i got aoutia 47 low in his prime when he decided to go for the 8, and 48 x in racing season anytime you asked.
i got coe at 45 high at peak and 46 high most of the time during racing season.
ovett should have been 45 high, but in practice, 47 flat is where he's pegged.
cram is a 48 to 49 guy every day of the week, and 47 low,mid at rare peak.
john walker is a 49 guy and hard pressed for 48 high and 50 low is what you get at various points.
too bad walker did training for 2k or so more than anything, naturally he's every bit as fast as a cram.
you want to use lydiard principles but for heavens sake, you're not running 354 miles, you have to keep the 21x 200m type speed in your pocket, for most of the season, not just a rare moment in the season.
probably the hill bounding phase of a lydiard can be modified with modern sprint and weight work.
and the long slow distance over adaptation, with is catabolization of muscles for sprinting over time needs to be compensated for,
and certainly, after you have built up your aerobic engine, you can expand your horizons doing complimentary training segments, speed and particularly speed endurance, the best of which i think is one to three minute hill repeats at maximum,
say warmup a couple of miles, then relax and very light stretch yoga.
the session then is one minute hard steep uphill but something is left.
then walk downhill.
2 minutes very hard uphill
walk down hill.
3 minutes as hard as possible uphill.
walk down
one mile jog,
that's all, there should be only 30 seconds suffering on rep 2
and a minute or so suffering on rep 3.
that is enough for the adaptation to take place.
you only need 2 sessions per week like this.
but the quality needs to be very high and you can't come into quality workouts tired.
you need to push it so you really have a couple of minutes simulation of race pace pressure and pain.
it's very doable and motivational, because you only have to man up for a couple of minutes, which is all
you have to do in middle distance running.