Goal is a spring marathon below six minute pace. My pr is 2:38 from three years back. I ran 2:43 last year and 2:44 two years ago. This will be a much longer buildup because I started running 110+ mile weeks around the same time at the end of September but will be continuing to March instead of racing by this time.
Typical week has been something like this (doubles on weekdays, singles on weekends):
14 either 5M fartlek in 31:45-32:30 consisting of 2-3 min hard and 30 s easy, a fair # of hills in this;
or track work like 5xmile@ HM pace on 400j;
or 6M easy, then eat and w/u before 5M TMill tempo at 5:12 on 0% grade or 5:24 on 1% grade.
Obviously, the treadmill workout will look out of place compared to the other workouts. I can run a lot quicker when I am forced to do it and I have had few training partners to run with this fall.
T 16 run to and from work easy, meaning about 7-7:30 pace
W 15 track/fartlek or TMill tempo
Th 16 same as Tuesday, sometimes a bit faster
F 15 5M fartlek like Monday's or easy miles
Sa 21 1M w/u then usually, first timed 10M progresses from 8 to 7 min pace, avg maybe 7:40, then next 10M at 6:30 down to 6:00. The long run quality has been a major weakness for me in previous training buildups. Many so far have been in the 2:20s overall, best two were 2:12 and 2:08, which was 68/60. I didn't do any long runs near as fast in most of my previous marathon training periods. However, the goal is always to be able to run the last 13M at MP by three weeks to go before the marathon, so the 2:08 (68/60) was way, way ahead of usual.
Su 16 easy in 2:00-2:10
Often I will get 4-8 miles per week slow with kids riding next to me.
Always looking for ideas to improve training. One workout I've done in the past is an 8M tempo with half at MP and half at 1/2MP. I also will do quicker track repeats of 200s and 400s sometimes to make 1/2 MP seem a lot easier.