[angrysaki]

I agree that HIIT is not some magical training methodology, and that elite endurance athletes do not train by only doing HIIT.

My guess is that if you are only willing to train in the 3h/week range, maybe HIIT is your best bet.

Steven Seiler has studied how most elite endurance athletes train, and found that they generally follow a polarized training model which is ~80% of sessions at low intensity (long endurence runs/rides/etc...) and 20% at high intensity.

http://bikepartsreview.com/Polarized-training-for-cyclists.h...