So based on a Lydiard-type marathon plan, I should reach a high peak mpw and then cut way back with more intensive workouts?

Lydiard original base phase was base on running 10 hours per week (for his athletes like Peter Snell this would workout to 100 mpw)+ a easy morning jog every morning everyday(Lydiard didn't count this to the total mileage, so peter Snell was actually running 130 mpw) but on the day of their long run.

The original hill phase was a hill circuit six days a week. This involved hill bounding and strides. He later reduced this to three days a week. Than his original athletes would do a long run at the end of the week. Of course a easy jog in the morning everyday but the long run.

Than the original peaking phase was basically intervals everyday with easy jog every day but on the day of the long run. Look up peter Snell 1964 training on here.

You should check out this book by Keith Livingstone which is endorsed by the Lydiard Foundation:

https://www.amazon.com/Champions-Are-Everywhere-Schedules-Intelligent/dp/1508841349/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=healthy+intelligent+training+the+schedules&qid=1547753198&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

In it, the author does not recommend the typical Lydiard phases for marathoners. Going from memory, the author calls for base training until six weeks out (overall high mileage with one fartlek, one marathon pace type run and one long run) and then adding one long interval workout for the last six weeks.

Does anyone know if this is how Lydiard trained marathoners?

UnderstandingLydiard wrote:

Am I understanding this correctly?

Lydiard advocates for base building at 100 mpw for a while and then starting true training where the mileage declines but the hard workouts increase. I understand the mpw would vary based on speed, but it looks like you could estimate that after conditioning, the hill resistance training (4 weeks) drops down to around 50 miles per week. That's a significant loss.

Would aerobic conditioning not decline dramatically after those 4 weeks? Or the ~14 weeks until race day?

One of his books has an actual marathon plan:

Alan

The priority of the workouts shifts from aerobic to anaerobic, but the miles only drop a little. It's not like the runners were going from a 12 mile day to a handful of 400s, or whatever. Those hard workout days would still be 10+ miles with a good 3-5 mile warmup, lots of 200s or 400s or 800s, often with active recovery, and then a long cool down.

The days in between track work still had good miles, too. These tended to be easier runs than many of the weekday runs in the base phase. You're really concentrating on the track here, so the steady state stuff starts to fall away. The longrun would help athletes maintain that.

Maybe HRE or someone like that could chime in and say it better.

I don't have Keith's book handy so I won't comment on what's in it but I'd recommend reading it. In Arthur's Run to the Top schedules the main difference between marathon training and training for track distances was a bit of difference in the length of your reps. As the OP points out, there appears to be a big drop in miles once you get beyond the base and hill phases. But that's partly because he didn't mention what he called "supplemental" running. Barry Magee told me that when he was in the later phases he always kept the Sunday 22 mile run in the mix and ran for about an hour every morning, then did the track sessions later on in the day. He says it's a mistake to get too far away from aerobic running as the benefits will erode. When I was getting advice from him and was in the later phases I was doing just slightly fewer miles than when I was in the base phase but not all that much less. So to the OP's question, yes, your mileage would come down a bit but not dramatically. Maybe you'd be doing 75-80% of what you were doing at your highest point. But you always need to monitor how things are working out and be ready to make adjustments if they're not working well.

A staple workout as you get close to race day should be 5 x 18 miles at marathon pace. Try and hit relatively even splits on all the reps. It works well with Lydiard style training and will really get you in shape.

Yes