn't run that much! Even by summer, he was "only" doing about 400km a month.

Interestingly, he said that, at first, he was running about 4:00~4:30/km pace for training. He realized he could not cover the necessary distance to become great marathon runner so he slowed way down to about 5:30/km pace. So this was the beginning of great Toshihiko Seko...

Oh, and the point is; so he said that bulk of training is going to be jogging. "If you neglect jogging or think lightly of jogging, then you'll be sure to fail as a distance runner," he said. I have mentioned what Zen-term says "unnecessary necessity". This means this; when you walk, all you need is about a foot wide of the ground. That's all you need. But if you remove all the rest (say, both sides of where you walk), you cannot walk. This means, technically, you don't need 3 feet to your right side or left side when you walk; but without it, you can't walk either. What many westerners term "junk mile" is this. I think the downfall of western distance running is that they went to the extreme of efficiency. Exercise physiologsts came in and tested a bunch of workouts and decided; "Okay, long (fast) intervals would develop VO2Max; shorter (faster) intervals would develop lactate threshold... Easy jog? It won't even affect your VO2Max! Cut them all out and replace it with cross training--you'll have less likelihood of getting injured because there will be no pounding..." Even if this kind of thinking might possibly be true, what Seko was doing, and what MOST majority of elite distance runners around the world today, is far from that....TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 11:38AM By: Nobby

As most people know, Seko's first marathon was February of 1977, Kyoto marathon. I remember that race because (1) one of my heros, Bill Rodgers, was running and he won it; and (2) another childhood hero, Akio Usami was also in the race and finished third. But they did a documentary of Usami a few months later on TV. Basically, they asked him to keep a mental note of what went on in his head during the marathon and wanted him to share that with the audience. That was quite interesting. And, in the early going, Seko would pass him like a wind (I mean, they showed that scene too) and Usami was thinking, "That's too fast... Marathon is a long way out..." There's no problem for Seko to run 16-minutes 5k split. But, Seko recalled, his legs completely seized at around 27km. Later he jokingly said he "wanted to quit 100 times from then on..." He staggered in in 2:26. Actually, not a bad time considering his preparation was very limited.

Many runners since or even right now in the US running their first marathon (for men) faster than 2:26. But this was meant to fail anyways. Nakamura was already thinking about 1980 Olympics; and that would mean Fukuoka in December 1979. He already planned to have a several marathons along the way (including Boston in 1979) and, in order for that plan to go smooth, he had to have had his first marathon in that early stage. It was a rare occasion when the race came first; not the condition of preparation.

1977, Seko said, was the turning point for marathon training. That's when he felt he began to understand what marathon training is all about. One of the most important thing was to be able to jog 90 minutes as a recovery. He actually learnt it from Soh brothers. They were taking 60~90 minutes jog as their recovery. For Seko, who struggled to jog even for an hour and THAT was is "point workout" at that period.

During his college days, for college team training, Monday was supposed to be a rest day. He volunterily removed the rest day and jogged, jogged and jogged some more... He said he almost achieved his goal of "comfortably jog 90-minutes" or "think nothing of getting out for 90-minutes jog" by the summer of 1977 (after he "experienced hell" at Kyoto marathon).

I'm not saying Seko was consciously following Lydiard--he was not. Well, not at that point when Nakamura himself was learning. But, of course, Nakamura was known to have handed out copy of "Run to he Top" (translated in Japanese, of course) to anybody he coached (I mean, anybody--even the entire Waseda University team!). But this "descovery" follows the same pattern as Arthur's. Of coure, he said "to be able to run 2-hours comfortably..." And even for a Japan's national high school middle distance champion, it took him several months to be able to get to that point. Meanwhile, Seko had reaized that being a national high school champ didn't mean much at all when it came to running a good marathon.

Incidentally, this is something I was going to write after Beijing Olympics. I saw an interview of a high school coach of Sammy Wanjiru. As most of you know, he went to high school in Japan and stayed there ever since. Yes, he was yet another Japan-trained Kenyan runner (did you know ALL the Olympic marathon medalist from Kenya, on men's side, were Japan-trained?). But anyways, so his high school coach had this to say: "As a Kenyan runner, he was already very fast. So I had to teach him to slow down and go far..."

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 01:07PM By: Nobby

One of the most beautiful lessons in training I've heard was that of Lorraine Moller. This was a few days before Grandma's marathon where she won and set the course record (2:28, I believe...). She was supposed to do 2 X 1 mile. I think she did the first one something like 4:50 and felt so easy. So she simply stepped off the track and quit for the second one. Her coach, at the time Ron Daws, rushed to her, thinking something went wrong... She simply said; "I feel so good that I didn't want to leave it o the training track!"

One of the signature training a lot of Japanese runners do is what the call build-up. Nakamura used to do a lot of a set workout of time trial and build-up. For preparation for, say, 5000m, you might do 2000m time trial (more like tempo run without sprinting at the end); followed by a brief break of about 200m either slow jog or walk; and go straight into build-up of 2000m. You just finished a strong paced run so you're generally tired so you can't go too fast. You'll start out with a trot. But you WILL gradually pick up the pace naturally (and if you've done all the other homework up until then, it will come up). Ideally, you're feeling great and flying by the time you finish the build-up; but then you stop. A general idea is to stop just when your "feeling" is 100% up-swing but won't leave that feeling on the workout.

I saw Seko once did 10km time trial followed by a very brief break of about 100m jog and went straight into 10km build-up (around Imperial Palace). He might even do 20k TT + 20k B-up for marathon preparation. We even did a similar workout for 1500m; 1000m TT + 1000m B-up. No pace is set; you really have to go by how you feel. A great exercise to be so highly in tuned with your inner condition. Can't really do, or do well, if you try to rely on pace or heart rate. That's not what this workout is all about.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 01:35PM By: Nobby

Also, to add one more thing on Build-up; this is when you can gauge if you're feeling "light" or "heavy". If you feel a bit heavy, depending on what event you're competing (because you don't want to be feeling too light for the longer event), you'll throw a couple of sprints like 200m + 100m + 100m + 50m dash...something like that. If you already feel pretty sharp, you may just do a couple of relaxed strides 100s...or just call it a day. These sprints are a good way to balance the condition.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 08:26PM By: SimonM

Thanks Nobby.

I like Seko's re-frame of jogging/slow running as "leg building"!

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/8/2009 10:18PM By: Nobby

For marathon training, Japanese tend to like to think of a 3-months preparation. Of course, when you look at Arthur's schedule, it's almost 6-months long: 3 months of marathon conditioning, 1 month of hill training, then comes 3 months of race specific training. I often wondered about this; I'd read and heard so much about Japanese coaches "following Lydiard". So how would they fit in all the months in 3 months? It was until actually I read Soh brothers marathon training book and then confirm that with coach Koide. They take 2~3 monthe BEFORE they start marathon specific training as what they call "leg building". I thought Greg McMillan was going to write something about it in his Running Times column???

This is when Japanese marathon runners run, run...and run some more DISREGARD with the pace. It seems to me, Seko did lots of his "jogging" at 5-minutes per km. Naoko Takahashi was known to go as long as 70km, sometimes several hours (4~5 hours) of "hiking" up and down the foothills in Boulder. Eriko Asai, a 2:26 marathon runner in the late 1980s, used to do ultra hiking of up to 8-hours (if my memory serves me correctly...)! The point is; you build strong legs to handle marathon training. Both Koide and I agreed that THAT is pretty much what serves as Lydiard's "Marathon Conditioning"--though Arthur probably placed a little more emphasis on Aerobic Development.

Actually, I found this "3-months" rather interesting. When I put a marathon training program for my wife's first marathon, I capped it for 10-weeks. Of course, she was running up to 2-hours prior to that; but I always felt, expecially for beginners, anything more than 20 weeks is way too long to sustain mental motivation. Ain't good getting to the starting line, feeling; "Man, I'm stuffed!"

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 12:41AM By: Nobby

I had written an article about the late Kiyoshi Nakamura almost 10 years ago to "Marathon & Beyond" (I will eventually try to get this piece on post it on here). There are way too many myths surrounding Japanese training and how Seko/Nakamura trained. Many authors tried to make it sound so mystic that they liked to include elements of "zen" meditation. All the talk about samurai spirit or "physical" discipline (like whipping) are a bunch of BS (as opposed to a company they worked, S&B ;o)). In fact, Nakamura was so calculating and meticulous.

From talking to Nakamura himself, some of his former runners (I only met Seko a few times and never had a chance to talk about training except that there had been many books and artices written about his training, written by Seko himself), I can gather several similarities of their approach to that of Lydiard. In fact, once again, Nakamura was never shy about stating that he took those ideas from Lydiard (remember, Nakamua was the first Japanese team leader to bring their top runners to New Zealand to learn the Lydiard method back in 1963).

1) Peaking: how to bring the athlete to his/her peak by balancing training. Seko repeatedly talks about how he shuffle things around before the important race to figure out what pattern of training worked best for him. For example; once he did 2 X 5000m a week before the marathon and he felt tired. So next time on, he did only one of them, etc.

2) Hill training: I had learnt later on that he liked the original Lydiard hill springing (now more like Steep Hill Running--please refer to the first exercise on our DVD preview at: http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/training/hilltrainingdvd.aspx). Nakamura liked to explain this as one of the exercises race horse trainers use called "a-bumi".

