There are a couple of interesting videos on the UKA site featuring Professor Andy Jones - exercise physiologist - talking about Paula's results over the years 1992 - 2003. In that time her weekly mileage increased from 25 to 120 per week but there was no change in her VO2 max - it stayed in the low 70s. What did improve were her running economy - from 205 (ml of O2/kg/km) to 165, her lactate threshold speed, from 15 to 18.5 km/h, and her lactate turn point speed, from 16.5 to 20 km/h.

Having a high VO2 max gave her the potential to be world class, and she then put in the relevant intelligent training hours - but if she had started with a VO2 max of only 35 ......