[rojeee]

Good question. Haven't done a cooper test but from my pace duration curve I'd be looking at a touch over 4km for 12 minutes. The calculator I used online said my VO2max would be 78, which can't be right. I'm one of those athletes with good running economy and a high lactate threshold but comparitvely lower VO2max. I've always been worse than sprinting and at shorter distances than my peers but I find longer distances easier.

I'm sorry I can't find the paper which discusses VO2max and how it could potentially fall with lots of low aerobic training e.g. aerobic threshold running. The idea of the paper was to show that training to improve physiological markers like VO2max didn't necessarily translate to better race performance and infact sometimes training to improve the marker actually decreased it... One of the things they noticed was that certain marathon runners actually had a fall in VO2max but ended up with faster race times, illustrating that race performance is determined by factors other than VO2max.

Annoying, if I find it, I'll reply to your comment with the link. It's just one paper though, probably something in it but it's definitely not the consensus view of exercise physiologists.