Can speed practice alone help long distance endurance?

I'm still open to all input--experiences will be more helpful than theories, so if anyone out there can relate to their actually experience it'll be great. :) well then for ground evidence like we sometimes like to call this, I am sorry for cross-referring to an other forums but there's a specific thread that was opened few months back related to this specific question. So far, most campers in this thread seem to have had a very cool and refreshing experience. There you go. 26 pages of ground evidence pointing in the direction that up to a certain level, speed development seems to have a more favorable impact on performances over longer distances than working on endurance per se. www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php To summarize the whole thread very rapidly. Take someone who's best 1500 is let's say... 24min flat. I do not care at this point about this guy's performance over the 100m. Take the guy, put him on sole speed development until the 100m comes close to 1min flat. All 25/50/100/200m based training. Could take 2 or 3 years. No endurance work at all. Once this guy is on 1min flat, his 1500 will no longer be 24min flat, in fact it will be difficult for this guy to swim that slow. The relation between one's best 100m and performances over longer duration events is very strong. Most (if not all) good sprinters I have coached in the past would probably outperform most endurance specialists on this site here. But when your best 100m is down to 50sec flat, let me tell you just one thing, you book 20min for 1500 in warmups (these guys have hard time swimming slower than 1:20 pace) and 18H45 without even reaching your threshold yet. How strong of a relation is that? Another solid example? I saw a 100m backstroke specialist being turned into a 40k marathon specialist in a matter of few months. That was done to allow him to earn some money during FINA World Cup events (professional events that is). Not sure you could turn a running sprinter into a marathoner within few months.

I'm still open to all input--experiences will be more helpful than theories, so if anyone out there can relate to their actually experience it'll be great. :) well then for ground evidence like we sometimes like to call this, I am sorry for cross-referring to an other forums but there's a specific thread that was opened few months back related to this specific question. So far, most campers in this thread seem to have had a very cool and refreshing experience. There you go. 26 pages of ground evidence pointing in the direction that up to a certain level, speed development seems to have a more favorable impact on performances over longer distances than working on endurance per se. www.tritalk.co.uk/.../viewtopic.php To summarize the whole thread very rapidly. Take someone who's best 1500 is let's say... 24min flat. I do not care at this point about this guy's performance over the 100m. Take the guy, put him on sole speed development until the 100m comes close to 1min flat. All 25/50/100/200m based training. Could take 2 or 3 years. No endurance work at all. Once this guy is on 1min flat, his 1500 will no longer be 24min flat, in fact it will be difficult for this guy to swim that slow. The relation between one's best 100m and performances over longer duration events is very strong. Most (if not all) good sprinters I have coached in the past would probably outperform most endurance specialists on this site here. But when your best 100m is down to 50sec flat, let me tell you just one thing, you book 20min for 1500 in warmups (these guys have hard time swimming slower than 1:20 pace) and 18H45 without even reaching your threshold yet. How strong of a relation is that? Another solid example? I saw a 100m backstroke specialist being turned into a 40k marathon specialist in a matter of few months. That was done to allow him to earn some money during FINA World Cup events (professional events that is). Not sure you could turn a running sprinter into a marathoner within few months.