Grant Erskine (left) contacted Arthur Lydiard when he heard that the great man was prepared to coach anyone.

Grant Erskine (left) contacted Arthur Lydiard when he heard that the great man was prepared to coach anyone.

Arthur Lydiard died on Sunday during a speaking tour in America. It would have delighted him that the same day, in New Zealand, lawyer Grant Erskine went for a 34km run in the Waitakeres, where Lydiard had run many miles with his champions.

Erskine then went to a friend's house and was told Lydiard had died.

Erskine "at best a good average runner" had been coached by Lydiard since 2000.

"I read an article in a newspaper about how Arthur would coach anyone who asked him. So I wrote him a letter, and he became my coach. Before that I'd just assumed that he wouldn't be accessible. He gave me a schedule which one newspaper wit described as the "run until you spew" method of training.

"And since then I've just been chipping away at my time and I ran my first marathon this year."

More recently, at Lydiard's suggestion, Erskine has trained with the Auckland City Athletics Club under Barry Magee, an Olympic bronze medallist and one of the original "Arthur's boys".

Magee said Erskine's story gave some insight into Lydiard's character. "He gave him the same instruction that he gave Snell and the others. He never differentiated between a champion and a nobody."

Erskine views Lydiard as "up there with Edmund Hillary".

"I remember one time early this year, round winter or spring, I said to him out at Beachlands, 'I want to thank you for the time you've given me.' I didn't take it for granted that I was in the company of this great man."

The sight of thousands of people taking off on fun runs and half marathons probably gave the man credited with the invigoration of jogging here as much satisfaction as gold medals around the necks of his Olympic athletes. Lydiard's philosophy of training everyman had persisted from the beginning. He refused to restrict his coaching to Olympians only, telling the Herald in 1960: "It is unfair to differentiate. I like nothing better than training young boys and running with them."

Despite struggling to earn a living while an amateur coach, he was reluctant to move overseas. In 1961 he said: "I would never take money off a young chap for coaching ... how could you take money off a young man when you see him keen to run and trying all he can in spite of his cynical companions who may waste their time lounging in the streets smoking cigarettes?"

Ironically, just six months later it was cigarette company Rothmans which gave him the job that enabled him to stay in New Zealand, with the flexibility to earn money as well as coach. Rothmans later produced a booklet of Lydiard's techniques and sponsored a lecture tour.