I'm no running expert, but I don't think
HIIT is the key to your distance running problems. A friend of mine who is a distance runner hooked me up with some basics that drastically brought my 3 mile time down. The jist was to have 2 alternating workouts, a pace workout and a speed workout.
The pace workout consisted of a about 3 miles of intervals of running at a target speed for 4 times as long (distance) as I would run at a recovery speed. For example, I might run 400 meters at 8.5 MPH, then run 100 meters at 5MPH to recover.
The speed workouts were similar. I'd run 3 miles of intervals running above my target speed 2 times as long as I would run at a recovery rate. For exmaple, I might run 200 meters at 9.5 MPH, then run 100 meters at 5 MPH.
Like I said, I'm no expert, but this helped me a great deal. Good luck.