2:45 marathon goal?

I would need to know a little bit more about your training coming into the 2:50 than "65 mpw." Also, a little more about whether you recover well or are prone to injuries. If you have already been running 1000M - 1600M intervals, hard tempo runs, and long runs every week or most weeks and you achieved 2:50 I'd say 2:45 is an appropriate goal. If you haven't been doing this type of harder training and instead have been running mostly mileage than you may have more upside than you think. Your age is a non-factor at this point as at 29 you should be able to recover as quickly as you did when younger. 2:40 may not be an unrealistic goal

Depends on your response to training and how your progress it, but 2:45 could be a good starting-point goal.

I think, though, it’s best go into a training cycle with a thought about what your ultimate time goal might be, but not to set a firm goal until 6-8 weeks out from race day (which will then have to be revisited based on the conditions on race day). Who knows, you might surprise yourself with a great response to your training and realize sub-2:40 is a good goal!

Thanks and yeah - all completely makes sense.

This past cycle I was doing long runs 16+ every weekend (besides on some down weeks or the hard half Fitness TT). Ended up having 3 runs of 20-22 and another two 18s with some fast finishes and moderate efforts thrown in there. My other big run I added into this cycle was a mid-week long run 13-15 every week. I’ll be honest I don’t do hard track work (hated 800 repeat type stuff back in the day). Also do some HM type tempo work. The 22s definitely helped me in this race as was finally able to run even (actually negative split 1:26 - 1:24:30) and not just bang against a wall at 20-21.

Have been good in the injury/recovery front for the most part which has allowed me to mostly stick to the weekly plan. In the fall after my last marathon tried to start adding in a few small doubles but pushed me real close to injury/bad recovery so I backed off doubles the past 3 months once I got into the more race specific cycle.

Thanks and I agree and still soaking in this big PR - I just am starting to mentally think about hey are these drops likely more going to be 1-2 minute drops on a perfect day or can you still be making these 5-7 min drops every 6-8 months which is what I’ve been having. I’m not dumb on the diminishing returns aspect (like in HS of how many “pretty good” 16:30 min 5k guys vs 15:30

Very few people "like" intervals. You certainly have the long run covered, your endurance is probably off the charts. I would argue that you do need to introduce some running that is significantly faster than your race pace to further develop both running economy at speed and Max VO2. When you include repeat 1000M or Miles into your training what it does for you is it makes running at 6:00 or 5:45/mile pace easier. Another way to introduce a little speed into your workouts would be to include barefoot 100M strides either before or after your workout. The way I do these is to gradually build up so that you start at a jog and only run fast for maybe 20 or 30 yards at the end and then turn around - barefoot in order to build up all the little bits and pieces in your feet.