Hanging with the legends

When Arthur Lydiard and Bill Bowerman Get Together, It's Great to Be a Fly on the Wall.

"Copyright 1998 by 42K(+) Press, Inc. "Hanging with the Legends" originally appeared in the September/October issue of Marathon & Beyond , and is reprinted here with permission of 42K(+) Press, Inc. Further inquiries about reprinting articles from Marathon & Beyond should be directed to M&B publisher Jan Colarusso Seeley (jan@marathonandbeyond.com). Phone: 217.359-9345; Fax: 217.359-4731

THIS STORY begins in late April of 1997 when Dick Brown of Eugene, Oregon, called to tell me that Arthur Lydiard and Bill Bowerman were going to get together at that year's Prefontaine Classic. There are perhaps half a dozen coaches who stand head and shoulders above the rest. Arthur Lydiard and Bill Bowerman are without a doubt two such coaches. I immediately booked a flight from my home in Minnesota to Oregon.

FLASHBACK 30+ YEARS
It was the summer of 1960. The place was Rome. In less than an hour a shoemaker from Auckland, New Zealand, became a world-renowned coach when two neighborhood kids he was coaching, Peter Snell and Murray Halberg, won Olympic gold medals in the 800 meters and the 5,000 meters. Barry Magee, another of Lydiard's kids, took the bronze in the marathon several days later.

The shoemaker, of course, was Arthur Lydiard, who became the overnight sensation in the world of running.

Upon his return to New Zealand from his successes in Rome, Lydiard was invited to speak at the Tamaki Lion's Club in Auckland. He spoke of marathon conditioning and the benefits to cardiac efficiency through such training. The term "aerobic exercise" was not yet commonplace. Following Lydiard's speech, he was approached by several businessmen concerned about their own physical condition. It was the beginning of the first jogging club in the world. It would be nearly a decade before Ken Cooper's book Aerobics was published and nearly two decades before the arrival of Jim Fixx's The Complete Book of Running.

Now it is the summer of 1963. Again it's New Zealand. Bill Bowerman and his record-breaking 4x1 mile team from the University of Oregon are guests of Arthur Lydiard. On Sunday morning, just as Bowerman is finishing up his breakfast, Arthur Lydiard walks in and asks him if he would like to go "jogging" with a group of local folks. Feeling quite fit, Bowerman agrees and hooks up with Andy Stedman, a fellow 20 years his senior, who is forced to slow down to show Bowerman a short-cut on the five-mile jogging route.

Upon his return to Oregon, Bowerman puts together a local jogging class to get into better condition. He continues to coach University of Oregon runners. In his spare time he borrows his wife's waffle irons to experiment with making better running shoes, shoes that would eventually become Nikes. Bowerman eventually writes the bestselling book, Jogging, and receives a special medal from President Kennedy in honor of his contributions to spreading the concept of jogging in America. Bowerman's comment: "I am but the disciple. Arthur Lydiard of New Zealand is the prophet."

LYDIARD DISCIPLES
Dick Brown, an established coach who tutored Mary Slaney to her two gold medals in the 1983 World Championships and who coaches Vicki Huber and Shelly Steely, is now a disciple of Lydiard. I met Dick at the Atlanta Olympics, and we've been talking about Lydiard ever since. Dick is the current curator of a little red brochure titled "Athletic Training Schedule" that was passed on to him by Bill Bowerman after it was passed on to him by Arthur Lydiard many years ago. Ironically, the original pamphlet was financed by Rothmans, a cigarette company that supported Lydiard's athletes in the early 1960s. The little book contains the crux of Lydiard's training principles that transformed neighborhood youngsters into world-beaters.

It is the Friday before the '97 Pre Classic. Dick Brown drives me up the hill to the Bowerman home on the outskirts of Eugene. We are greeted by Mrs. Bowerman and led into the house. Bill is sitting outside, relaxing, enjoying the scenery of the McKenzie River flowing through the surrounding mountains. We are close enough that you can hear the water flowing and the birds singing on its banks. I tell Bill it reminds me of the movie Man From Snowy River.

"On clear days," Bill explains, "you can still see some snow on the tops of the mountains." Today it is slightly overcast, and we can't see that far. Even though we can't see them, Bill runs through the names of the various mountains. Suddenly he turns to me and says, "Now you're ready for the exam!" The air is becoming cool, and Mrs. Bowerman shoos us inside where it's warm.

Back inside, we delve straight into what amounts to a digested history of U.S. track and field. Bowerman coached at the University of Oregon from 1949 to 1972. During that time he coached 24 individuals who occupied 32 U.S. Olympic berths, and he produced at least a dozen sub-4-minute milers. This does not include his post-University of Oregon era when he worked with athletes such as Henry Marsh.

It is one thing to recruit accomplished athletes as some coaches do by importing Kenyan runners or to happen upon one outstanding athlete, but it is quite another to produce one good athlete after another over a long stretch of time. Bill Bowerman has definitely done the latter. And he actually hated recruiting, considering himself more of a teacher than a head hunter.