3) Developing stamina: one of the Lydiard's signature statements was "to develop tireless state by marathon training so the athlete can capitalize whatever the speed they posesses. I remember Bowerman once said something to an extent of: "If you want to run a good 5000m, you'll need enough stamina to run 5001m..." Now, that's a little extreme but once Nakamura was asked about this candy in Japan. It's sugar contect, its marketing copy would say, is good enough for you to run 300m. So, "in order to run a marathon, 42.195km, you'll need 141 of this candy (you actually need 140.65)..." he was asked once by a smart Alec reporter. "No," Nakamura quickly replied, "you'll need 142 in order to win!" This means barely enough energy to complete the distance will not going to be enough.

Seko was known to run some incredibly long distance. Of course, once again, urban myth would get added up and some people started to multiply his longest distance ever and X 7 days to come up with weekly mileage. A typical "quick fix" thinking. But the truth is; his idea behind going such a long distance is to strengthen his body AND mind to feel 42km "not that big of a deal". In order to "race" the marathon, you need to do that--that was their reasoning.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 03:01AM By: Nobby

I got side-tracked and was reading the chapter for Soh Brothers. A little background story here; Soh brothers, Shigeru and Takeshi, were both coached by Hidekuni Hiroshima. He was a very good marathon runner in the late 1960s; finishing second to New Zealand's Mike Ryun in the inaugural Fukuoka marathon. If I remember it correctly, he was actually one of the "athletes" who went to New Zealand under coach Nakamura back in 1963. He used to take his runners, particularly Soh brothers, to New Zealand for a training camp frequently--a Kiwi runner, Judith Hines is a good friend of theirs.

After they "retired" from elite competition, they succeeded coach Hiroshima's position and became the head coach and assistant coach for Asahi-Kasei team. Interestingly, they became better coach(es) than coach Seko perhaps because they had more failure marathons than Seko (they'd learnt from them). It is widely understood that Seko/Nakamura and Soh brothers finalized Japanese marathon training (based on Lydiard).

Establishment of marathon training came along, for Soh brothers, by accident. Shigeru had one of the worst showing in 1977 Fukuoka marathon. He was doing very well in training but then bumbed out badly at Fukuoka, finishing second to last (53rd, if I remember it correctly...). Disgusted, he decided to bounce back and run Beppu-Oita marathon in Feburary. Much like Yoko Shibui who bounced back and ran brilliant Osaka marathon in 2:23 after she bumbed out at Tokyo 2 months earlier. Anyways, Shigeru became the first Japanese to run sub-2:10, running a solo 2:09:05. He ran, up to 25km, all 5k split under 15 minutes. Had there been anybody to pace him or break the strong ocean head wind in the final 15km, he would have broken Derek Clayton's then world record of 2:08:33 that had stood for 12.5 years and wouldn't been broken until 1982 when Salazar finally broke it at NYC.

Anyways, Shigeru figured a part of preparaton to Fukuoka, including marathon itself, would have made a perfect preparation for Beppu. So their marathon training evolved from there.

Seko and Soh brothers influenced each other quite a bit. It was Soh brothers who influenced Seko, as stated earlier, to "jog 90-minutes for recovery". Also, it was Soh brothers 125km run around Mt. Egmond in New Zealand that triggered Seko to try an 80km run.

Soh brothers' signature training was long tempo runs now known to be performed by Japanese marathon runners. They prefer to do 6~10 times of 30~40km tempo runs before marathon within 3-months leading up to the marathon race. In one of their publication, they shared "ideal" marathon training for sub-2:10 marathon. We would like to post it here on our site soon.

Incidentally, Soh brothers had, at one point, five sub 2:10 marathoners on their team, Asahi-Kasei. One of them was Hiromi Taniguchi who won 1991 Tokyo World Championships marathon. Another one was Koichi Morishita who won the silver medal in 1992 Barcelona Olympic marathon. They coached these guys based on their marathon training program. Some of you might know that Morishita is the one who coached Sammy Wanjiru until right before Beijing Olympics.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 10:23AM By: Nobby

I was recently asked about cross training Japanese runners do. As some of you might already know; they walk a lot. A lot of local runners spotted many Japanese runners in Boulder (for high altitude training) walking around all over the place in their full-jacket (;o)). They do do a lot of walking. Not only when they're injured; but when they felt their legs are not quite recovered, for a precaution, they walk instead of run. In fact, the documentary of Seko's New Zealand training camp in 1983 (pre-LA Olympics) shows Nakamura's preaching in the morning. Some of them (Kanai, Shintaku, Takao Nakamura) participated a local track meet the day before and Nakamura was filmed saying, "You may feel a bit tired from yesterday's effort. Let's take a precaution and take a nice long walk this morning..." Then the camera follows Seko, stretching his shoulders and off to his walk in his blue jersey... This alone seems, to me, to reveal a couple of "myths" some people seem to be trying to spread else-where; 1) at this rate, there's no way in hell Seko could have run 1200km in 8-days; and 2) Nakamura was very meticulous and calculating, not a no-guts-no-glory type of disciplinare who whipped his athletes. These claims are utter nonesense. Consider the source and don't believe it.

When I was at Hitachi, our head coach was coached directly by Nakamura and was Seko's team-mate. So we basically did mixture of Lydiard-Nakamura. We did do quite a bit of walking; and I have incorporated it in my own training today. Lorraine, as does my wife, laughs at me, walking in full jacket--she says that's because I'm Japanese (which I am!). Walking doesn't raise your HR that much as running; but by wearing extra layer, you can raise your HR a bit higher (Benji Durden effect). Also with all the sweating, you feel like you've worked out! ;o)

Before Seko's 2:08 win at Tokyo marathon in 1983, he had about 2 and a half years of blank due to injury and illness. Basically, he couldn't run...so he walked. Reportedly, he walked 30km a day. In Japan, we say a brisk walk is 8km/hour. That's pushing a bit but even with that rate, that's almost 4 hours a day of walking. Seko said that training most runners do, even for elites, it's about 4 hours a day (at most). It's the rest of the day that would make a difference (more on this mental side later). So he walked a lot even when he was not injured or sick. He said, whenver he walked, he wore heavy construction shoes (with metal toe box) and held a rock in hands. He said he "looked like hell but (he) took it as a part of training." Lydiard didn't care too much for upper body strengthening. Seko did some light weights and this "arm swing with rocks". Lydiard didn't like the idea because it could "tense up your upper body". Well, in Seko's case, perhaps at least he didn't over-do it; it didn't seem to have hurt him much at all.

Incidentally, other kind of cross training Japanese runners might do--Reiko Tosa did some aqua jogging/running in the pool when she hurt her knee before Osaka World Championsips. I don't konw if it was a kind where she would wear aqua vest and run in the water or just running in the pool with her feet touching the bottom (I could find out...). But the story goes that she did it up to 3 hours in the pool and his coach got bored and left the pool after 2 hours! ;o)

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 02:11PM By: Nobby

I'd like to make a note about hill training here. Lydiard viewed hill training as a specific exercise; the idea is not to run fast up the hill; but to develop power and flexibility by using your own body weight as resistance. I've heard Nakamura talked about this, as with Hitachi head coach, that some race horse trainer use a very similar technique to develop horse's strength. They would bring the horse to a gentle uphill and hold the rope (I don't know the correct term; is it a leash?) gently, not too hard, but enough to place resistance to the horse. The horse would try to go up but feeling the resistance to pull him/her back... He/she would push the ground extra hard, slowly pushing, pushing, pushing... The term, "abumi (pronounced as "ah-boo-me", literally means "foot stomping". Now you start to get a picture... I describe this as "get the image of spending an extra second on your foot before your foot takes off..." We have a clip from Hill Training DVD that we showed during Arthur's final US tour at our "Training" page under "Hill Training DVD (http://www.lydiardfoundation.org/training/hilltrainingdvd.aspx). We are talking about the first exercise, Steep Hill Running. You go up the hill with high knee and slow forward momentum. We would eventually post this clip from Seko's documentary but, if you have a facebook account, go into my page (Nobby Hashizume) and it should be on the second page of my wall (to be honest with you, I'm still not too familar with facebook and I'd have to ask a bunch of questions to my 16-year-old daughter...). There's a 5-second clip of Seko going up One Tree Hill in Auckland, New Zealand. This is a great shot; from behind, at his foot level. You can get the idea of "spending an extra second on the ground" really well. Of course, you're NOT spending a second on the ground; but you'll get the idea.

Last December, I got together with Takao Nakamura (no relation to coach Nakamura but was coached by Nakamura), a Seko's team-mate who was a 2:10 marathon runner himself, and visited Mrs. Nakamura. On the way to her place, we talked about training. He fondly talked about this "abumi" analogy coach Nakamura used. It turned out, he was preachng that more than I thought. This, by the way, is exactly the way Ray Puckett, one of Arthur's original runners, taught me as how they did the hill training. It turned out, however, that Peter Snell did it slightly differently. His was more of a half way between Steep Hill Running and Hill Bounding with extra "snap" of his ankle--this is probably because Peter was a middle distance runner and Ray was a marathon runner. Naturally, Seko did a marathon guy's hill training--Steep Hill Running. Apparently, that was enough for his devastating kick.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 03:19PM By: Christopher

There is the Arthur Lydiard Legacy facebook group too. I thought you had put the video up there....

