Now What?

[Spencer]

Now What?
That really is my question, what do I do now? How do I train? How much, how far, how often, what type of training do I use? I ran my first marathon in 06 (SLC) then stopped running, I started running aging to train for the 07 SLC marathon, then stopped running. I started training for the 09 SLC marathon in Aug of 08. All three marathons I have used the training program found on Marathontraining.com  it seemed as good as any. I have not varied my training much ie: no speed work, I just get out and run.  SO NOW AFTER RUNNING THE  09 SLC MARATHON I WANT TO NOT ONLY STAY ON TOP OF MY TRAINING BUT PROGRESS ON FROM HERE. HOW DO I DO THAT? 
My Goal :
Is to Qualify for the Boston, then just keep running long term. The Boston qualifying time for me that is a finishing time of 3:20. I would like to qualify during the California International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento Dec 6th 2009. But I just got into St George so maybe I could do it there.
Do I run other marathons between now and then?  Or do I just train (daily running) I really have no clue as to how to maintain what I have built for myself. I am like the dog that finally catches the car, now what do I do with it? I have always ran with a goal in mind and a schedule taped to my wall so I would know what I was running every day. Currently I have nothing taped to my wall. Its just not right.
My Stats:
I will be 44 in a few weeks; 155 lbs (could lose 5 if I ate better) Current training pace is an easy pace of 8:50 ish for 8 miles a day. 8 miles is not a challenge but as I looked over my millage build up I realized that the most miles that I actually did was a 37 mile week. I did not want to push the weekly mile way beyond what I have previous done. I figured I would start with 8 miles 5 days a week and build up from there, as my body lets me. I joined fastrunningblog a month ago but I plugged in all my training that I have done since last August, so you can see what I have been doing, most of those miles have been ran at a 8:45- 9 min mile pace, of course when I started last August I was running about a 10 Min Mile pace.

Running accomplishments:
SLC Marathon 06 (4:39:26), SLC Marathon 07 (4:14:41),   Riverton City 1/2 Marathon 09 (1:49:26)
SLC Marathon 09 (3:56:10)  When I finished the Riverton city I had a lot left in me and wished I had ran faster. SLC 09 my friend pulled me at the first because I always start slow. We separated about mile 11 and I caught back up to him at mile 15, I waited for him at mile 21 and again in liberty park, we decide to go our separate ways after liberty park, my second fastest mile of the marathon was the last mile at 8:14.

[Jon Allen]

Take a look at this:

http://asksasha.com/Running/Top-10-Training-Mistakes.html

My responses- if you want to BQ this fall/winter, I would not recommend doing another marathon before then.  Do 10k's, 1/2 marathons, and long runs, but no marathons.  It won't help you.

To get faster, the best thing you can do is run consistently and increase your miles.  If you can do 8 miles/day everyday, do it.  And add long runs.  Don't just increase your total mileage, though- slowly add on using some reasonable measure (i.e. the 10% rule, etc).  Looking at your blog, you ran 10 days in Feb, 14 in Mar, and 14 in Apr.  In other words, you only ran 33-50% of the available days.  To get faster, you need to be more consistent!

As for pace, don't push the pace much while you are increasing your mileage.  You will naturally get faster.  If you want some speed variety in your workouts, you could certainly add a reasonable tempo or fartlek every so often.  And do some strides every now and then.  But increase your miles and consistency, and you will see improvements in your marathon time.

[Jeff Linger]

To follow up on Jonathon's comments. Take your current weekly average mileage and string it out over 6 days/week. Do not run the exact same number of miles day after day, your body will make adaptations to this, but not the sort of adaptations you could be making if you did something like this: Average Weekly Mileage 40 miles ... 7 (M), 5 (T), 7 (W), 6 (Th), 5 (F), 10 (St), Rest (Sn). When I'm in the thick of things and getting 60-65 mpw in I usually like to go 10-12, 7-8, 10-12, 7-8, 6, 15-20 as an example. After you've gotten your current weekly mileage strung out over 6 days of running for a couple weeks, use an approximate 10% increase every 3 weeks. I've generally found that people can usually handle 10% increases every 2 weeks upwards of 40-45 miles and then should switch over to increases every 3 weeks until you reach 55-60, at which point every 4 weeks isn't necessarily a bad idea. Allow your legs to be the judge of when you can increase your miles. If they feel heavy during the run and you frequently feel tired each morning you're probably not ready for the increase. Its also not a bad idea to employ decrease mileage weeks once a month or so. Until you've got your base built up to 55-65 mpw, I wouldn't worry about tempo work. When you're at that point, come back to us for more on cruise intervals, tempo runs, and other Aerobic Threshold/Lactic Threshold work.

[Spencer]

Thank you both for your guidance.  My take away from what you have said is:

1)   Be more consistent by running 6 days a week.
2)   Don’t  worry about my speed at this time just do the miles.
3)   My base miles is currently at 40 mpw, build up at 10% increments every three weeks. So the first week is June I should add 4 miles to my run = 44 mpw. Stay there for three week and then increase my weekly miles to 48.5 ish and so on.
4)   Vary my daily mileage, like:  7 (M), 5 (T), 7 (W), 6 (Th), 5 (F), 10 (St), Rest (Sn).
5)   Listen to my body.
6)   Lighten my weekly mileage one week out of the month, letting my body recover.
7)   Don’t run a full marathon, Do run 10K’s, ½ marathons.

Again thank you for the support and direction, If I missed something important let me know.  I will build my own excel spread sheet that displays this type of build up schedule so I can hang it on my wall, and follow it.

Thanks
Spencer

[Sasha Pachev]

Spencer - good summary. Follow that and you will find yourself running faster.

[Spencer]

I just want everyone to know I QUALIFIED FOR BOSTON (3:20:21) at the St. George Marathon on Saturday.
Thank you all for your advice.
I applied my faith in your experience and tossed out my previous training program, and yours worked. I shed 36 minutes from my SLC marathon last April. I wish I would have been able to do a little better with my training in the last 6 weeks but I just had too many family, work, school, church things going on.
This is a success story and its mine and yours.

Thank you Fast Running Blog.
 

[Sasha Pachev]

Congratulations!