I'm actually in a similar boat; taking a stab at my first marathon in Chicago this fall and shooting for 2:40.
Personally, I really don't care for Daniels' marathon plans (his shorter plans are great). I found that his workouts were essentially impossible to complete, and the plan as a whole was pretty boring. I did like having a guide on percentage of maximum mileage to be hitting each week.
Anyway, bumping this up for advice; any recommendations on other plans to look into?
You shouldn't need 100 miles to do this. Pfitz 18/70 should get you there (and somewhat easily I would guesS)
You may or may not need to run those 100 mile weeks. I came out college with bests of low 16 for 5K and a little under 33 for 10K road. Got hurt doing 100s so backed off, but kept running. Getting out of college was a big adjustment so it took some time but I figured things out on my own and did a debut at under 2:36. Nothing fancy and no canned program. Ran 70s and 80s with a weekly long run of 17 to 20 miles, working up to about half the long run distance at marathon pace. Daily runs of 8-12 the rest of the week. Built in 5K to 10K repetition type workouts about every week (800s-1000s at 5K effort one week; miles, 2K, and 2 mile reps the next week). Did two 10K build up/sharpener races and that was it.
That said, a masters friend followed Daniels close to the letter (80-90 miles weeks) and ran 2:40-41 at 45 and said it worked great for him.
You need to respect the marathon. Plenty of people with lower distance credentials to run this time blow up in the actual race. Do not stint on the long runs (20+ miles) with a good deal of miles at marathon pace on the back end.
Don't get too fixated on the 100 mpw number. It's nice for psychological reasons, but IMO, there isn't much difference between a 90 mile week and a 100 mile week.
You should be able to break 2:40 though. I ran 2:43, and my times going in were 16:35 and 35:37.
I used Daniels' plan for my two marathons and I was well prepared come race day. Ran 2:35 and 2:30 as a 42 and 43 year old respectively. Was in 15:20-15:30 5k shape each time. Hit 85 as my peak for the 2:35 and 100 once as my peak for the 2:30. I had always been a relatively low mileage guy, so this was a big step up for me in mileage.
That being said, I did not use the elite plan - I forget what nomenclature he uses for the their plans. Even on the less intense plan, I had trouble finishing some of the workouts late in the cycle. I was old and experienced enough to not let it get me too down and to just focus on he next workout.
I will say that the combined long/tempo runs that he includes and the marathon odes runs were incredibly helpful for me, especially in terms of confidence. When I hit them. By second cycle I knew that last mp run would be damn near impossible.
Good luck.
Now that you're out of college, are you going to start charging to sign autographs?
Is there a rule against attaching a helium balloon to yourself while running a road race?
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
How rare is it to run a sub 5 minute mile AND bench press 225?
Move over Mark Coogan, Rojo and John Kellogg share their 3 favorite mile workouts
Mark Coogan says that if you could only do 3 workouts as a 1500m runner you should do these
Red Bull (who sponsors Mondo) calls Mondo the pole vaulting Usain Bolt. Is that a fair comparison?