His ONLY two workouts that he ever made his athletes do were:
6 x 400 and 10 x 400 (400 jog)
Source: malmo
This is genius though. It looks simple but it's all that is needed.
Lactate Threshold: it improves lactate threshold because during the reps you build up a lot of lactate, but the jog rests allow for that to be cleared from the blood via the skeletal muscle pump. In turn, your body becomes more efficient at removing lactate and your threshold increases.
Running Efficiency: by running at very fast speeds with good form, and then essentially fully recovering and doing it again, your body is becoming more accustomed and comfortable to running at high speeds. The result is you become more efficient at high speeds.
Then all of the mileage runs aside from speed work increases your aerobic capacity because you are running slow enough that your lungs learn to accommodate the acquisition of more oxygen. This transfers over to faster running. Also, the mileage would increase blood flow to the exercising muscles via heart strengthening and subsequently the increase in stroke volume, but also the blossoming of new capillaries (the microscopic blood vessels that feed tissues nutrients) through capillarization. Furthermore, mileage runs would still increase the number of mitochondria (called mitochondrial density), and in turn more adenosine triphosphate would be produced when the terminal electron acceptor oxygen "pulls" nicotinamide adenine diphosphate's electrons through the collection of membrane proteins, creating a buildup of hydrogen ions that moves back down it's gradient, and in the process changes the confirmation of ATP synthase such that ADP is "forced" together with inorganic phosphate, creating ATP.
Point being:
Compartmentalization is crap in my opinion. Jumbo's quarters could work on multiple aspects of running, such as those listed above, and probably even VO2 max as well. I think many other workouts are similar as well.
No doubt that RE, LT, and VO2 Max are important physiological running variables that drive success, I just don't agree that they need to be isolated and worked on independently. I think they can all "blend" together and be worked on simultaneously, as the body works in sync anyway.
Thoughts?