Hello - Hopefully some of the more experienced runners here can give me some advice, and for all the young guys this will be a cautionary tale of how quickly you can get slow once life catches up with your running.
Here's my story: I started running in my late twenties, and from the beginning focussed on marathons. I had no background running track, and I've never had much speed over shorter distances. Worked hard, improved steadily for 3-4 years, plateaued at a level where I stayed for 2-3 years. Ran 12 marathons in six years, best was 2:33.
Since my last marathon 18 months ago, I've had a string of injuries and a major loss of motivation. I also changed careeer and became a father for the first time, so I have less time for running and also my time is much less flexible - travelling to race or train is much less feasible.
Now I find my motivation returning, and I'm interested in running a marathon next spring. I'd really like to run under 3 hours, and preferably a bit quicker than that.
Right now I'm running about 50-60 miles a week, although it's all pretty slow - 7 or 8 mins / mile, nothing at all faster than that.
In the past I ran 2:50 for marathon off that mileage, although I was racing a lot and running regular track workouts, which I'm not doing at all at the moment.
My weekly schedule is to run to and from work mon-fri, three miles each way. Then a 15-20 mile long run at the weekend, plus ideally another 7-10 miler.
I now find that on a 20 mile run, I tend to die badly in the last couple of miles - I guess this is because it's so much further than most of the runs I'm doing.
Here's my concern : I find that I have no speed at all. I went to the track a month ago, warmed up thoroughly, ran 200m "fast" - 45 seconds - ran another one harder - 40 seconds - then ran an all-out 400m - 90 seconds - ouch - I felt like I was running in slow motion.
What's a good way to ease back into running track workouts? Obviously it's going to take several months for any speed to return. I'm willing to be patient, my main concern is not to injure myself by trying to do to much too soon.
Any advice much appreciated -