I read a lot of the stuff his fasterthanforty and Facebook websites.
Looks to me like he's trying to prove that activities like football, sprints, and stairs provide multiple benefits (i.e. aerobic conditioning + top-end speed or aerobic conditioning + strength), whereas "running" only provides aerobic conditioning.
I've always thought that the 800 is 60% aerobic. The article says he ran 2:00 with or without aerobic-specific training, but he only ran faster (1:56) when he did sprints and weights. This leaves me with two questions for the Letsrun experts:
1) Is it better to do 3 hard workouts a week or 5 runs + 2 traditional speed workouts? I've always done the latter :/
2) How much pure mileage does a 800/mile runner really need to do? If you can build aerobic capacity while building speed, are 5 mile runs really useful? I'd rather play football (injury risk notwithstanding).
p.s. Obviously sprints and football involve "running". Maybe he should have named this thing "No Jogging".