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/9/2009 04:23PM By: Nobby

Chris:

Yup, that's right. Thanks for reminding me. To be honest with you, I had no idea what I was doing with facebook...(I still don't). I guess that's more "public" than my page (wall?) anyways. So how do people get there and view it? Once again, I have no clue... ;o)

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/10/2009 01:05AM By: SimonM

Oh they (we) just go to facebook, search for the Arthur Lydiard Legacy group and sign up. Real easy.

Nobby, this is great stuff about Seko, Nakamura and all. You have a book here, so just keep writing :)

It's particularly heartening to read about the inner Zen secrets of the padded-coat walking, hahahahahaha, and slow running right now as I'm nursing a bit of a hamstring strain.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/10/2009 01:28AM By: Nobby

It was 2004 Athens Olympic marathon champion, Mizuki Noguchi who said; "Monthly mileage (or kilometers) won't lie to you." (You konw, I'll side-track a little here; I just remember where I read this. I've got a whole bunch of magazines from Japan and, it's like olden-days "The Runner" magazine; many top elite runners chip in... I remember I saw, somewhere, how Naoko Takahashi prepared for her history's first sub 2:20 marathon...!)

Once again, it was Lydiard who established the foundation for Japanese marathoning. Up until Nakamura took a handful of top runners to NZ, even marathon runners were running about 600km a month (granted, they had to work full time...). The ranks of Kimihara (Boston champion and silver medalist in 1968 Olympics) and Terasawa (who broke Bikila's world best marathon time from Rome Olympics), they were probably running about 700km a month...with some days off. Lydiard stable, as we know, were running, even Peter Snell, an 800m runner, 100MPW X 4 = approximately 600+km a month for conditioning.

Soh brothers, even before Seko, were first runners in Japan who reached up to 1000km a month. Even Seko, he ran 782km, 1089km, 998km and 755km (including the marathon in the middle of the month) leading up to his PR 2:08 marathon in February of 1983. So, to classify Seko as a "mega-mileage runner", even though he had odd workouts that went up to 60~80km, is not accurate. For him to experiment such ultra distance of 80km is nothing new compared to something like Murray Halberg, a 5000m runner, taking up a single training run of 30+ miles. If I'm not mistaken, even Barry Magee experimented a 40-mile training run. It is more of a myth created by some Westerners who like to mystify the unknown. In the case of Nakamura, he was so much more calculating and scietific.

Today, even some of the Japanese female runners to beyond 1000km a month--in a case of Tsuyoshi Fujita, he ran as much as 1200km a month. It seems, as for Japanese elite marathon runners, anywhere from 900 to 1200km a month is bench-mark of training distance.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/10/2009 03:37AM By: Nobby

Forgot to add... So Soh brothers were probably one (two?) of the first marathon runners in Japan to have regularly run 1000km a month. But, they have pointed out, it's not that they set out to run 1000km a month. Same with Seko. It's not that they had set out to run any set distance as a target. They just ran what they thought were necessary to be a better marathon runner; and, afterwards, when they counted how far they'd run, it turned out to be 1000+km a month.

Just to side-track once again; I personally feel far too many people, particularly beginners, set out to do certain distance in training. I've seen, and heard so many times, that they set out a weekly schedule out of some bogus plan and try to stick with it. "I just set out a perfect weekly mileage for the next 10 weeks to bring the mileage up from 50 miles to 90..." or "I would increase the weekly mileage by 10% every week and I shall reach such-and-such mileage by the end of the summer..." or even "I would drop the weekly mileage every 3 weeks by 15%..." Even if I would not say this is "wrong", certainly this is no way for these top Japanese elite marathoners to train.

Incidentally, 2 of the main "Lydiard principles" Lorraine Moller and I had come up with, are (a) feeling base and (b) response regulated. It is not at all "number-based" or "number-driven".

Now, just remembered an interesting story, looking at some of the pictures of Soh brothers. In Japan, the most popular marathon racing shoes are ASICS's "Sorties". Naoko Talahashi wore them to win 2000 Sydney Olympic gold medal. Mizuki Noguchi wore them for 2004 Athens Olympic gold medal. Both Morishita and Arimori wore them for their silver medals in 1992 Barcelona Olympics... These are kind of signature ASICS shoes. The first model was tested in 1978. It was the younger brother, Takeshi, who wore them to finish second to his brother, Shigeru, in his epic 2:09 marathon at Beppu (Takeshi ran 2:11). "Because I wore them for the first time, they were named 'Sor(Soh)-tie'...," Takeshi would say jokingly later. ;o) I don't think that's why; but it's a funny story to tell!

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/10/2009 12:23PM By: Nobby

Side-tracking a little bit, but not much here... It's not about Seko but his team-mate at Nakamura school, Yasushi Sakaguchi who, himself, was a 2:13 marathon runner. Sakaguchi was a high school stand-out, winning Japan's national high school championship 800m (like Seko). He went on to Waseda University where he came under the coaching of Nakamura; then joined S&B team just like Seko. Then they found he had a rare heart condition; in fact, at one time his heart completely stopped during a training run (that must have been scarey!)... So he was forced to call it a quit; but he went on to become a coach--one of the best marathon coaches in Japan.

Sakaguchi is the head coach at Chugoku Electronics running team. At one point, they had five active sub 2:10 marathon runners on the team, including Aburaya, a 2:07 guy who finished 5th in Athens Olympics; Ogata, a 2:08 guy who won the silver medal in Helsinki World Championships marathon; Sato another 2:07 guy who, well, wss the last runner to come home at Beijing Olympics marathon. :-( Well, but he had 3 different runners representing the marathon powerhouse of Japan in 2 separate Olympic Games. Chugoku Electronics team also won several titles at New Year's National Ekiden Road Relay Championships (3 times out of 5 years, I'm tempted to say...).

I was suggested to contact coach Sakaguchi, through our mutual friend, because, she said, "Sakagushi is a huge Lydiard advocate." We have exchanged several e-mails and then we finally had a chance to meet in person about 5 years ago at Boston marathon. For this occasion, a friend of mine from New England Runner wanted to join us for lunch because he wanted to learn more about how Japanese runners train. So naturally, the first question he wanted to ask coach Sakaguchi was; "What's your training like?" "Have you read Arthur Lydiard's book?" coach Sakaguchi asked. Our guest's reply was "yes". "Go back and read it again. It's all in there," Sakaguchi said. Of course, it's not like they take day-to-day, week-to-week training schedule out of books; they never do! But principles are all there. "First, we take about 3-months to build aerobic base," Sakaguchi continues. "Then we spend about a month sharpening..." No magic there; pretty straight forward.

I have a day-to-day training of Chugoku Electronics team during their training camp in Nelson, New Zealand, before Athens Olympics. We share this, along with some sample training of Seko, with the audience at "Lydiard Certificate Program Part II: Application of Lydiard". It was a 21-day training camp where they did 3-times a day training. They did odd "point workouts" of 40km tempo, 5 X 5000m, 3 X 8k... But basically daily routine was all the same: 60 minutes in the morning, 90 minutes mid-day, 60 minutes in the evening. Day in and day out; it was 60-90-60, 60-90-60, 60-90-60... Even on those point workout days, which was done mid-day, 60 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes in the evening... Those who can't see the forest from a tree might argue; "A-ha! Lydiard said a continuous run, so they don't do Lydiard!" The volume is there; some strong runs are there; without getting into "anaerobic" state...

While in Nelson, the team was visited by Lydiard Foundation's own Rod Dixon (Nelson is his home-town). Sakaguchi gave us this word: "After talking to Rod Dixon, I was re-confirmed the validity of Lydiard method." And he continues, "It gave me confidence that what we've been doing is right, ever since the days under coach Nakamura's guidance..."

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/11/2009 12:21PM By: Nobby

I was watching one of my favorite movies, “Miracle”, last night. In it, when a couple of kids had a fight on the rink, coach Brooks started to explain what this team is all about… “Skating… Passing… Flow… Creativity…” I really like this line. Of course, the first two don’t really apply to running but “flow” and “creativity”… Particularly “flow” is something I value quite a bit in putting the program together.

One of the things Nakamura, and some other Japanese coaches who had been influenced by Nakamura, did is to create this “flow” first. He would draw out a calendar first and put down THE RACE first and count back (as did Lydiard). Then he would put down the “flow” by putting some marks on the left hand corner of the dates: X for easy day and/or recovery – like brisk walk or 20 minutes jog; triangle for regular easy jogging – like 12k fartlek or an hour jog; circle for somewhat good effort – maybe 20k fartlek or 10k tempo run or 20~30k jog; double circle, or a Target mark, for “point workout” – such as 40k time trial or 3 X 5km or 10 X 1km or race… Now you have established a “flow” – valleys and hills throughout the program. Now you pick the most appropriate workout to fulfill that effort level. Basically, it really doesn’t matter whether you do 3 X 5km or 10 X 1km (same with Lydiard schedule) as long as it is a double circle. It really doesn’t matter whether you do an hour’s jog or 12k easy fartlek as long as you did some sort of good workout and feeling good, but not too much pushing, and feel refreshed after you done it…. Of course, depending on how you feel and what race you’re training for, the actual prescription may change but the effort level is pretty consistent. It’s okay to have double-circles, then circle followed by another double-circle as long as you have a set of day(s) afterward for recovery. A few days before the important competition, you would have lots of X’s with a few triangle or circle as a spice…then the race (double-circle). How many of easy days and what kind of spice and where it falls onto depends largely on the individual and the event he/she is training for. Now the “flow” is established.

