In 1960, when Arthur Lydiard and I were working on our first book together, Run to the Top, he predicted that, in time, the marathon would be run in 2 hours 5 minutes and that would be, physiologically, man’s limit. But women would begin to run the distance comparatively much faster, although then they didn’t run it at all, because their physiology would enable to handle the distance much better once they discovered they could do it.
In 2003, Paul Tergat won the Berlin marathon in the world’s fastest 2 hours 4.55 minutes. Paula Radcliffe subsequently ran 2 hours 15.25 minutes in London. The gap between men and women had closed dramatically.
He made many other predictions, mainly about the prospects of individual runners, and, uncannily, they all came true. A classic was his declaration, against all the odds, that Peter Snell would win the 800 metres in Rome in 1960 when he was ranked only 25th in the world.
But perhaps the most world-changing prediction Arthur made was last year, when he told me, more than once and quite matter-of-factly, that 2004 would be his last year and that, if he had the choice, he would prefer to die in the United States.
He did exactly that and we lost someone I, and many others who understand what he has achieved, consider to be New Zealand’s most influential character.
He completely overturned the traditions of athletic training and he gave the world’s millions the outstanding gift of jogging for health and wellbeing. More importantly, he gave his knowledge freely to anyone and everyone who sought it.
I don’t know what Arthur Lydiard leaves behind in the way of assets in monetary terms. I do know that he could have been a millionaire many times over if he had fully commercialized his remarkable ability to take the ordinary man or woman and carve from the raw material the champions of the world, as he did with Murray Halberg, Snell, Barry Magee, John Davies, the Finns of the 60s and 70s and the dozens of others who have used, and still use, his methods to dominate the world in a range of sporting activities.
All this and jogging, too, from a small, self-effacing Aucklander who grew larger than any of us. He changed the lives of untold tens of thousands. I was happy to be one of them; and fortunate to be able to help him through the medium of the dozen or so books we wrote together over the past 44 years and spread in translations throughout the world.
That partnership was almost accidental and it was my first demonstration of the instinctive trust Arthur would place in people to whom he warmed.
I had, as the Auckland Star’s athletics writer, helped to raise the funds that sponsored him to Rome but I had met him only briefly. I was still a virtual stranger when I interviewed him on his return to Rome and he asked me what he would do because he had received several publisher’s requests for a book on his hitherto unknown and quite extraordinary training system – what kind of a person requires an athlete to run marathons in training for the 800 metres?
I told him to pick a publisher and write the thing. He told me he couldn’t write –
44 years later he was still picking out schedules with one finger on a second-hand portable typewriter – I said he should get someone to help him. He said, “Would you be interested?”
We started Run to the Top that night. My answer to his question still stands as the fastest decision I ever made.
Many times since, he has flattered me at interviews by turning a question over to me with the words, “He knows more about me than I know myself”.
When we decided to write books tailored specifically for young athletes and masters runners, he gave me the schedules and said, “You know what I want to say.” Our time together discussing the two books lasted less than the hour and a half I spent traveling to and from his Beachlands home. That was typical of the trust he placed in people.
Arthur has been called dogmatic. He was but only because he knew how perfectly right his theories were. He has been called arrogant but only because he was quick to dismiss other theories and criticism of his own. That’s confidence, not arrogance.
He has been called a merciless slave-driver of athletes but he never asked them to do anything he had not done himself during the guinea-pig decade when he hand-crafted his system. He didn’t ask them to do a lot of the things he did himself. He was merciless only with his own chunky body.
I saw Lydiard runners training many times and marveled at the fun and laughter that surrounded even their most serious sessions. On Sundays, in the Waitakeres, you could hear his runners on their Waiatarua circuit long before you saw them. The sound of their laughter filled the bush. Most of the laughter was because Arthur was running with them and his fund of funny stories and comments was inexhaustible.
It helped with comics such as the dry-humoured Halberg and irrespressible clown Bill Baillie in the group.
A newspaper announcement of his death referred to his reputation as a hardnosed coach who flogged his athletes mercilessly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, the fledgling Snell burst into tears before he ended his first Waiatarua but he was back next Sunday because, like the others, he trusted Arthur when he was told he had to do it if he wanted to be any good as a half-miler.
The secret ingredient, of course, was that Arthur explained to them why they had to do it. The “why” was perhaps the most effective element of his method.
He was called intolerant. But, as a coach, he was a kind and gentle moulder of the talent he could see when no one else could. He was certainly intolerant of those who had the talent but not the spirit to accept the challenges he laid down and of those who rejected his principles and philosophy and let their talent go to waste. He was equally intolerant of those critics in the athletic hierarchy who, for reasons of jealousy, obtuseness and ignorance, eventually drove him to take his skills overseas where he was fully appreciated.
He left behind an athletic scene richly-populated with wonderful runners which, without its chief cultivator, rapidly turned into a virtual desert, growing only weeds. Back in New Zealand, theoretically retired but with his love of running and of New Zealand runners still strong, he offered to set up here the coaching system which revitalized Finland. His promise: Winners on the 2000 Olympic dais and every four years thereafter. His price: A mere $40,000.
He didn’t even get a reply. Instead, millions have been poured into the sport and the dais has stayed empty of New Zealanders.
A lot of gossip has circulated about Arthur’s fondness for attractive young female athletes. He was often surrounded by them; one photograph sent to me from the tour which ended with his death was of Arthur and three lovely young runners. Arthur looked happy.
He married three times, the second and third times to much younger women. Tongues wagged unfairly and derisively over that, too.
Arthur was intensively secretive about many aspects of his life but I have no doubt that his charisma was as irresistible a magnet to young women as it was to the young men who followed in his footsteps. I have no doubt, either, that he may have enjoyed their company more than the company of the men. But any salacious suggestions or rumours about those young women were countered only with a broad grin and the twinkle in his piercing blue eyes.
It is another of his admirable and loveable traits that he was a perfect gentleman.
His decline in health following knee surgery that went stray and led to his first heart attacks was tragic to watch. He hated the fact that he could no longer run, then he could not even jog or ride a bicycle, because he could only dismount by falling off. He gave up swimming because the strokes weakened his left side so much he could swim only in circles. I told him to put in a circular pool but Arthur wasn’t given to taking advice.
He was furious because he could no longer do his 20 chin-ups every morning. Angry because walking, even with a walker to lean on, became a frustration. It didn’t stop him doing circuits on a south Auckland track but through the last decade or so the great fitness guru lost his fitness.
And, with it, he lost his zest for life. His exasperation showed constantly. In July, we spent a week or so on tour promoting my biography of the man and, although he kept me on the move from dawn until nearly midnight, the effort of talking to gatherings of followers, of racing from one interview to the next, one town to the next, of signing his name endlessly became steadily more evident.
He was, so sadly, a man with a keen brain in tiring and reluctant body and he loathed it.
It gave dramatic poignance to the accuracy of what I believe was his final prediction.
Garth Gilmour
IMAGES:
UPPER RIGHT: Garth Gilmour, a long time friend and co-author of Arthur Lydiard. He wrote all the Lydiard books with Arthur as well as the Lydiard biography, “Arthur Lydiard—Master Coach”.
LOWER LEFT: Original Joggers—with Arthur Lydiard (right), Gilmour wrote “Jogging with Lydiard” in 1965 that ignited the world-wide jogging craze.