When Chris Wardlaw (Mona's coach) was living in HK, I had a chance to chat with him about training, and his ideas about "hard" work and "easy" work. It was interesting. He sent me a +20 page document w/ workout approaches for runners of all levels. I have never seen anything like it - a novice and a pro would both find it very useful.
Points:
1. The long run matters. If you can only do 1 run a week, do the long run. Do 2/week if you can
2. Volume of "fast" work is not that important. 4x800 or 6x400 was often cited. Chris said he thought 8-10x1k etc was needlessly tiring.
3. "Mona Fartlek" is something is named for 1 athlete, but can/should be tailored. Fartlek is by its very nature subjective, so the athlete should play around with it.
the fact that as recently as 2004 Mona finished 30th in World XC (19yrs after his first appearance in 1985), despite a long career of marathoning (14yrs at the intl level), is indicative of his talent, but just as importantly, the restraint that a system like Chris' can impose.