First, a quick background/intro:
I am a passionate runner who dreams of making it to the elite level. I have tried to put work to my dreams by training hard for the last 10+ years [I am in my early 20's]. I was a national level swimmer as a teenager< running on the side. Around age 15 running took over as my main sport--the one I loved more and came more naturally to me. I started out running for my college, but didn't end up competing due to chronic injuries that I struggled to recover from. I did a lot of training while injured, but have only been running again for about 2 years.
I have found that I am in great shape, but still juggle a susceptibility to injury. Furthermore, while I train 2-3 hours a day, run 70+ mpw, and am incredibly slow. I ran my first marathon in 3:43 and rarely run training runs under 9mpm. I have had several more advanced runners point out that somewhat at my "level of training" should be a sub-3 hour marathoner.
I am now preparing for an October marathon, and then plan to go back and focus on some shorter distances [10K and 5K]. After peaking at 100mpw this summer, I started to really struggle with a lot of leg pain slowing me down and fatigue in general. still, after 2 weeks at 50-75mpw I am running even slower than I was at the beginning of the summer, and having more injury pain than I have in months.
In face, I am now debating cutting out all but my key runs and cross training, after being barely able to walk after my recovery run this morning due to what I fear may be another pelvic stress fracture.
All of this leads me to wonder--did I increase my running too fast?
I thought that being in good enough shape to get back into high mileage made it okay. But something seems off.
How would you advise me to build my mileage? Can I make quick increases since I have kept up high levels of training over the years, even with inconsistent running? Or should I use a gradual progression nonetheless?
The bottom line question:
How can I get myself to elite level training--but in a way that leads to strong and speedy performance, not gimping slowly through the miles?