dsrunner wrote:
Hardly. Rudusha ran far less per week, no long runs and had trouble keeping his weight up.
Lydiard wrote that much of the mileage Snell did was to help keep his weight down; in the modern era great 800/1500 runners run closer to 100km/week not 100mi and are far more careful with nutrition periodization and avoiding overtraining. Anybody running 1:44 800 these days is disappointed with anything over 3:35 1500.
Lydiard did not write or ever say that the main reason he had Snell run big miles was to keep his weight down. He had Snell run big miles because that's what his runners did. It was van Aaken who said in an interview that a big benefit Snell, who was heavily muscled, got from running 100 mile weeks was that it kept his weight down. If you can find such a quote from Arthur and put it here I will apologize profusely.