I have been reading Hanson's marathon plan. I'm currently training for a marathon in a couple weeks, this is my first and i'm shooting for anything under 2:30. I'll have averaged 80-85 mpw for the last 10 weeks before the marathon, and my half PR is just below 69 minutes.
I'm already looking at how I want to train differently for my next one, which will either be this fall, or next spring. I have been reading through Hanson’s and really like their philosophy, however I am wondering if I should plan on a schedule that is closer to their advanced marathon plan, or follow something closer to their 9 day cycle and try to mirror a plan after Luke Humprey’s training plan in the Appendix. I would am for my mileage to be slightly higher then my current training cycle and shoot to average 100 mpw. I’ve been this high before for ~10 week blocks at a time, so I’m not concerned about the mileage. But I am wondering whether the 7 day cycle or 9 day cycle would be a better fit at this mileage? In addition, I’ve been doing most of my workouts at a MP of 5:30-5:35 in this cycle, and the workouts have gone really well so far. I’m not sure how I’d hold up if I adjusted my MP to 5:20-5:25 for the next cycle. If I attempted my second one in the fall, i think i'd have a 1 month break after the first before having to jump into the next 15 week training block. Is this to short of a time in between? The other option I'm looking at is running some shorter races in the fall and focusing on a half marathon, and trying to lower my half pr a bit. Then focus on a marathon in the Spring.