In the video Fire on the Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story, Bowerman is quoted as saying, "You start making love to some high school kid too early, his head starts to get bigger and bigger. . . . If I join the [pause] tail-kissers, I'm just another donkey looking for another body to come out and run here. If I want to teach him and if I have something to offer him, we'll find out after he gets here."

It is ironic to spend time with Bowerman, for the man who has taught others to excel from inside their bodies is stuck in a strange physical situation. His physical condition is a mess. He is 85 years old, his feet are swollen, he coughs once in a while, and he is rapidly losing his eyesight that, the result of working in a too-small room with glue and rubber creating what would become the first Nike shoes. He suffered a heart attack some years ago, and he was also in a car accident several years ago, in which the car rolled off a hill. But when Bill Bowerman talks about running, he is animated and sturdy as a tank. He can also be somewhat intimidating, but if he senses his guest is sincere and interested, he responds in kind. It is the same quality I have found in Arthur Lydiard and the late Japanese marathon coach, Kiyoshi Nakamura.

COACHING PHILOSOPHIES
The subject turns to the college coaching scene. I ask Bowerman about his policy of not wanting his athletes to double in the same competition. Later that day Dick Brown and I attended the Oregon State High School Championships. There were kids who were not just doubling but tripling because they were good athletes and the team needed the points. By the third event the kids could hardly drag themselves to the starting line. "I prefer them not to double," Bowerman said. "Why not give other guys a chance?"

Give the other guys on the team a chance. It isn't all about winning. It harkens to Nakamura's training methods in the 1980s in which he combined mental, philosophical, and almost Zen-like elements into scientific training methods. It occurs to me that coaches like Bowerman and Lydiard, whether intentionally or not, were already practicing these elements. It is not the outcome (winning the championship or gaining the points) that is important, but the method of getting there for the sake of that method. With that philosophy, the results have a tendency to follow on their own. When I get up to leave, Bowerman shakes my hand and says, "Hey, your're all right!" That made my day.

MEETING THE SECOND GIANT
The next day we go to the Valley River Inn to pick up Arthur Lydiard for dinner. As I get out of the car and walk into the lobby, I encounter Moses Tanui, Bob Kennedy, and Sonia O'Sullivan. It is like runners' heaven. Among these current greats, I spot a small, gray-haired man in a blue suit speaking to New Zealander Jack Ralston and his wife. Although I have not seen Arthur Lydiard since 1990, he doesn't seem to have aged. In fact, come to think of it, he doesn't seem to have aged from 1984 when I spent a year in New Zealand with him. Kathrine Switzer has perfectly described Arthur: "Lydiard is an intimidating, imposing figure, that is, until you stand close to him. And then you realize that he is actually quite short, with a great gentleness and kindness behind the thunder a total generosity. He is a man totally beloved."

How good or not so good you are as an athlete is totally irrelevant to Arthur. He is often quoted as saying that it is as gratifying, if not even more so, to work with heart patients than to work with some talented athletes. "Once they get up on the top of the dais," he has said, "they'll get big-headed and forget you. But others will appreciate you more."

When Lydiard was in Japan in 1990, he was asked what kind of quality he looks for in an athlete he coaches. Without hesitation his answer was simple: "sincerity." "By coaching and helping other people, you are giving up a part of your life," he said. "I can't afford to waste my time with fools." He never asks athletes if he can coach them. They come to him. And when they have, he has never turned anyone away. We herd our group together, nine of us, and head off to Mazzi's, an Italian restuarant. The restaurant doesn't take reservations, but because Vicki Huber will be joining us, we are quickly accommodated. Peppi, the owner, is a great fan of Vicki's. Also among our group are Dr. Andrew Ness and his wife Christy, who coached figure skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi. (The Nesses applied Arthur's training principles to Yamaguchi's training, figuring that the two-minute short program and the four-minute long program were the equivalent of running a half-mile and a mile. By using Arthur's aerobic conditioning methods, Yamaguchi raised her V O2max from 44 to 60.)

Vicki Huber and her boyfriend arrive. They are all dressed up because they are on their way to Vicki's birthday party, but they didn't want to miss a chance to spend some time with Arthur. Vicki keeps referring to him as "Mr. Lydiard," so I turn to her and tell her this story. "When I went to New Zealand," I say, "I asked him whether I should call him coach' or Mr. Lydiard.' He simply said, In case you didn't know, my name is Arthur.'"

Arthur explains that he's a little dehydrated from his flight. "The best thing you can do is drink beer!" he declares. Several of Dick Brown's runners rise to the occasion and declare this is great advice from a great coach. Marla Runyan, a legally blind athlete who's run a 2:04 800 meters in heptathlon competition, takes Arthur's advice and then asks for some input. As a heptathlete, she feels she's too muscular. "That's got nothing to do with it," Arthur contends. He uses Peter Snell as an example. He was a very big, muscular man. Because of that, he had some difficult times completing Arthur's marathon conditioning. But also because of his muscularity, Snell's kick was so powerful and explosive that once he unleashed it, nobody could stay with him. After being around Arthur Lydiard, you quickly catch his philosophy that nothing about you is a disadvantage.

