I have come across a few stories over the years of successful runners who were mediocre at best prior to changing to a non-traditional training approach. Conventional theory states that one must do mileage with intervals/hill reps/hard fartleks to succeed. Some runners fail to arrive anywhere near their potential with such an approach. I recall one runner in particular who dropped his time in the 8km cross-country from 25:45 to nearly 24 flat in a year by changing to no interval work and moderately-fast 10 milers every day, no more, no less. It was the Norm Green approach, a pastor turned runner in his late 40s up to 60 that tore apart the master's road circuit. Green ran 10 miles per day, 6 days per week, all of it about 40-50 seconds per mile slower than 10k race pace, never slower. It is an interesting situation, I think. One guy that I know ran 24:30s for 5 mile xcountry, 14:10 for 3 miles indoors, and raced very competitively in championship races despite running just 35 miles per week, the same 5-mile route every single day at a solid effort, typically about 5:20-5:40, never slower; no interval work, ever. He had injured his feet by stepping on broken glass as a youth and could not run far without pain, nor could he tolerate running in spikes. He avoided the track unless he was racing because the turns hurt his feet. Have you ever come across runners who succeed with unusual approaches?