Healthy Intelligent Training (eBook)

Prelude

Growing Up with Lydiard

As twin boys of six, my brother Colin and I landed in Auckland, New Zealand, after emigrating with our mother from Nairobi, Kenya, where we had been born.

This was January 1965. Our father had to remain in Kenya for quite some time; the political situation had become quite unstable.

Our mother, an experienced secondary school-teacher, secured a good teaching position at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School. This was before the days of equal pay for women. The only decent place my mum could afford was a small flat at 92 Owairaka Avenue, in the suburb of Mt. Albert, Auckland. We were promptly enrolled at Owairaka Primary School. Owairaka Primary School was a little school with its own concrete swimming pool, and several older weatherboard classrooms, with a modern block built in the early ’60s.

On the east side of the road were all the pricey houses on the slopes of Mt. Albert. The dividing line was Richardson Road. Owairaka Primary was on the west side. Around it on three sides were all the “State houses.” Just below the school grounds on the west side was a little park that none of us ventured into; it had State houses backing onto it from three sides, and you’d get a hiding from any one of several gangs who lived down there if you ever went into it. The only safe time was sometimes in summer when they had a version of Little Athletics. The park was called Murray Halberg Park.

Owairaka, meaning “place of Wairaka,” was the Maori name for Mt. Albert. Wairaka was a Maori queen. The hill and its environs were the center of our new little universe, and we’d often be up the “mountain” poking around the pa (village) sites. “Wairaka’s tunnel,” an ancient lava cave escape route to neighboring Mt. Roskill, had its entrance from the downstairs garage of a house in Mt. Royal Ave. We’d visit there when the owners weren’t home. It was a typical carefree “Kiwi” childhood for the time.

The Stoddard Road shops were about 400m from the school. There was a small Four Square grocer’s belonging to a guy named Barry Magee. We bought our groceries there. He had been a very good runner we were told, and on one occasion he had all his medals in the window. (Barry Magee was one of Arthur Lydiard’s first serious pupils; he was bronze medalist in the 1960 Olympic marathon, and he was ranked first in the world in 10,000m in 1961).

We were just little kids, of course, and the world of sport and athletics meant very little to us. Our little Irish neighbour, Mrs. Vesey, who had four children of her own, would dose us up on cod-liver oil after school so that we would grow up “big and strong like Peter Snell.” We heard that this guy was the best runner in the world and would keep our eyes peeled for someone who obviously looked a bit like Superman.

All little boys need a place to explore and have high adventure in. For us, this place was “the creek,” complete with brambles, rusting car bodies, old supermarket trolleys, surprised ducks, frogs and tadpoles. A veritable Disneyland. This creek and green strip also ran straight beside Lydiard’s place, although it was considerably more civilized there, with concrete walls. His home, as the crow flies, was only about 300m from our home in Owairaka Avenue, but across the other side of the creek. We’d often play down there amidst fennel and ferns, oblivious to who lived a few meters away.

After a while we became aware of another guy who was becoming famous for beating the No. 7 trolley bus into the center of town in the mornings; his name was Jeff Julian, and he’d won some big marathon races, including the Fukuoka marathon in Japan. Every day he’d run to and from his work at the Bank of New Zealand in Queen Street, and the bus with all its stops had no hope of matching him over the 6-mile journey.

My mum got another teaching job at Manurewa High School on the other side of Auckland. A boy there was a very good runner who’d won all the schoolboy races. His name was John Walker, and his picture was in the school magazine she brought home. He looked very lanky, with a short haircut.

One day our friend Gavin showed us where Peter Snell lived. It was a very nice-looking house in Allendale Road, on the “rich” side of Mt. Albert. Two stories. We knocked on the door but no one answered.

As the ’60s rolled by, we got used to the sights of wiry runners padding past us each year in the Owairaka Marathon, or training in big packs along the roads. We’d hand out sponges from buckets or point a hose if they wanted. One guy with a barrel chest, who looked more like a tough boxer, had his framed picture in a local library. His name was Bill Baillie. One day we saw him run past our house, just like in the picture! He was the best road runner in the world, and a world-record-holder for 20,000m and one hour.

