OK here is the deal. I have a decent boys high school xc team. They are experienced 11th and 12th graders. I was planning on having them do some high mileage with long runs (12-14 milers) and long tempos which I felt would have given them a great aerobic benefit for later on in the season. As it turned out, they came into the season this week out of shape not training much this past summer. Should I scrap the longer runs and train them shorter say short tempos and VO2 work, like 8x800 hard or stick with my original plan. The main question is, will sticking with the original plan and focusing on long hard distance be beneficial by late October, or is it too late for that, and I should just focus on shorter fast running. The race distance is 5k.