This will give you the evaluation mile stones for the next races. In the last race, if you put a circle 3 days before the race and you were too tired… For the next race, you may just put a triangle…or do it 5 days before. If you have the valley too long and too close to the race, perhaps for the next race you shift it a bit; either make it shorter, lighter or move it further away from the race.

“Evaluation of training – that’s what training is all about,” Arthur used to always say. And there are many ways to do so; but this is how Nakamura did it and many other Japanese coaches/runners do and I personally found it very effective as well.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/11/2009 01:16PM By: Nobby

With this Seko's book, I'm just getting to a part where he describes "jogging". He says that training is mainly classified as "point workout" and "jogging". He even goes as far to say that majority of what you do is actually "jogging". "If you take jogging too lightly, you are sorly mistaken," he says.

I feel that far too many people today, particularly in western society, look at training too one dimentionally. They look at VO2Max, Lactate Threshold and God-knows whatelse...all those angles BUT what it actually would do to your performance--both physically AND mentally. They calculate % and say if it's not such-and-such % of your VO2Max, then the workout doesn't have any value to it; or if it's not such-and-such pace, then the training is not contributing to any physiological development... If it is in fact true, Seko for sure and majority of Japanese runners don't have that kind of thinking and not having that kind of so-called "scientific" mind doesn't seem to hurt them none.

In Seko's case, he says, it was the time t check his physical condition, form, breathing, and the time to sort of almost like "meditate" to have "image training" toward the race. It was, in other words, the time to be more tuned into his own body; sharpen his awareness to his condition--something a lot of people today are very bad at perhaps because they are way too much relying on Heart Rate Monitor and Garmin. In fact, I was checking out the chapter on Takeyuko Nakayama, who finished fourth in the marathon in 1988 and 1992 Olympics, had run five sub-2:09 marathons in his career. He was a speedster; yet he explained the value of "jogging".

Arthur used to always say that, even if you elevate your heart rate to 90~100 beats per minutes, you ARE still doing some good. He also said, in Run to the Top, that you shouldn't just run but always think about WHY you're running. It's not that you shouldn't just go out and have fun--he was always up for that! But everything you do in training should have a purpose--recovery or whatever the reason why you are jogging, has its purpose and, eliminating it simply because it's "not hard effort enough"--the concept of "junk mile"--is a huge mistake. At least, that kind of thinking does not exist among elite Japanese marathon runners.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/11/2009 11:49PM By: mopak

Nobby, I remember being somewhat surprised to pass Soh brothers, Akemi Masuda? and other Japanese runners one day in New Plymouth. They were barely running 5min kms. Then I realised they were doing 3 x a day running and doing huge volume day after day.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/12/2009 01:47PM By: Nobby

I got side-tracked again last night (after I read your post, Mopak); I wanted to see just what time Soh brothers did famous "Around Mr. Egmond" run. It was 125km for Shigeru (elder) and 128km for Takeshi (younger). According to Shigeru himself, after passing 100km, he thought, "Well, if I stop taking water now, beer should taste that much sweeter at the finish..." So he stopped taking drink all together! He said he got a case of heavy dehydration and his legs just completely ceased at 125km. "It was something I never experience before," he said. Another interesting thing, he said, was that the following couple of days, his ams (shoulders) got really sore--again, nothing he had experienced before with "regular" marathon running and/or marathon training.

Anyways, I came across yet another interesting part that's related to what I was talking about--jogging.

In this book, Soh brothers shared "A Program for Sub-2:10 Marathon". This is what they had established and applied to all their runners including Hiromi Tanigchi and Koichi Morishita who, later, coached Sammy Wanjiru. I would intend to post this on this site someday. Anyways, as Nakamura, they would write down "Point Workouts" first. So basically, 2/3 of the calendar is blank. They said; "You cannot do point workouts two days in a row (interestingly, that's what Seko did). So you need to fill the blank." Then they continued, "These are recovery days; jogging. Most world's top runners would do the point workouts pretty much the same. It's something like 10 X 1km at around 2:45~2:55 pace; or several times 5km at around 14:30~14:45 or some long tempo run like 30~40k near marathon pace. There's nothing earth-shattering about these. We do that maybe once in 3~4 days; so you have about 2~3 days between point workouts. It's what you do on those days that would make a difference..."

As stated earlier; Seko learnt to "jog at least 90 minutes for recovery" from Soh brothers. They actually went on and said this; "...some may just do 10km jog in the morning the day after the point workout. Some may do 10km x 2 in AM and PM. Some may even try running 10k 3 times..." He said they got to the point where they could do 10km AM and 30km jog in PM. "It's a matter of attitude," Shigeru says.

Now we're really getting into a core of the matter here. In Seko's book, I'm getting into the chapter wher he describes "Run with Your Heart". This is a title of Nakamura's book I have also. So it may be hocusy-pocusy. But many Japanese coaches believe the biggest difference between Japanese-trained Kenyan (Wakihurii, Waninaina, Wanjiru) and other Kenyans is this. They think far too many "western" runners, including western-influenced (Italian coached) Kenyans, are science-led, money-driven. While I won't shed any judgement on this; I think it's interesting to note that, while there are many talks about "talent" and "genetics", perhaps Japanese runners are some of the least "talented" runners physically in terms of, say, 1500m time in high school or "how fast they can run". Yet, they are, equal to Kenyans--perhaps supposedly physically MOST "talented" people on earth--, powerhouse in the marathon. Something to think about...

Our own Lorraine Moller once said; "I'm interested in the magic of running, not the mechanics of running..." Certainly, some things can't be explained with numbers and formula. Coach-athlete relationship between Nakamura and Seko is something mystified, mocked about, and most of all misinterpreted and misundestood. Perhaps this "attitude" thing actually touches that part of it and this may be more important to understand than simple formula of what Seko/Soh brothers did in training...

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/13/2009 08:14AM By: Nobby

There are moments in life that you just can't forget; you remember the scenery even... I remember this one occasion, Ray Puckett, one of the original "Arthur's Boys", and I were driving in his truck, going over near Waitakere... He said, "You just need to balance speed and endurance in training. If your speed is coming up too fast, you go for a long run to slow it down a bit...(Japanese would call it "put the cap on")" It sort of hit me; it was like all of a sudden all the purposes of training made sense.

Seko was one of th "winningest" marathon runners in history (probably along with Abebe Bikila and Frank Shorter). He won 10 marathons from 15 starts. His wins iclude 4 Fukuoka, 2 Boston, Chicago, London, Tokyo and Lake Biwa--all the international races, particularly Fukuoka. He hardly ever "goofed". Unfortunately, his two of the biggest "goof" were in the Olympics (84 LA and 88 Seoul).

He says that, when the race comes near, he would do lots of time trials, perhaps once every 10 days cycle. While it is very important to "run well" (not so much of "run fast"); the important thing is how that time trial would eventualy affect your condition that follows. He recalls; "...one of the most apparent mistake I made in preparation for a marathon was (Olympic Trial) 1988 Lake Biwa. I did a 40k time trial before the race in 2:03. It was too fast. It should have been somewhere around 2:05~06. I should have run a bit more before (that time trial) to make my legs heavy..." I personally thought this statement had a great value. Nakamura used to say that the best way to prepare for the marathon is to be 90% ready, coming up, at the start. You can be 90% ready coming up; or 90% ready going down (over the peak). You want to be former and you'll come to 100% after "warming-up" for 35km in the actual race. For that, if you feel light and sharp and fast at the start, chances are that you're too ready at the start--most likely you'll start to come down as the race goes on. The idea of time trial, in this case, is NOT to run fast or not to see how fast you run. But, you'll ALWAYS have to see what that particular workout would do to you for the actual race. You may run the best ever time trial but that could be your THE race. Remember that Lorraine's story? You don't want to leave the best run on the training run. So, in order to slow you down a bit; you'll engage some heavy running before this important time trial to make your legs heavy a bit. Makes perfect sense to me!

Incidentally, in 2006 Boston, Reiko Tosa came to run, first time in a long time as a Japanese elite runner (she finished 5th in the marathon at Athens Olympics 2 years earlier). She did a 5000m time trial 4 days before (along Charles River). As she came back to the hotel (I was her agent for that race), I bumped into her and asked her how it went. She looked down in gesture and sai, "Not that good..." Then she said; "...but I usually run better when my time trial goes not-so-good..." This is actually a perfect example. She had a very good preparation before Boston and her body was somewhat heavy. She needed this somewhat struggling 5000m time trial to come to the peak. How fast she ran that 5000m was completely irrelevant.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/13/2009 10:24AM By: HRE

Nobby,

How and when did the Japanese system of corporations hiring distance runners and allowing them to work reduced hours begin? Did guys like Kemihara and Usami have that sort of arrangement or did they have to put in hours that were comparable to the typical Japanese worker?

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/13/2009 02:55PM By: HRE

From Renato Canova. MR is Scott Douglas for Men's Racing. Italics are mine. Just thought this is interesting and sort of reinforces Seko's comments about jogging.

