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From 1500m to the Marathon - a look back at Andrew Lloyd
Andrew Lloyd is perhaps Australia’s most versatile runner of all time. With some seriously fast personal bests for distances stretching from the 1500m to the marathon. The highlight of this long and fruitful career was without a doubt his miraculous victory in the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games 5000m (watch the video below). We caught up with Lloydie to get his opinions on Australia’s current crop of runners, find out what he is up to, and to pick his brain for some training wisdom.
List of personal bests and date of performance:
1500m: 3:36.6 (July 1990, Barcelona)
Mile: 3:56.52 (May 1990, London)
3000m: 7:45.94 (December 1990, Canberra)
5000m: 13:24.63 (February 1992, Melbourne)
10,000m: 27:57.34 (December 1987, Melbourne)
Half marathon: 62.54 (January 1994, Tokyo)
Marathon: 2:14.36 (June 1984, Sydney)
RT: Andrew, thanks for your time. Your personal bests speak for themselves. It is quite normal for a runner to get better at the longer distances as they get older and lose their speed a little, but you didn’t seem to do this. For example your 10,000m and marathon PB’s were set in 1987 and 1984 respectively, yet your 1500m PB was set in 1990. How was it that your career evolved?
AL: Looking back I really should have been 1500 runner. At the time distance running was all the craze.
RT: What PB do you consider to be your best and why?
AL: Probably the 1500m I was over 30 years of age & never ran that many short races
except for that one season.
RT: Was it the case of you concentrating on different distances during differing stages of your career? Did you ever try to really specialise on the one distance?
AL: I liked all distances so I just found myself running different distances at different stages.
RT: You ran a 3:36 for 1500m. This currently ranks you 16th on the all time Australian rankings list. What is your opinion on speed work for a 1500m runner? Obviously you come from an endurance, not speed, background. But how much speed work did you do? And how intense was it?
AL: A lot of runners have no real kick down speed & have little chance of winning a sprint finish. We used to do 200m in 24 to 25 secs 30sec rest usually a set of 6
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Career Highlight - 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games 5000m
A Must Watch
A Must Watch
RT: Can you give some actual examples of speed sessions that you did around the time of your 3:36 PB? And how many K’s per week were you running?
AL: As above also I trained with Peter Elliott from England (800,1500m runner) where we would start with a rep 1600m with 400m float in 4.16 then a rep 1200m with 400 float in 3.12, then 1000m/400 float in 2.35, 800m/400 float in 1.56, then 400m/400 float in 54secs. Warn down.
At this stage I was running approx 160km/week.
RT: How different was your training say in 1987 when you ran your 10,000m PB compared to 1990 when you ran your 1500m, mile and 3000m PB’s?
AL: Around 1987 I was concentrating more on distance so therefore longer reps and less intense speed. Around 1990 I increased intensity of speed work to be able to cope with be able to sprint finish in the shorter distances.
RT: Did you have some core favourite sessions that you did regularly and swore by?
AL: 4 reps of 1600/400 float. Times would be between 4.16-4.20 and I would do this session once a week. This gave a combination of strength and speed.
Stealing victory at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games 5000m
RT: To you keep up-to-date with the current Australian performances? What are your views on how they are going?
AL: We have a number of talented runners coming through now from 1500m to 10,000m. It would be great to see more opportunity for athletes to compete in International events even with a B qualifier. An upcoming athlete can gain so much experience competing in International competition.
RT: What are you up to these days? Do you still run?
AL: I run socially now and just did New York Marathon and will be toeing the line at the Six Foot Track. I also mountain bike ride and run and ride around with my five- year-old twin boys. I still train every day however my intensity has severely dropped.
RT: Thanks for you time and all the best.
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