Pappy wrote:
http://www.trainingscience.net/?page_id=745
"All models are wrong, but some are useful." - George Box
"That [Daniels] uses an unproven and perhaps dated model to explain the physiological reasons for his [training method's] success is of no consequence. In time, science will catch up with Daniels and will provide a more correct physiological explanation as to why his methods, field-tested for more than three decades, produce the superior results his athletes have achieved." - Time Noakes, Lore of Running (4th ed.), p. 311
I did a 4 mile tempo run on Tuesday, a few seconds faster than prescribed for my VDOT.
On such days, it helps for me to think: "There is a clear purpose to this run. It is improving my body's ability to run fast without accumulating too much lactate, which will improve racing performance, and it does me no benefit to run it any faster."
In reality, I know it'll make me a better runner if I run kinda fast for 22 minutes [for some unclear reason], but I shouldn't run really fast, or it'll hinder the rest of my week's training [for other unclear reasons].
But a key insight from Daniels is that runners should have a sense of why they're doing each run, and I think that's really important. So even if the cardiovascular/anaerobic model Daniels, Pfitzinger, et al. use is not the most correct, it's easily accessible and very useful from a psychological perspective.
Boston conditions seem similar as to if a platoon of marauding baboons were unleashed upon the course. The baboons would slow most runners, but marathon running and toughness are largely orthogonal to the art of baboon evasion, resulting in some unexpected placements. And those deep in the pack would be less affected than the elites.