The Liquori System entails a six-month program broken into four distinct phases.  I personally feel more comfortable with a program based upon a full year’s training, but it would be asking a lot of the reader to dedicate a year of his running life to a program that he is not sure will work for him.  Thus, I have condensed my regimen into six months, which ought to be adequate for most runners to attain a very high level of racing fitness.

It is a totally subjective value judgment as to which kind of runner is the greater athlete, the one who wins two victories a year with no losses, or the one who races 14 times and wins 12.  In Finland, the former is considered the ultimate athlete, but I believe in America we respect the athlete who goes out to face many challenges.

I personally have used both approaches.  In high school and college I competed almost every weekend.  Because of the sheer genius of Jumbo Elliot, my coach at Villanova, I was able to stay at a peak almost eight months of the year, running a 3:55 mile in January and continuing to hold that peak until I ran a 3:55 mile in August.

On the other hand, I used the Lydiard peaking method after college, and it enabled me to rise to first and second in the world 5,000 rankings in 1977 and 1978.  It was the Lydiard method that enabled me to drop from 13:40 for 5,000 meters in May 1977 to 13:15 that July.

Such an approach has its drawbacks, however.  It is difficult to train hard in September for a first race in April.  Psychologically, most of us cannot put off gratification for six months to two years without some encouraging signs that we are doing the right thing.  Certainly for the athlete who is stung by defeat, the Lydiard peaking method of training can present insurmountable emotional obstacles.

This is a six-part series of article published in “The Runner” magazine; in February through August, 1981; by Marty Liquori, the world-class runner, and John L. Parker, Jr.  It is excerpted from their book, The Elite Runner’s Manual, published by Playboy Press.  ©1980 Marty Liquori and John L. Parker, Jr.