MR: I wanted to ask what you think the genetic differences are. I mean, just walking around Iten, it's very easy to see from the general body type that it's very different from walking around Europe or the US So if you could comment both on the outward appearance as well as internally, in terms of what might be differences.
RC: The difference, you are speaking about the difference in training or in attitude?
MR: Neither. Difference in genetic makeup.
RC: The first thing is, personally, I don't think there are big differences genetically. I don't know. I don't think so. There was a group of scientists who came here in 1995, spent something like one and a half months testing many, many younger people, comparing them to Scandinavians. The muscle biopsies, there are not big differences. Those come later.
MR: So if Americans and Europeans not doing as well as Africans is largely a matter of training, what training are the Americans and Europeans not doing that they need to do to be able to compete?
RC: The first thing is that now we have a really big problem in our countries with recruitment of young runners. Because there is one thing that you absolutely cannot skip, and this is to prepare your body for endurance. This is an enzymatic problem, and it's very different when you run, not with training, but naturally, when you are very, very young, like happened many, many years ago in America, in Europe. Because [1988 Olympic 10,000m silver medalist Salvatore] Antibo, [1987 world steeplechase champion Francesco] Panetta ran maybe 15 kilometers a day at home in the south of Italy. Now, nobody runs.
I think you need maybe 10 years for building your body. So when you are European or an American now who has a passion for running, and the passion starts at 15, 16 years old, in many cases, he has to do from 15 to 25 years [old] the basic work for building his body. And one of the big problems is that nobody has the patience to do this, because after two or three years they want already to go into very specific training, but it is not possible to get good results, because there is not a good base. So we want to build a house from the third floor. It's not possible. This is a problem that is very difficult to solve. Athletes want to be competitive, and everyone knows that to be competitive, if you run faster, you are more competitive than running slower. But for running faster without destroying yourself, for using the intervals for example, it's like the cherry on the cake — it's not the cake, it's the cherry on the cake. But if you have not the cake, where you put the cherry? This is the problem. So Europeans and Americans now are starting to recognize the difference between the cake and the cherry.
The advice is, at first, they have to build themselves with the correct mentality. You can improve continuously in your aerobic level for 10, 12 years. We are speaking about aerobic resistance; that is, general resistance. After this, you must go in a specific direction.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/13/2009 03:47PM By: rotokiwi

Good one HRE.
When I first read these pieces on Seko (Both here and on the other site) I recall running one day in the early 80's in Cornwall Park in Auckland.
"Jogging" in the other direction was Seko. His running speed surprised us and there was a discussion about what he was doing as we were not
"messing around" with our run. One of the guys said that Seko ran some big miles at a very slow pace as part of his training. I don't remember anything else about that day except I packed that information away in my memeory banks as I had been criticised for the amount of Jogging I used to do. BTW That criticism never came from Arthur or Bill Baillie.

Will add more later as I'm out the door to meet athletes.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/13/2009 05:26PM By: Bob Wildes

Patience is a trait that isn't easily found in North Americans as compared to Japanese.

It is something I have to work at also.

The gradual build up of mileage has helped me greatly
and I am convinced of the value of "slow" running as long as it is combined with "big" volume.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/14/2009 12:51AM By: Nobby

HRE:

Interesting... You're right; at certain points, he (Canova) souncs awfully like Arthur. I know this would drive certain people NUTS (off the record... ;o)) but, without saying "he (Canova) does Lydiard," what he's saying is bascially no difference to what Arthur was always saying. "Cherry on cake"? So Arthur's line was "icing on a cake"...

When Nakamura saw Seko for the first time, he (Seko) was a middle distance man, coming from high school 800m/1500m champ (two years in a row). Nakamura was a 1500m runner, representing Japan in 1936 Berlin Olympics. He could not keep up with "Westerners" and he developed this belief; "If Japanese wants to be competitive among the best in the world, against Europeans (and Africans), marathon is the ONLY event." For whatever the reason, be it "genetics" or whatever, Japanese are not particularly "fast" in a sense with "Basic Speed". Shingo Suetsugu won the bronze medal in 200m in Paris World Championships but that was THE first time any Asian won a medal in "pure" sprinting event (hudels are different). Japan won the bronze medal in 4X100m relay in Beijing (where American dropped a batton and there were a team or two who didn't advance to the final for whatever else the reason...). Relay involves technique and team-work. That's something Japanese are very good at; so they compensated their lack of speed with that. Nakamura believed, whether it's true or not, whether it's right or wrong, there's no chance for Japanese in 1500m down. But, he said, to use that speed and develop endurance, then there's a chance in the marathon. This part is exactly the same concpet as what Lydiard came up with.

In this Seko's book, he goes on and says that, in middle distance events (800/1500), you rely on 70% talent and 30% trainig. But, he continues, in the marathon, you rely on 20% talent and 80% training. When asked why he ran so much, compared to Western runnrs, he was quoted by saying, "If I train like Western runners, I might as well settle for being a 2:15 runner..."

Now, in regards to this talent thing; I think Canova is absolutely right. As Arthur used to always say, Africans are doing what Arthur did with his runners by developing their aerobic base by running 100+ miles a week. With such a concentrated effort, it was good enough for his neighborhood kids to become some of the bests in the world.

Not to side-track some more, I think what a lot of people don't understand is some coaches, particularly coming from exercise physiology field and go out and recruit some already-good runners and they tweak here and there and in a few months bring them about to become world beaters... Some US college coaches were like that. They bring some African runners who had already established huge aerobic base and they would throw some killer intervals and they would become world-class runners.

In 1996, Dick Brown had 3 runners on the US Olympic team; Suzy Hamilton (800m), Vicki Huber (1500m) and Anne-Marie Lauck (marathon). He of course was known to bring Mary Decker to her peak in 1983 Helskinki World Championships to win 1500 and 3000 gold medals against Russians. He was very good at bringing the athletes to top peak form. But, he said, he always felt like he lacked "developing" part of coaching. He was seeking consulting from great Bill Bowerman. Then before Atlanta Olympics, Bowerman gave him this beaten up old red booklet called "Athletic Training" and told him, "If you want to pursue further how to develop athletes, study Lydiard." It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with Dr. Dick Brown... ("Play it again, Sam...")

Long-term developmental program is very important. I think Seko met with Nakamura in 1977. Nakamura was already thinking about Moscow Olmpics in 1980 and working hard to prepare a blue-print for Seko leading up to that. "It's not what you do this year or next year that matters; but 5 to 7 years time..." Arthur used to always say.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/14/2009 01:07AM By: Nobby

HRE:

Forgot to answer your other question. In the days of Usami and Kimihara, they did have a corporate team but they weren't as forgiving as they are today. They, including coaches, all worked for 8 hours except they were excused for some training camps and competition. It was probably a generation later (more like 70s) that they gave athletes a couple of hours excuse; like they can knock off from work by 3PM, and train. Of course, they need to produce some result. If a runner wins some natinal competition and get their name out (as well as the company's name); then and only then they may get some excused hours. At Hitachi, we were lucky; we could knock off from work by 2PM; but we still had to get to the office by 8:00 (and that means 7:50) like everything else. We all worked in the office, all different department, until 2. We were away for approximately 100 days a year for training camp. But the big deal, for me, was that the company supported you to go to Hokkaido, northern most island, for a 2-weeks training camp (food and hotel and everything) in the summer. We went to Okinawa, southern most island, for 2 weeks for winter training camp. If the boss excses you, you can take a few hours off to go to physio treatment.

But it was late 1980s. This probably all changed in early 1980s, first, with Seko and then Nakayama who really dominated and win some intenational competitions. Tokyo marathon (men's only) which now changed to a mass marathon (will be run on 3/22 this year) actually was started for Japanese audience to appreciate Seko run--SERIOUSLY! They basically started Chiba ekiden as Seko's farewell race. Then came the herd of Japanese female runners, starting with Akemi Masuda who set the world junior record for the marathon in 2:30:30 (if I remember it correctly) at Nike OCT marathon in Eugene. Now women's marathon exploded. Masuda made women's ekiden so very popular and, along that, came running bill-board on their uniform...

So, to answer your question, no, it wasn't quite when Usami and Kimihara were running that they had such a luxury of being almost professional runner.

I still believe this is one of the best ways to develop athletes. The thing is; when athletes are injured, they just simply increase the hours in the office until they can compete/train semi-full time. Company don't really miss it either because it's a man-power anyways. It really is a win-win situation. In the US, for example, the elite athletes are pro but they don't have any security if they get injured. If they injur themselve, they may not be ableto race for quite some time and, during that time, there's no steady income...(unless you're damn good). Good for very best (that's why runners like Arimori or Takahashi decided to turn pro); but that is not the best way to develop youngsters to elite, in my opnion.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/14/2009 09:13AM By: Bob Wildes

Nobby your information about the Soh brothers prodded me to do a google search on them. I stumbled onto a long article about world bests or world records in the marathon from the mid 60's on.

There were numerous very interesting points in the piece, but I will mention only one now. It was the author's contention, Jim Gerwick I think, that Derek Clayton's Antwerp WR marathon was on a short course as were a few others. Bottom line is that Shigeru's 2:09 something at Fukuoka, I think, was a WR in the author's opinion.

Gerwick contacted Shigeru about it and was surprised that Shigeru was not particularly interested saying something like " it was all so long ago".

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/14/2009 11:32PM By: Nobby

I remember the talk about that Antwerp course being short. It was something about, with that particularly course, a part of the course was under construction and they had to go through the alternate route and that was the only time the race was run on that course; and, because of the construction, you would not be able to re-measure... In that particular race, I believe Usami of Japan was second in his then PR of 2:11. But then Clayton ran his first-ever sub 2:10 at Fukuoka a year or two earlier so the man, as a runner, has got to be legit. And Usami also would go on and run 2:10:37 at Fukuoka.

