Hi LR, hobbyjogger from Boston here. I'm looking to get a few thoughts on what an appropriate goal should be for the NYC Marathon.
I don't have a background of running in high school or college. For reference, recent races included this year's Boston in 3:25 after training an average of 50 to low-50s weekly mileage, peaking at 60 (and not really following a strict training plan, just building up mileage with some speed sessions that weren't marathon-specific), and a 5k in 18:53 this past weekend in nice and cool weather, and during my highest mileage week (75).
For NYC I decided to follow Jack Daniel's 2Q, building to roughly 7:00 for T-pace, 7:30 M-pace, and 8:30-9:30 for Easy or recovery runs. I've mostly hit the T workouts, struggled with the M workouts when the weather was hot/muggy, and bumped up my mileage from Boston, averaging in the 60's and peaking at 75. A recent M workout in cool weather went well and felt great, 2 Easy + 10 @ 7:25 + 2 Easy.
My 'A' goal for NY was originally 3:15, a number I arbitrarily picked. My 5k time in JD's VDOT calculator shows a marathon time of 3:01, and McMillan's calculator shows 3:04, but pretty sure those are not realistic since I'm relatively weaker at longer distances. Thoughts on what is a reasonable goal? 3:10 possible?