When Arthur Lydiard Speaks.....

It would be no exaggeration to say that Arthur Lydiard developed  the modern day distance training program. Initially using himself as a guinea pig in the process of formulating his program, he went on to become the coaches coach and all around ambassador for running. His book, Run To the Top, written in 1962 with Garth Gilmour, was about his schedules and thoughts on running.
Another thing people may not know about Arthur is that Bill Bowerman, University of Oregon coaching legend and Nike co-founder, visited Lydiard in New Zealand in the early 60's. Bowerman saw first hand the "jogging" for the masses that Lydiard espoused in his book Run For Your Life(1965) and all the benefits that went with it. After returning to the States he wrote Jogging(1967) which is credited with starting a jogging boom here.
So, when Arthur Lydiard speaks, serious athletes should all listen, consider the following:
"Your schedules are only for guidance.Study your reactions to training from day to day and if you feel jaded or suffer from any soreness allow time for recovery.
Never do speed training when your muscles are sore or you are feeling very tired.Just jog easily,irrespective of what is on the schedule for that day's training.You can never do yourself any harm by jogging and it will usually help to overcome the soreness or tiredness.
Control your training so that you are not racing it,except when full efforts are called for in the schedules.Run strongly and easily in effort,always keeping something in reserve.As you feel improvement,gradually increase your training tempo but never use that reserve."
A common mistake by rookies and  runners who can't control their anxiety is not being able to back- off. They believe that any letting up on, or changing a workout to accomodate their physical condition, will negatively effect racing performance.This of course is nonsense.Easy jogging when feeling overly tired or sore, in place of "gutting out" a training session that will  ultimately be debilitating instead of constructive, allows the body to recover and come back strong.
As a sidenote,studies have shown that a conditioned runner will lose only 5% of his fitness if he does no running for a week.I would quickly add that this percentage increases if the inactivity goes into 2 and 3 weeks.
It's become a cliche but we must "listen to our bodies" and not treat them as if they were machines.