HRE wrote:
A friend of mine was in the top 10 at Boston in the mid-70s doing a 20 miler on Sundays and two or three 10 milers during the week. That was all but he did the runs pretty quickly.
A few years before that he did 2:16 on a similar routine but on 5-6 days a week. A few years after his Boston race and following a long layoff he ran 2:29 on a Sunday 20 and either nothing else or with a Wednesday 10.
Similarly, I had a friend who had a marathon PR in the mid 2:20s. After a few years of sporadic running he trained for a marathon with 3 runs per week.
20 miles easy
20 miles steady (maybe 10-20 seconds/mile slower than race pace)
speed work (something like 5 x 1 mile was typical for him).
On this training he ran within 5 minutes of his PR.