I also remember when Taisuke Kodama and Kunimitsu Itoh both ran 2:07 and set then the national record (for Japan) at Beijing marathon, there was a talk about the course being short because there was a segment (I believe it was between 25 and 30k...or it could have been between 30 and 35k...???) that was awfully fast.

I guess there's always some grey area on the actual distance run in the marathon. I remember talking to Rod Dixon last year at New York... So if Geoff Smith was running ON the official blue line and Rod was running the tengent, wouldn't that put him (Rod) to have run LESS than 42.195km?

If the course was in fact short, then, before Shigeru Soh ran 2:09:06 at Beppu (not Fukuoka), there was Ian Thompson who ran 2:09:12 (I think...) at Christchurch Commonwealth Games. That must have been quite a significant race because it was run in a championship race in the summer. I remember when Thompson came to Japan to run Fukuoka (either 76 or 77; behind Canada's Drayton), he was going on and on and on about his time being the legitimate world record.

I can see Shigeru's reaction--I got the feeling they (Soh Brothers) were more into competiton; more specifically, beating Seko. The only time they, or actually one of them, beat Seko was in LA Olympic marathon where the younger Soh, Takeshi, finished 4th. Besides, I'm sure it's like receiving a gold medal because the guy who beat you got tested positive and disqualified. It's nice in the book, but the moment is gone. Japan's Murofushi finished 4th in the hammer throw at Beijing. Then a couple of guys who finished ahead of him got caught and he ended up winning a medal. Well, he never had a moment to stand on the podium. That's sad...

Night race

Posted: 3/15/2009 12:28AM By: HRE

Very shortly after Clayton ran that race there was a letter in Runner's World from Roberto Ouentasomething or other that I'll never get right. But Roberto Q. was Track and Field News'European correspondent and his letter said, "Disregard all stories that the course was short." He went on to explain that there was a marathon course in Antwerp that was known to be 600 meters short. (If it was known to be short I don't know why they didn't just lengthen it. I mean, yeah, Belgium is a small country but they must have an extra 600 meters somewhere that they weren't using.) He went on to say that the course Clayton ran that evening was a different and accurate course.
Clayton has pointed out that the times turned in behind him were not unusually fast and that there weren't piles of guys getting PRs that night and that he, Clayton, had been very insistent on an accurate course when he agreed to run.
That seemed to settle the matter for several years. But when several years went by and runners like Bill Rodgers and others of that level weren't able to better Clayton's time the stories about the course being short re-emerged. It is true that road construction has changed the course and it isn't possible to re-measure. I tend to believe that the time was accurate and that it was so much quicker than anything anyone could do for so long becuase the race was run in the evening. How many track records are set at 9:00 AM?

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/15/2009 01:19AM By: Christopher

Regarding those tangents Nobby, I watched friend of mine measure with a Jones counter on a bike a course I had set up for a race I put on. It was 5km. He is a certified course measuring guy and a stickler for details.

He rode the shortest possible tangents that were still on the road - like up to the curb, but not off the road at all. The course measured exactly 5km plus the smallest amount more that I am unsure of.

If you were the perfect tangent runner, you would do no less than 5km and a few feet (again unsure exactly). So watching Rod run that NY course, I don't think he could have been short in anyway. If anything longer...but I am unsure of all the requirements to measure and certify a course.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/15/2009 01:36AM By: Nobby

Chris:

What I know is; the measurement is supposed to be done 50cm from the curb; and if the course goes around tangent, you are suposed to measure the closest tangent, still 50cm from the curb. And, if I remember it correctly, you're supposed to use a 2m meausre (can't remember if metal ruler is okay or it would have to be a bamboo measure...for the heat expansion factor).

Actually, my question was; so what was that blue line that sort of runs almost in the middle of the road on which Geoff Smith was running? So that was drawn for the heck of it? Or was that supposed to be a 26.2-mile official "course" in which case Rod was running cutting the tangent (which was smart! ;o)).

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/15/2009 10:23PM By: Nobby

Okay, let’s get back on track…

Now we are getting into a bit more detail of “flow” of annual training pattern. Seko says that he always tried to peak twice a year. Interestingly, someone who attended one of the running clinics with Dr. Joe Vigil as one of the speakers said that Coach Vigil said that “Periodization is dead…” Actually I don’t believe he really said that. I was going to actually ask him directly but that’s another thread… Seko says that he felt he could only be at his very best of peak only for 3~4 days for marathon. And he says that he tried to peak for European track season and winter marathon season.

Nakamura was unique in a sense that he was one of the first Japanese running coaches who took his runners to Europe frequently. Interestingly, coach Squires also took his runners from Greater Boston Track Club to Europe frequently. Bill Rodgers’ 10000m PR of 28:04 was set in Europe. Nakamura was also unique in a sense that he took not-yet-superstar-up-and-coming-athletes to overseas. “When you become a superstar athlete,” he used to say, “then you don’t need any help to go overseas. It is when you’re still up-and-coming aspiring athlete who needs such a treat as a nourishment for growth.”

Seko was one of the first Japanese runners who competed in Europe regularly and out came several Japanese national records. That was an era when Seko/Soh Brothers/Kunimitsu Ito/Hideki Kita/Masaya Shintaku and some others competed in Europe and, because they competed in Europe, recorded some fast times; that also helped their marathon performances. A funny story; one time Shintaku, who at one time held Japan’s national records for 3000SC and 5000m and competed in the marathon in 1988 Olympics, got pretty PO-ed because the officials thought he was a Kenyan because he was so well-tanned! Maybe he could have been treated extra nice if it were today??? ;o) Japanese track weren’t too bad either. Shintaku and Yutaka Kanai, both coached by Nakamura, advanced to the final of 10000m at LA Olympics with Kanai finishing 8th. It’s rare to find any coach who would have multiple runners in the same Olympic Games. Nakamura had 2 runners in the Olympic marathon (Seko for men’s marathon and Nanae Sasaki for women’s marathon) as well as 2 runners in the final of 10000m in 1984. Lydiard had 5 and 3 of them won medals with 2 gold.

Anyways… Seko trained to peak twice a year. And that means, he says, you’ll also need a build-up phase two times a year. This, to me, is where things become awfully identical to Lydiard’s thinking. He says he spent July and August (for winter marathon, mainly Fukuoka) and January, February and March (for European track) in order to build aerobic base, or, simply, stamina. He stated elsewhere that improving his track times in Europe was important to his marathon preparation because now, with improved speed, he could have even higher quality training for the marathon. He usually spend 3-months (as stated earlier) leading up the THE race; that means he would spend September, October and November for specific training leading to Fukuoka marathon on the first weekend of December. Although he had run, and won, other marathons such as Boston and London in April, Chicago in October and Tokyo in February, his main marathon focus was Fukuoka. He would then spend April, May and June for track campaign. When he set the national record and PR of 27:43 for 10000m, it was run on July 7th.

During this “build-up” phase, he would not do much speed work at all. Once in a while, as a strength work as well as some sharpening, he might do 2~3 X 5000m (usually done on the side-walk around the Imperial Palace); the main ingredient of his training during this period is 30~40km jog. I think it’s safe to assume this distance does not include usual 8~10k jog in the morning. Says Seko: “During this period, I don’t worry about how fast I’m running. This is the time to talk to my inner-self; check my form and rejuvenate… There’s no time trial or races during this period so I wouldn’t care if I gain 4~6 pounds of weight. You will lose excess weight once you start to sharpen…” Despite some silly argument of just exactly how far Seko ran; during the preparation for LA Olympics in New Zealand in the winter of 1983~1984, I think he piled up more kilometers than any other time. I just went back and checked his documentary done by NHK, the mainstream Japanese broadcasting (equivalent of BBC). It says that he ran 1400km during the 28-days stay in New Zealand. That is 50km per day average.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 08:53AM By: Nobby

There was no “That ‘70s Show” so…I just picked up Seko’s book again and read a few more pages… It’s interesting that there seem to be some people who, for some reason, want to think Lydiard is out-dated. They say, “None of the recent runners use Lydiard…” As Lydiard used to always say; “They don’t know what they are talking about…” If Lydiard is truly “dead”, I wouldn’t be hanging around with coaches like Koide or Sakaguchi; I wouldn’t be working with coach Watanabe for runners like Tosa or Shibui; and I would have never had a chance to even meet with Nakamura at his prime.

Seko continues in his book: “For me, marathon training takes about 6 months and it can be divided into 2 parts – first one is preparatory phase where you try to develop ‘body’ that would withstand specific marathon preparation (=10 weeks of “Marathon Conditioning”); then marathon specific training phase (=10 weeks of “Track Training”).” He says, however, that the first half of his athletic career, he didn’t quite understand this flow; simply because coach Nakamura was the one who prescribed this training pattern to him and, as stated earlier, the summer European track season and Fukuoka marathon in the winter just happened to fit perfectly into this pattern. He says, in order to prepare for Fukuoka marathon in December, he would spend June, July and August for preparatory phase which actually over-laps with European track season “…which works out perfectly because I felt it is important to have good 10000m speed before I started marathon training (as stated earlier)”. Then, he says, until he started marathon specific training in September, he “pretty much ignore ‘speed’ completely.” “Even if you don’t do any speed training,” he says, “you won’t lose speed that easily.” Arthur’s line was; “the loss of speed is only temporary.”

