Quote Originally Posted by Mike T View Post
Have a look at the Andy Jones videos on UKA - they are very interesting. He tested Paula twice a year between 1992 and 2003 and shows some of the data on his slides. Her VO2 max measurements fluctuated a bit but were never as high as 80 - but if you look at charts that predict VO2 max from race times at least one says her VO2 max would be about 80 - for example that on page 42 of the 3rd edition of Lore of Running; that on page 46 gives her a value of about 75. Andy Jones clearly has access to pretty high tech equipment and his results must be as accurate as any. I cannot tell you how long she trained at 120 miles a week - it is my understanding that she is a very high mileage runner, some would say too high, though it seemed to work for a time.

As to her dramatic increased running efficiency, it is well documented that high mileage does this, indeed it is probably why high mileage is of benefit. (Lore of Running, pges 36-37 ).

Yes, I always think of VO2 max in terms of ml/kg/min.
I got to watch today Mike-T, very interesting. He does say one of the results he took was above 80 around 2002 but seemed to doubt himself on the accuracy of the reading. One issue he didn't deal with-and I have to bring it up because it's pertinent - was Paula's permitted use of performance enhancing drugs. He didn't say whether their use over many years could have produced changes in chemistry that could have caused the efficiency increase. I wonder if he knew? He puts her performance increase down to efficiency but doesn't get the chance to deal, in the time available, with exactly what is more efficient.

Clearly not all athletes who run high mileages become more efficient, some become less so. Then there are others who gain the efficiency without running 120 miles per week. All swings and roundabout, too-ing and fro-ing but that was the whole point to this thread.

One last point. I asked you to clarify the ml/kg/min thingy because you've told us only a small V02 increase of 5-15% is possible (taken from Noakes). Well a few years ago Nikalas kindly printed his results on here from two tests. The first one he scored around 49ml/kg/min and a while later he scored around 66 or 69. That's around a 34% increase and he wasn't a couch potato in the first place. So that to me shows what is possible on a ml/kg/min basis.

Like I say swings and roundabouts but it makes it all very interesting.