Snowden, again we are speaking about two different realities. I already explained the preparation for an amateur nothing has to share with the preparation for a top runner. It's like going to school : also if the phylosophy is the same in the primary and in University (in both the cases the "users" are there for learning), when you are in University you don't repeat again, and forever, what you learnt when 6 years old (but this is the base for your further evolution).
When you speak about somebody having 23' of PB in 5 km, of course that person doesn't have any aerobic consistency, and needs AEROBIC FIRST. But put in your mind that person NEVER can become an athlete with good results.
Since I'm a coach with the passion to investigate the human limits, I'm not interested in training of normal persons, about which we know everything. Of course, if we want to move a PB from 23' to 20', we don't need anything complicated, and AEROBIC FIRST can also become AEROBIC ONLY. Or do you think a coach must have specific knowledge for moving a runner from 23' to 20' ?
The fact is you trend to generalize the training process, not moving from "easy" to "whole", but giving the most importance to EASY only. This is like to say that for a scientist the most important thing is the ability in reading and writing, not WHAT you are able to read and to write. Sorry, I can't share with you this vision of training, typically amateurial and very far from the reality.
Of course, when I speak of Kenyan runners, I say they are already at 90% of their potentiality when they start with me a systematic training.
Of course, when I was the Italian Head Coach of middle distances and marathon together with Luciano Gigliotti, we started with athletes at 60% of their potentiality, and had to use a longer period of building-up before going in the full specialisation.
But NEVER we were interested in joggers, this is not something regarding any type of coach. For this kind of runners, the schedules you can find in specific magazines can work very well, and we don't need anything complicated for enhancing the aerobic level, practically nonexistent.
Anyway, when you speak of African runners is clear you don't know anything about the reality in those Countries, and you use stereotypes having nothing to do with the reality.
In Kenya and Ethiopia there is a training system, also where there are no coaches. There is a basic knowledge about the principles of training very much higher than in Western Countries, where people approach training without any previous knowledge, because the ambience is very retrograde. Running is not one of the most natural and well known activity in our society, SO RUNNERS IN OUR COUNTRIES FIND DIFFICULTY IN HAVING SOME PRACTICAL INFO ABOUT TRAINING.
This is not the case in Kenya. In every village there is some top athlete, that had at the base a Kenyan coach following the programs of some Western Coach (may be Italian or English or American). The circulation of the methodological informations is very much more fast and deep than in our Countries, because there running is very much more important and more professional.
If you speak with a top Marathon runner from Kenya, he can explain you, very much better than every physiological book, HOW every type of workout can work for his body, ANd HE CAN EXPLAIN WHY THE SHAPE IS GROWING WHEN THERE IS HIGH SPECIFIC INTENSITY, AND HOW USELESS IS FOR BUILDING UP THE PERFORMANCE A VERY SLOW GENERAL AEROBIC ACTIVITY.
He can also explain you that, sometimes, they need to run very slow, BECAUSE AFTER THIS THEY FEEL BETTER.
But this is not because they are born knowing everything, or because a natural activity can give you all the methodological informations for developing your career.
This is because the circulation of right informations is very much more deep than in our Countries.
And they don't spend the most part of time speaking about phylosophy of training, periodisation, VO2 max, Lydiard, and how to move from 23' to 20'.
They RUN.