Next 3 months – September, October and November – is the time to combine speed and stamina by doing frequent time trials. Again, painfully similar to Lydiard’s thinking. “Spring marathon was actually easier,” he says. “When I competed Boston (and London) in April, it was quite easy because I could prepare for the marathon on the ‘base’ established for Fukuoka. In other words, I would take some time off to recover (from Fukuoka) but then go right back into marathon specific training for 3 months (January, February and March).” Sounds pretty easy, huh? ;o)

“The only time this pattern got screwed up, and in fact when I realized the importance of this pattern, was for Los Angels Olympics,” Seko continues. “I was so concerned about ‘the heat training’, instead of going back to basics after Fukuoka (Trial) and re-build myself, I went straight into marathon training and tried to ‘hang in there’ until August. I should have been easily able to hold that pressure for 3 or 4 months but 8 months was way too long…” Seko adds; “To win the marathon, simply say ‘No guts, no glory’ and ‘just train harder and faster all the time’ is not the way to go about. You have to analyze and establish your winning pattern…” It is true some athletes today tend to compete year-around; but that’s simply because the races (and cash) are available year-around. So many young aspiring runners would look at it and say, “Periodization is dead; we should train hard and fast all the time so you can race all the time…” well, good luck! Unless your name is Bekele or Mottram, it would be very difficult to hold the form without building-up.

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 08:57AM By: Nobby

...(continuing from the previous post)...

Incidentally, he also makes a very interesting comment about “interval” training. His signature intervals were 10~15 X 1km. He says it’s not so much of “how fast he could run them” but, more importantly, to “get the feel of the effort for what it feels like to perform time trials” and “to get the form for it (faster running movement)”. While Arthur used to call interval training “a lot of eye-wash” and just “icing on a cake”; and viewed it as a mean to develop anaerobic capacity, which is only one part of a puzzle (along a course of preparing for more race-like workout = time trials); Seko-Nakamura had also come to the same conclusion about interval training; an important ingredient, but still just “icing on a cake”. I remember coach Sakaguchi, who was a team-mate of Seko under coach Nakamura, said his signature intervals (at Chugoku Electronics) is 10 X 1km with 200m recovery jog. “The idea is not to run them fast; but to perform this workout comfortably…”

Another interesting point, which I like, is that he said he would do these intervals “without even wearing a watch.” “You need to know where you are by how you feel,” he says. “The times are results. If you are pushing and struggling and you’re 5 seconds slower than expected, then you’ll need to analyze and understand why, what went wrong, and try to work it out so next time, you’ll be right on. But if you already have a set time that you feel you should run and you push unnecessarily hard to achieve that time. You may hit the target time but you would go deeper in a hole. That could be an impressive workout; but that’s not ‘a good workout’.” Some of the Lydiard principles; “Feeling-based” and “Response-regulated” can be clearly seen here. Now what would he, or Arthur, say about wearing Garmin today…???

TBC

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 09:24AM By: Sleath A

It would be interseting to know if seko,like the kenyans spent most of his time sleeping,eating and running.It is almost impossible to balance family life,work and day to day activities and maintain that level of running.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 12:25PM By: Bob Wildes

Nobby do you have a rough idea what percentage of
Seko's training was at a very slow pace during
his "slowest training time of the year"?

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 04:03PM By: Nobby

Sleath:

In a way, though...is there any other way? One of the issues some experts point out with US running scene is; there are way too many distractions. TV, cell phone, text messages, facebook, internet... I know of this one Japanese coach who, at least during training camp, internet is absollute no-no. You can easily stay up till very late without knowing. There was this kid on one of the running message boards talking about "fulfilling his potential" and said something like; "I know I have to go to bed earlier..." So much for "fulfilling potential" and "being dedicated"...

HRE can chip in here but, sure it's a bit of a juggling to balance all the courses in life with training but, even marathoning is not like swimming or gymnastics; where young kids spend hours (5, 6, 7 hours a day!) training!! Even Arthur said that runners are lucky because "conditioning is basically what we do -- running." For some other sports, they'd have to condition by running/jogging AND then work on skills.

Someone somewhere said that it's actually better if your time is restricted. You'll be more focused. If you think you can run anytime of the day, chances are; you just put it off till later and, next thing you know, you run out of time. So now instead of going nice easy 2-hour run, you rush and run 45 minutes fast and think it's just as well. Well, it is NOT just as well.

Yes, Japanese are spoiled in a sense that they are very well-taken care of by corporate team. But I think they are much more professioinal-oriented.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 04:13PM By: Nobby

Bob:

That's interesting... I know how fast Seko trained but I'm not sure how SLOW he trained. The only place that I can remember where I read about it is "The Runner" magazine when he won Boston in 1981. It talked about Seko running 50-mile at about 8-minute pace. Oh, and, of course, in his book, he said that, in early days, he had no problem running at 4:00~4:30 but that didn't allow him to go the distance so he slowed it down to 5:00~5:30 pace (per kilometer).

This is also an interesting point. Like I said, his signature interval was 10 X 1km. He did them in about 2:35 on a good day. But I never find what the recovery was like. I know I have an article about interval training written by Seko himself; when I come about with this article, I'll check it out and share it with you. But interesting thing is; I think Japanese marathon runners in general actually went the other way; they slowed down in intervals from Seko's training. I remember when I first met with Professor Usami (one of my childhood heros along with Frank Shorter) in 1985; he was advising Takeyuki Nakayama who eventually beat Seko's national 10000m record and ran some incredible marathons, including 4 or 5 2:08 marathons and double-4th place finish in the Olympics (88 and 92). He told me; "Nakayama does 10 X 1km in 2:55. That's not even his 10000m pace..." I remember Tosa's coach telling me that she does 1000m repeats at marathon pace (and sometimes she's crying over them!). This, to me, really shows that it's not number-oriented; but it's got to be feeling-based.

So what was Seko's jogging pace like? I'd say it's safe to say somewhere around 8:00~9:00 per mile pace???

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/16/2009 11:30PM By: HRE

When Nobby mentions me chiming in he's probably thinking of a story I told him about a friend of mine who won the New York Marathon in 1972 and was a roomate of mine in the mid 70s when I was teaching school in Washington, DC.
This guy had been out of work for quite a while. We were letting him crash in the aprtment for free and his mum occasionally sent him a little spending money. So he had all day to train and I had to be out of the apartment by 7:00 AM and he was still sound asleep. Usually I'd either run with the high school cross country team and then add more miles or change at school and stop to run in a big park that I passed on the drive home.
I'd usually get home between 6:00-7:00 PM and more often than not this guy would not have run. He had no deadlines in his day, no times when he needed to be somewhere, no structure. So he often just frittered away the day while I always felt like I had fairly limited time to get my runs in. I'm not sure the absence of a job is always a blessing for a serious runner.
On another note, it seems like Japanese marathoners more or less train similarly. Nobby, can you think of any whose training is noticeably different from what the majority seem to do? Do you know of any who've run fast without having a job with a corporation that allows the reduced time? Are any self coached?

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/17/2009 12:26AM By: Nobby

HRE:

First of all, considering "Lydiard laid the foundation of Japanese marathon training" – this is actually a comment that came from Mr. Hiroyuki Chosa, the head of Japan Federation – there’s no surprise basic training pattern of most Japanese are pretty similar. Mind you; Nakamura pretty much established fundamentals of Japanese marathon training; Koide follows it, Sakaguchi follows it… Suzuki (Tosa and Shibui’s coach) ran for Koide in high school and so did Watanabe (Tosa and Shibui’s current coach); and Watanabe went to stayed at Arthur’s house for 10 months to learn Lydiardism! Besides, it’s like what Toby Tanser told me about Kenyan training – I mentioned to him, after reading his “Train Hard, Win Easy” that I could see a log of resemblance to Lydiard method. “European coach came to Kenya and started to coach them in the 1960s. Lydiard was the main stream training back then. It worked so well; so why change it?” he replied. Same with Japan. If it works so well, which, I think the results show, why change it? In fact, I have a few months worth of day-to-day training for Japanese high school ekiden champion team. You can see some resemblance, like doing 1km tempo the day before the race, in their training. The winning pattern is pretty much established. It’s like what Arthur used to say; there’s nothing we really don’t know about training today (though some people seem to like to make it way too complicated than it really is…); it’s basically pretty much how you put them all together in a balanced way that suits you.

When you said someone who possibly trained a bit differently; the first one I thought was Nakayama. He was “nobody” in high school. No corporate team recruited him. He worked for a railway company, many late nights, having to clean public bathroom at stations… Seko was “an elite”. He was a high school champ. Nakayama was far from it. He had “hungry spirit”… During that period, he was pretty much self-coached. He says now that he tried to do everything he could think of in order to be a better runner. And he was more quality-oriented than most Japanese runners. I would have to go back and read some more (I have his interview and a several articles written about his training) but his signature training was 30k tempo runs. He was supposed to have run a lot of them and at quite fast tempo. But then again, I just skimmed through his interview and he actually said that, in the beginning of his career, he even did as far as 5-hour “jog”. He said that he first tried to “spend time on his feet (5-hours)” and then chased the distance (40k runs); then moved on to run at 4-minute/km pace… Then chased to run far AND fast (3:30 pace, then 3:00 pace…). So, in that respect, he really wasn’t too far off the conventional pattern. After all, like Arthur used to always say, human physiology hasn’t changed in the last 100s of years. What fundamentally worked in the 1960s should still work in 2000s. What worked for Kenyans should still work on Japanese or Americans.

