Over the span of one week, I experienced the incredible life spirit of Arthur Lydiard as well as his tragic death.  Both have impacted me greatly.

As one of the founding members of the Lydiard Foundation USA it was only natural that I would tour with Arthur as he visited my new home state of Texas.  I was very nervous meeting Arthur in San Antonio not just because I was meeting my coaching idol but also because I had learned a week or so earlier that I would be giving the PowerPoint presentation on the Lydiard Method at each of the three tour stops in Texas.  As I would come to witness dozens of time, I had no reason to be nervous.  Arthur’s sparkling blue eyes and friendly demeanor immediately puts people at ease.  “Just call me Arthur,” he said.

The clinic in San Antonio went well and we headed off for Dallas.  As we traveled to together, I quickly learned his daily routine, his needs and what he liked.  We played the lotto.  We had a milk shake (vanilla for him, chocolate for me).  We talked running.  After the San Antonio and Dallas clinics, he praised my understanding of his training methods as well as my presentations.  He often told others that I took good care of him.  I swelled with pride.  I so desperately wanted him to be pleased with the tour and those helping preserve his training ideas.  In a short week, we had become fast friends.  This will happen when you spend nearly every waking hour for a week with a person like Lydiard.

What makes a person like Lydiard so special?  While I think it’s always hard to put into words the ‘spirit’ that special people like Arthur have, the underlying trait seems to simply be optimism.  Arthur was incredibly optimistic.  He was a positive thinker.  When it came to running success, he believed everyone could succeed if the proper training program was followed.  And, training properly was something Arthur understood very well. 

The Lydiard Method isn’t a theory.  It’s a training regimen that has been proven over and over again throughout the last 45 years.  Lydiard’s confidence and optimism came from the knowledge that his program works.  It worked on him.  It worked on his athletes and it has worked on every other runner who has taken Arthur’s ideas and applied it.  His great optimism came from his knowledge that if more athletes simply used his training methods, each would achieve greater success than previous imagined.  He was forever optimistic because he saw the potential in every athlete. 

The night of his death is etched in my memory.  It was my worst nightmare come true – my coaching idol and new friend dying right in front of my eyes.  Attempts at resuscitation, which lasted for over an hour, simply could not revive him.  His heart had beat its last beat.  While I’ll have to carry that evening with me for the rest of my life, I’m honored to have been with him even in his time of death.  My only thought was that I wished he was with his family and not with me.

I have such great memories of my week with Arthur and am happy to say that his last day on earth was spent just as he would have liked – at a race talking with runners.  All day long, runners young and old, fast and slow, experience and inexperienced, basked in the glow that was Arthur Lydiard.  He may have been 87 years old but when talking with runners, he had the exuberance of a teenager.  Everyone who has ever met him will tell you they were touched.  I second that thought.  Thank you Arthur for a week I’ll never forget.

Greg McMillan

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Greg McMillan is the founder of McMillan Running (www.mcmillanrunning.com) and a former coach for Fila’s Discovery USA program. He is one of the acting staffs for the Arthur Lydiard Foundation and the last person Arthur was with.