In the past you have written about:
The performance of a my athlete that gave me more satisfacion was a 2:18:23 in a marathon (Venice, '95) of a Swiss guy (was at that time the physiotherapist of Italian Team, working with us in Tirrenia, our national center), without any kind of talent (4:20 in 1500m, no elasticity, very bad running style), working 8 hours per day with our athletes, that had the will to train hard after finishing is job (sometime from 9 to 11 pm during September), that was a totally unthinkable performance.
NICOLA CIAVARELLA (working as school caretaker, coming from amateurs, ran with 1 session per day in 2:11)
Maria Curatolo was not able to run under 10'20" in 3000m till when was 26. After she became the National Record Holder of 10000m in 31'05"57 and Marathon in 2:23:47.
FABIO RINALDI (athlete for 4'19" in 1500m while junior, at 28 years ran 13'58" / 28'49" / 61'50" / 2:11: in Marathon, winning Italian Championships)
I think this would be most helpful for the majority of untalented runners on these boards. Did they take much longer to recovery from hard efforts than your elites? Did you they build up to the 30-40k specific marathon pace runs and long MP intervals?
There is a great old "Gimpy" advice thread in which you explained the simple ingredients (long slow, long medium, long fast, tempo, hill fartlek, hill sprints and strides) to master before adding any more complex intensity into training, but perhaps these people did more than those runs to perform as well as they did. Grazie!