My college hired a former Jamaican 400m runner to coach XC (at a school with no track team). He told us, since an 8K was 20X the 400m distance, he would simply multiply his college training by 20.
After 7 days we staged a mutiny, I challenged him to call other college coaches and if he found one that thought that was a good idea, we would go along. 2 days later he shows up with a copy of "Training Young Distance Runners" in his hand from Barnes and Noble and would simply give us the workouts in the back. SMH
Epilogue: I qualified for Nats that year...go figure.