Sitting at the table, seeing more and more people drop by to pay their respects to Arthur as he elevates the positive aura at our huge table, I am struck by the fact that Arthur is the force responsible for introducing a huge variety of people to each other. Had it not been for Arthur, I would not have met the late and great coach Kiyoshi Nakamura, and I would likely not have become a professional coach in Japan. I would not have met Kathrine Switzer, either. One of her observations sums up Arthur: "Arthur has brought us all together over the years. Like Arthur's athletes, the talent for fitness or the talent for friendship is everywhere. It only needs the opportunity."

Now Arthur is going off on his arsenal of old stories. How Peter Snell trained with marathoners like Barry Magee and Ray Puckett before he was fed some "fast stuff." "Snell and Davies ran 20 quarters in 60 seconds. How much more speed do you want?" Arthur asks.

Or how when Richard Tayler was training for the 1974 Commonwealth Games, he trained on a high school's grass fields with no lap times taken, no counting of how may reps he'd done, and not even knowing how far he was running. "Interval training is a lot of eye-wash," Arthur says. "It's just the icing on the cake, not the governing factor. But what do most American runners and coaches do? They go on the track with a stopwatch in hand and do more intervals, more intervals, more intervals. . . . They destroy potential, instead of developing it."

Arthur talks about the time, in the late 1970s, when he coached a handful of girls at the high school where his late wife Eira used to teach. Within a season, he turned the team into New Zealand cross-country champions. In 1979, he brought one of the girls, 18-year-old Heather Carmichael, to America. She won the Peachtree race and set a course record of 33:38 in hot and humid conditions. "Champions are everywhere," Arthur says, "It's a matter of training them properly."

BOUNDLESS ENERGY
After Arthur has sated his thirst with 10 beers over six hours and after dozens of photo flashes go off around the table, we decide to wind down. "We'd better get you back to the hotel, Arthur," I say to him.

"Why?" he asks. "Are you getting tired?"

Approaching 80 at the time, Arthur had flown from New Zealand the day before, driven from Portland that morning, spent the day with Bill Bowerman on a film shoot, and just reached midnight after six hours of talking and beer-drinking. Arthur is still a human dynamo.

Several years ago he was tested in Texas. The results indicated a supposedly aged man whose oxygen uptake was at least a litre above the norm and who sported the muscle-tone of a 40 year old. He was once asked about all the hype concerning running not being good for you. "I guess all the years of running are killing me," he replied.

PREFONTAINE CLASSIC
The next day it's time for the Prefontaine Classic. Arthur Lydaird and Bill Bowerman are the honorary starters for the men's mile race, in which 11 men go under four minutes, led by Kenya's Laban Rotich's 3:52.68. This is my first Pre Classic, and it is an absolutely tremendous experience. It is easy to see why Eugene is known as Track Town USA. At the east end of Hayward Field is the Bowerman Building, which features a balcony from which guests can watch the races. Lydiard and Bowerman spent their time comparing notes and telling stories to each other and visiting with friends. Bill Bowerman is respectfully approached by a young Kenyan runner who wants to meet him and ask him a few questions. Arthur and Bill seem to thrive on the running environment; it belies their ages.

Later, when they stroll down to the parking lot, they are surrounded by young runners seeking autographs. Although Mrs. Bowerman wants to leave early to prepare dinner, Bill continues to sign autographs and answer questions. A coach comes by with several of his charges and asks Arthur about his secrets of lacing running shoes. Invariably this subject comes up. I stick my foot out to show them the particulars, and I tell the coach that I'll send him a copy of a diagram of Authur's lacing system from his book as well as some reference on the "Lydiardism."

As we stand off to the side, watching Arthur and Bill field questions and sign autographs, Dr. Ness wonders if, 20 years from now, anyone will remember Arthur Lydiard and Bill Bowerman. It is unlikely that the average person training for a marathon realizes how much of the training theories they use to make such a challenging event so accessible have come from these two men, who achieved greatness through common sense, hard work, and passion for the sport.

For the moment, I think about the generosity that has made them such accessible giants to those of us who have had the honor of meeting and speaking with them. Although I wish all the greatest success to running and runners, in a world seemingly gone mad with sports, I hope probably unrealistically that this access to the giants of our sport is never withdrawn as it has been in so many other areas of the sporting life. For this golden moment, though, it isn't. The giants smile upon us mortals. And it is our responsibility to pass their words on to the generation to come.

"NOBUYA "NOBBY" HASHIZUME was so impressed with the seminal book Running With Lydiard that he moved to New Zealand for a year to study under famed coach Arthur Lydiard. Upon returning to his native Japan, he became a professional running coach for Hitachi, Ltd., working under the influence of legendary coach Kiyoshi Nakamura. Nobby had been away from the running circuit for some time when his interest was rekindled after he traveled to the Atlanta Olympic Games with his high school hero Dick Quax. Nobby currently lives in Minnesota with his wife Megan, a sub-4:00-hour marathoner, and their five-year-old daughter Anna, who has already memorized the first two finishers of the 5000 meters at the '76 Montreal Olympic Games. You can reach Nobby at hashizumemn@hotmail.com

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