Tinman, I want to write an experience that we had in Italy in 1990. At that time, we had a problem with 800m runners, having nobody able running under 1:46. There was a good group of very young athletes, born in '69-70 (Benvenuti, D'Urso, Giocondi, Bonamici, Chiavarini and some other less strong) that we wanted to follow for solving the problem.
In December 1989, we tested all the athletes (using a very simple Conconi-test) for detecting their AnT, after one month of long run, not very fast. Here are the data :
D'Urso 20,2 km/h (2'58" / km)
Benvenuti 19,1 km/h (3'08" / km)
Soffietto 18,8 km/h (3'11" / km)
Giocondi 18,8 km/h (3'11" / km)
Chiavarini 17,7 km/h (3'23" / km)
Bonamici 17,5 km/h (3'26" / km)
The athletes were assembled together in Turin (were we had an indoor track always open) from December for preparing their indoor season.
After some work non yet very fast (for example, 10x200m in 28", or 10x500 in 1'18" rec. 2'/3' depending on the athlete), they went for the first competition (10th of January) with split every 200m. The result was :
1) Benvenuti 1:51.2 (28.8 / 56.8 / 1:24.2 + 27.0)
2) Bonamici 1:51.6 (29.0 / 57.4 / 1:24.6 + 27.0)
3) Chiavarini 1:52.2 (28.5 / 56.2 / 1:23.7 + 28.5)
4) Soffietto 1:52.6 (28.7 / 56.6 / 1.24.0 + 28.6)
D'Urso and Giocondi didn't compete.
The athlete, during the next period, went for a training based on speed and lactic workouts, reducing long run very much (also for the bad conditions of weather, often snowing and under 0°).
Particularly Andrea Bonamici was able to improve very much in speed. One his workout, for instead, was 3 sets of 4x200m recovering 45" (5 min among the sets) in about 24"5/24", with the last 200m in 23"7.
They competed some time (2-3 times) in national races, improving only a little, but nobody was able running under 1:51.0.
After 40 days (20th of February) they went for Italian Championships, for qualifying European Championships.
The race was fast, as we had a rabbit pushing the pace in 25.8 / 52.4 / 1:18.8. All the athletes were destroyed, and Benvenuti won in 1:50.9 (last 200m in 31.2, because he was n. 3 after 600m !).
We were not able to understand soon what could have happened during the period of training. Few days later, we went with all the group in Tirrenia for beginning the preparation for the outdoor season. We tested another time the athletes using the same system (Conconi-test), and we found the following values :
D'Urso (non training with the group because he did't compete in any indoor race) 20.6 km/h (2'55" / km)
Giocondi (like D'Urso) 19.4 km/h (3'06" / km)
Benvenuti 18.1 km/h (3'19" / km)
Soffietto 17.7 km/h (3'23" / km)
Chiavarini 16.8 km/h (3'34" / km)
Bonamici 16.3 km/h (3'41" / km)
So, the results regarding AnT for the athletes, after 3 months of training, was the following :
Group A : Athletes NON USING very much LACTIC TRAINING :
D'Urso + 2 % (from 2:58 to 2:55)
Giocondi + 3 % (from 3:11 to 3:06)
Group B : Athletes using mainly ANAEROBIC WORKOUTS :
Benvenuti - 6 % (from 3:08 to 3:19)
Soffietto - 6 % (from 3:11 to 3:23)
Chiavarini - 5 % (from 3:23 to 3:34)
Bonamici - 7 % (from 3:26 to 3:41)
More the athletes used speed endurance at high level, with short recovery, WITHOUT HAVING ANY AEROBIC BASE, more they lost Aerobic Power, going into anaerobic system only for moderate speed.
More the athletes used workouts for increasing their Aerobic Power, more were able to be fast at the end of a very hard work.
Thru this experience we changed our systems, giving more importance to the aerobic basic work (not only long run, but long intervals on track and short intervals not very fast, reducing recovery times).
Thru this system, in 3 years we had Benvenuti 5th in OG '92 able running 1:43.92, and then to win European Ch. '94 ; D'Urso silver medal in WCh '93, able running 1:43.95 ; Giocondi 7th in WCh '95 and able running 1:44.85 ; and also Chiavarini ran 1:45.02, while Soffietto and Bonamici disappeared. The same school was used with Longo.
So, for us, the importance of having a high level of AnT (due to mythocondrial situation) is a fact now well known, and who was in our group at that time (like Gianni Ghidini, coach of Andrea Benvenuti) continues to use these systems also with kenyans like Bungei (1:42.34), Yiampoy (1:42.91), Kimwetich (1:43.03), Mutua (1:43.33) and many others, with different levels of speed.