I am planning on running my first road race at the end of the year, but I'm unsure how I should train and what race to train for. I'm 21 and was a 25:00 8k/15:00 5k guy in college. Injuries and the covid lockdown sidelined me for a lot of that time, so my goal for the next half-year is to keep it simple, run consistently, avoid injuries, and plan everything around that one race.
I was running 50mpw during the latter half of 2020 but cut it down to 10-15mpw during 2021. During college I got over 100mpw, probably averaged 90mpw. I get into aerobic shape pretty quickly so I was planning on getting up to 70-80mpw by September and holding, but I'm not sure if that is too ambitious. At peak fitness, I consistently run 16-20 mile long runs around 5:5X pace, so my tentative goal is to get in that type of aerobic shape and run either low 2:30s for a marathon or low 1:10s for half. I really want to run the full marathon, but I also don't want over-train to get injured or under-train and hit the wall in the race. Half-marathon is the safer bet but the marathon seems more fun.