It’s the details that count.  He has his runners examine their racing shoes by soaking them with a hose and then jogging around in them for a while to see if they get blisters.  You never know if it’s going to rain on race-day or if someone is going to throw a bucket of water at you out on the course.lympic champions,” he says, “everything is important.  The guy who thinks of everything is the guy who wins the gold medal.”

Arthur Lydiard of New Zealand is a winner.  No other distance coach has proved the success of an innovative system by producing with it so many champions.  Snell, Halberg, Magee, Baillie and Davies are the first names we remember, but as national coach of Finland in the late ‘60s, Lydiard also masterminded the training that produced Olympic titles for Lasse Viren and Pekka Vasala.  Today he claims not to be actively coaching runners, but he continues to influence the training of many of New Zealand’s finest distance runners.  He coaches their coaches.  And elsewhere, in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles and the United States, Lydiard’s system of training—with its emphasis on high mileage for aerobic strength, hill running for muscular development and technique drills for mechanical efficiency—is used by runners of many specialties, from milers to marathoners.  All things considered, Arthur Lydiard is probably the world’s most influential running coach.