what a thread.
at the end of the day, i'm not seeing too many golds in the 800m with the long run as a significant factor.
snell had a lousy mile time also,
arch jelley of nz did take lydiard to the next level, simplified it, and got the 349 mile, but no 800 miracles, not even close.
lydiard overall is not great middle distance training in itself, but i have to say the aerobic phase is great, i'd use that more as the build up.
the hybrid lydiard system of walker and scott, which rubbed off everwhere, was based on the hard one hour ish run, where they kicked ass in segments, a kind of fartlek, and the adaptation from this kind of running is nothing like a 22 miler at a slower pace.
basically you don't need the long run, but if it doesn't kill your legs, your body adapts to storing energy for running, more than so called aerobic adaptation.
later on the body's extra energy for running is available in the more quality stages of training.
in theory, the long run, as an adaptation for an energy resovior, can be substituted for an iron man cross training day, of 2 plus hours breathing and moving the body on a bike, swim, etc.
finally, guys that can run 21 seconds 200m don't want to be doing 22 milers ever. no mr. lydiard.