The rise of East African dominance in distance running with Kenya's Keino in the 60s and 70s and the Ethiopians in 1980 Olympic 5k and onward is due their patient and intelligent approach. They build a base of easy mileage for years before doing intense workouts that are seen and mimicked without the same success. For example, see this article
https://www.scienceofrunning.com/2011/03/kenenisa-bekeles-workout-how-do-we-get.html?v=47e5dceea252
and quote from it:
"Once the components are developed, then you can start working on putting them together. Often, in the U.S. when athletes get to HS, they go straight into trying to do high volumes of very hard/fast work. Essentially, trying to put the pieces together before we actually have the pieces.
If we look at the East Africans you can make a case that they do a wonderful inadvertent job of the above. How? Well, they spend their childhood running to and from school, with some research pointing towards most international elites running around 10km a day as they ran to and from school each day. That takes care of your general aerobic abilities and strengthening the body’s structure. If you realize that most of this is done barefoot or in some really light shoe, you realize that now the foot /calf/Achilles complex is simply going through a long terms strengthening program, and their biomechanics are likely optimized. And they do it all without expending the nervous energy of thinking they are doing “actual training.”
It’s only after 10yrs or so of doing this, that they then begin the formal training. We could learn a thing or two from this model."
In the high school and college system we are doing elite runners a disservice by trying to capitalize on their potential immediately. When great talents are identified, they need to be brought along slowly with aerobic endurance for as long as it takes before performance plateau. Then, and only then, should more intense sessions be administered sparingly and conservatively--just enough to improve performance and no more. This should still be done in a periodized approach allowing a period of rest at the end of the season and then a long aerobic buildup until performances plateau on again.