Noguchi might possibly be another one who tend to do her runs faster. But then again, I thought she was also known to have piled up as many as 1200km a month (or was it “just” 1000km…???). “Monthly mileage wouldn’t lie” was her famous line.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 3/19/2009 01:07AM By: Simon_M

Do you remember the film The Matrix? The scene where the little boy-monk is bending a spoon, and Neo asks him something like, "How do you bend the spoon like that?"

The boy-monk answers, "There IS no spoon". !!!! Heh heh.. it is one of my favourite lines of all time and, living in Boulder, I use it a lot :)

Well now I have a new phrase, courtesy of Mr Canova and HRE.... "Without the cake there is
no cherry" :)

I might shorten it to just "There is no cherry", but then everyone will have even less idea what I'm talking about.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/8/2009 03:45AM By: Nobby

Simon:

You realize that Arthur Lydiard was actually the one who always said; "(anaerobic training) is just icing on a cake. The base of the cake is your aerobic development..." HRE shared that interview and that phrase to show the similarity of two.

Looks like I may head down to Boulder sometime in May. Then we may try to organize a running symposium in Fralgtaff with Yoko Shibui and her coach, Watanabe. As far as I can remember, there has never been a running clinic in the US that involved the current top Japanese runner/coach. We would film/tape it and eventually post it on the site... So stay tuned!

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/8/2009 08:10AM By: Nobby

I was just wondering if it's good for this message board to just keeping going...

Figured this thread is getting a bit long... Actually I was thinking about maybe put some of these things together and put together a few topics for the blog section with some pictures (I have plenty of those as well!).

I was watching one of my favorite movies last night--"Miracle". For Part III of our Lydiard Certificate Program presentation, I've been meaning to include a scene from this movie; when Coach Brooks kept athletes go back and forth on ice until one guy said that he plays for USA. Up until then, he kept asking athletes who they played for. Kids didn't know what he was doing it for and kept saying they played for such-and-such college... Of course, what he wanted his athletes to realize is that they played for USA; not a bunch of different colleges. What I liked about it is the fact he didn't tell kids that they played for USA. He patiently wanted till they realize it.

Arthur always said that he never recruited athletes. Athletes would have to come to him. Desire to be good would have to come from the athlete him-/her-self. The coach can draw out from them, perhaps... But ultimately, the athlete would have to want to do it.

There's lots to be said about Japanese runners' attitude. Many would agree that it is discipline of Japanese runners that enables them, like Seko, to run 80km a day. Nakamura always said that one of the most important jobs of the coach is to "create a self-regenerating battery" in the athletes. Some Western media liked to criticise what Nakamura was doing as "creating a bunch of robots" who follow Nakamura's gruling routine blindly. On the contrary, he was guiding his runners, like Seko, actually to come up with day-to-day training on their own.

It is told that, when Naoko Takahashi first visited coach Koide; she proudly announced to Koide that she just loves to run. Upon hearing that, Koide asked her how much she runs. "I run 20km everyday!" she proundly told him. "If you love running so much, why limit to 'only' 20k?" he said.

I was just back in Japan last week. I once again collected some books on marathoning, as well as getting together and had lunch with Shibui's coach. I would like to eventually put all these things together and post it not as a simple message board thread but as a set of literature. Per Greg McMillan's urging, I've also started putting together sample training of some of the Japanese runnrs. So, yes, you've guessed it, stay tuned! ;o)

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/10/2009 02:43PM By: Simon_M

Welcome back Nobby.

No I had no idea that the icing on the cake idea was Arthur's. I thought a lot about the "cherry" saying (I know, I really should get a life :) ) and realised that icing was a much better analogy/metaphor...because of course, in order to suppport a tasty amount of icing, the cake has to be substantial.

My vote is for you to keep going with this thread, as there are lots of inspirational nuggets I've been drawing from it.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/18/2009 12:51AM By: flowers

Nobby and HRE,
This is one of the best, most inspiring texts on running that I have read for a long time. I would just love to read some of the Japanese books and articles on marathon training. Nobby, would it be possible to find someone who can translate some of those books to English?

I enjoy the picture of the "icing on the cake". I have had way too much icing and no cake. What did Marie Antoinette say about cake?....
The proportions of cake to icing/aerobic base to anearobic top are also very well illustrated with the cake/icing metaphor. The novice runner I am I never until now had a picture this clear in my mind of how much icing versus cake - I had been influenced heavily in my running group/club to think that the more icing I would eat the faster I would get. Injured and burned out is what I got - speed gone.

Thanks for all the wonderful information. Please, don't stop now.

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/19/2009 12:56AM By: Nobby

Flower! Hey, how the heck have you been? I was worried that we hadn't seen your post for such a long time! Things going good for you?

No, I don't have any intention of stopping this; it's just this particular thread seems to be getting a bit too long and you have to drag all the way down to read a new post and...plus, for some reason, my laptop seems to be struggling whenever I come to this thread and I wonder if it might have something to do with the length of this??? I don't know if it's even conceivable???

Believe me; we have some exciting stuff coming about; I'm here in Boston right now. It's Lorraine's 25th anniversary of her win here. We had Breakfast of Champions this morning and it was really nice. I'm gonna have her write some story about that race (in 1984).

Then the week after I get back, I'm heading for Flagstaff to get together with Yoko Shibui's coach. She's going to have a 2-months training camp in Flagstaff. You'd better believe I'm going to talk A LOT about their training and share it here. And plus we're thinking about having a running symposium with these guys along the way... I was talking to Dave Martin today and he was telling me that he has some information of Peter Coe's presentation he had in Europe (Seb Coe's father/coach). I actually might write a series of blog on this topic so I can add some interesting pictures as well! ;o)

This website is all about "The Real Stuff". We get information from as close to "straight from the horse's mouth" as possible. So you hear so much about how Seb Coe did lots of speed, speed, and more speed training without running much at all. Well, her in the US, there's probaby no other persion than Dave Martin who had worked closed with his farter, the late Peter Coe. Well, it is quite far from the truth.

So stay healthy and stay well; and stay tuned! ;o)

Re: Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning

Posted: 4/19/2009 09:06PM By: flowers

Nobby, thanks for the welcome back :)
I've been fine but not my running - I got tired of writing about my troubles and just figured I would leave it all alone for a while. I had to take 2 months off running in the late summer due to injury. It didn't really heal but I am back to painfree running now finally. Let this not be about me.

I can't wait to read more on the Lydiard Foundation site, sounds like you have some interesting information to share with us. I read on LRC about Lorraine's anniversary and book - is the book available in the US yet?

Enjoy Boston!

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Toshihiko Seko--one of the true legends in the sport of marathoning
Topic Started: 3/7/2009 By: Nobby
There was a thread at other message board (that doesn't seem to me to be a running message board any more) about Toshihiko Seko of Japan. Rather than wasting my time to contribute there so a bunch of trolls can make fun of it; I've decided to start a thread here for those who are seriously interested in learning a thing or two from Seko's training. I'm fortunate to be able to read and speak Japanese (!); I have several books that I know some people in Western society would absolutely drool over. One is published by a friend of mine at "Currier", actually a magazine for recreational runners but this special issue is nothing but hard-core. They "interviewed" some of the history's best marathon runners in Japan, Seko, Nakayama, Usami, Kimihara, Takahashi, Noguchi, Morishita, Arimori..., basically who's who in Japanese marathoning, and asked them to share their "know-how". Seko went into quite a details to talk about his peaking magic (won 9 international marathons out of 15, including 4 Fukuoka, 2 Boston, as well as Chicago and London). There's another book called "Essense of Marathoning" written by Seko himself. This is truely a bible for marathon training--packed with great information. By reading these, you'll quickly realize the numbers ofmagic weeky mileage means absolutely NOTHING. The most important thing is to be at your peak on the day (and this is why both Nakamura and Seko would tell you that they think Lydiard is IT). There's no point of running 50-miles a day (which he did) if it didn't work. No point of doing impressive 10 X 1km if that didn't help you to peak on the day. I quickly remembered what Bill Bowerman told me once; "If you can run 3:50 for the mile by running 20MPW, so be it..." Who needs to run 100MPW? Another very interesting truth is; that Seko had a hard time "jogging" an hour when he first started working with Nakamura in college. His longest continuous run was about 30 minutes. He knew he would have to run long; so he SLOWED DOWN. The story kind of went back and forth but another interesting fact, I thought, was that; when he was in middle school, he wanted to become a professinal baseball player (as every Japanese kid would). He leaarnt that one of the best exercises to become a good basevall player is to run. So he ran 5~8km day after day... When he went to high schoo, it was a typical high school team in Japan back then and he did mainly intervals. He finished 3rd in 1500m at the nationals (HS) in his first year in high school (3 years in Japan) and went on to win both 800 and 1500 2 years in a row. The trend seems very similar to that of Kenyans who run and run and run back in Kenya and come to the US college for plenty of intervals and do really well. Most western runners and coaches seem to neglect to realize this "lots of running" part before they are thrown into "bunch of intervals" and quickly prescribe "bunch of interval" part to their (white) runners do hadn't quite built adequate aerobic base. They run well for a while; but then hit the wall rather quickly. When Seko joined Waseda University team under Nakamura, he was out of shape and over-weight. Nakamura presecibed him to do nothing but jogging (perhaps known in some western society as "junk mile") and lots of it....TBC