The one thing that concerns me about the efficacy of training plans published in books... is who they're aimed at. Considering most people are in the 3-ish range, I assume most of these books are aimed at 2:45 to 3:00 marathoners AT BEST. If someone put out a book on how to OTQ, the audience would be limited!
Last year I ran a 2:37 basically off of Trail 50k training with 6-weeks after the 50k. For those 6 weeks, I was following FIRST program from "Run Less Get Faster"... except I ran 6 days a week and ran the non-workout days as recovery runs. For anyone who's not familiar with it, the plan in that book has you doing a track Vo2 Max workout, a tempo run, and a goal MP relative long run each week. The long runs stay the same pace for a few weeks as the mileage of the LR increases and then the mileage drops, pace increases, mileage increases, repeat. I basically did the last 6 weeks of FIRST maxing out with 73 miles and my 50k training before that maxed out at 75 miles with 6000' of climb.
The 2:37 was a total surprise (previous PR was 2:56), my goal for that race was 2:45 and I had a 3:00 negative split.
With all that said, I'd like to get closer to 2:30. Maybe sub 3:32-ish. I was going to do Pfitzinger's 85 mpw plan... but am worried that all it's not built for that fast of a race.
I appreciate any recommendations of what PRs were achieved with the Pfitx 85mpw plan around my goal.