Marathon training plan

[April G]

I am looking at running two marathons, one October 10th and Houston on January 30th.  For the upcoming fall marathon, it is an experiment of sorts since I have done speedwork and hill repeats, something I have never done in training before.  I am interesting to see if this benefits me.  If it doesn't help much, I plan to focus more on threshold pace and marathon pace, which led me to a 3:18 and a 15 minute PR at my last marathon.  I seem to do well at 60 miles a week and can get away with just about anything without getting injured, but need to be careful if I climb closer to 70 miles a week.  I have several questions.  1)What time should I aim for in the marathons? I was thinking sub 3:10 in October but would have been fantasizing about dancing close to 3:00 in January.  Am I fooling myself with too ambitious of goals?  I feel these are possible yet challenging if I train right. 2)Two marathons too close together? 3)Any adjustments to the current training plan which basically consists of easy runs, as much mileage as I can squeeze in my busy schedule, and one long run a week.  I also do speedwork once a week and hillwork once a week, although there have been several weeks where I only did one or the other.  I do intend to start closing my long runs with marathon pace miles.  Any input would be much appreciated!  Also, weather conditions while training for January could get very cold and difficult here, which may banish me to the treadmill when I want to hit certain speeds, something to keep in mind when thinking of training.

[Chris M]

Here are my thoughts/ideas

From following your blog I might suggest that you slow down the pace of your easy runs, even if you know you could run faster. That way you save yourself for the workouts where you try to hit marathon paces. And you may do better closer to 70 per week if you slow the pace down a bit.

Two workouts per week might be best, making them longer so you get more recovery time, or two one week three the next?

You did mention how you struggle with maintaining sub 7:00 pace so maybe focusing on that would help things?

Am I right in thinking that you struggled towards the end of the last marathon with lack of carbs to burn? If so then working on endurance and getting the body to store the carbs may be more useful than the speed if the endurance is the weakness, in that case long runs with marathon pace at the end may help.

I don't really have a clue about predicting marathon pace, but it seems the ability to do a half in around 1:25 is needed before being able to run sub 3:00, but I don't know if you ran a half recently?

[April G]

I have wondered if I should make an effort to slow down my other runs, even when I feel good.  I sometimes find this hard to do because I am either pressed for time and am trying to squeeze in as much mileage as possible or I am on a treadmill and just want to get it over with.  You are right on about needing to do some marathon pace mileage--I plan to remedy this starting Saturday.  As for a time goal, I know there will be no sub-3 in October--it's a slightly fantasy-like thought for January.