We didn’t know who this Murray Halberg guy was who had the park named after him. We weren’t sure about him at all because the park wasn’t anywhere to hang around in. Apparently he grew up around there: in Hargest Terrace, which backs onto the park. He must have been pretty tough, anyhow, whoever he was. A little plaque on the building at the park said he was an Empire and Olympic champion and world-record-holder in running. Someone said he had a store in Balmoral or Sandringham, on the other side of the hill.

I went to Wesley Intermediate School when I was 11. This was situated beside a continuation of the same same belt of State housing that my last school was near, and the same creek that ran beside Lydiard’s home. Barry Magee’s daughter Diane was in my class. Her dad was still running in races and winning around Auckland, as were Jeff Julian and Bill Baillie.

The Lovelock Track, named after the 1936 Olympic 1500m champion, was over the fence from our school, in parkland beside the creek.

The track was asphalt and black rubber. This was the headquarters of the world-famous Owairaka Athletic and Harrier Club, which Arthur Lydiard, the best running coach in the world, had founded. His house was on Wainwright Avenue, a hidden dogleg around a few corners from the club. It was a State house like the rest.

Kevin Ryan, one of New Zealand’s toughest distance runners of the 1970s, lived a few streets away, and his parents-in-law had a house backing onto the track. Kevin was coached by Barry Magee. Dick Quax, who was emerging as one of New Zealand’s world champions, lived up the hill somewhere near Summit Drive. In 1970, Quax pushed Kip Keino all the way in the Commonwealth Games 1500m in Edinburgh.

Quax was coached by John Davies, who had been Olympic 1500m bronze medalist in 1964, and Davies had been coached by Lydiard.

Secondary School came and we went to Sacred Heart College on the other side of Auckland; a Catholic day and boarding school. It was a rugby, cricket and music school, famous for producing All Black captains and a group of young rock musicians called Split Enz.

Our first year there was 1972. Each night after getting off the train we would trudge with our heavy bags from Mt. Albert station, up Allendale Road, past Peter Snell’s old place, then up over the hill itself and down again.

That first year we read of Quax being a favorite for the Munich 5,000m. Then Quax was out with stress fractures. A young guy from the South Island surprised everybody by getting bronze in the 1500m. His name was Rod Dixon. The guy who won the 1500m in Munich, Pekka Vasala of Finland, was trained under the Lydiard principles, as was his compatriot Lasse Viren, who won the 5000m and 10000m. Lydiard had earlier spent about 18 months in Finland, coaching the coaches.

Even though we had no particular interest in running yet, it was not unlike growing up in Melbourne and not being aware of AFL football or growing up in Chicago and not being aware of basketball.

1974 came, and with it the amazing Christchurch Commonwealth Games. We watched on TV like the rest of sports-mad New Zealand. Dick Quax missed the Games due to injury. Dick Tayler, coached by Lydiard and Alastair McMurran, won the 10,000m in a fantastic time with a huge kick. New Zealand went wild. John Walker medaled in the 800m and 1500m, nipping under the world record in chasing down Filbert Bayi. Rod Dixon was fourth in 3:33, a phenomenal time itself. Jack Foster got silver with a 2:11 marathon- at age 42! A young girl named Lorraine Moller ran 2:03 to get fifth in the 800m. She was coached by Dick Quax’s coach, John Davies.

This was the start of the second golden era in New Zealand. Tiny New Zealand with its three million people could match any nation on earth. The men’s and women’s teams dominated World Cross Country championships in the mid ‘70s; the “Big Three,” Walker, Dixon and Quax, guaranteed filled stadiums anywhere in Europe. It was a very heady time to grow up for an impressionable teenager just starting to discover some athletic ability.

My brother went to Mt. Albert Grammar School for the art programme in 1974, when we were 15. Peter Snell had gone there and played rugby and tennis, and in the early 1930’s Arthur Lydiard went to the same school. My brother started running and getting into the school athletic team. This was funny because he’d never been interested in sport at all until the Commonwealth Games.

In 1975, Rod Dixon was ranked world number one in 5000m, two years after ranking first in 1500m. In...