Cotton sh*t said Parker runs like a dumbas* and also just ran 2:14.
which has nothing to do with the point that I made.
his 5000m and 10,000m pr's are significantly faster than the OP's, and he has run under 2:18 for the marathon. in fact, EVERY American who has run under 2:18 this year has significantly faster 5000m and 10,000m pr's than the OP.
there is a clear, historically proven, and clearly understood relationship between time over shorter distances and performance at longer distances. the faster you are at 400m the faster you will tend to be at 800m. the faster you are at 800m, the faster you will tend to be at the mile, and so on. anyone who needs to have this explained to them is either asleep or 5-years-old.
men who run under 2:18 for the marathon tend, generally, (there will be exceptions) to run 5000m and 10,000m considerably faster than the OP. of the 15 Americans who have run under 2:18 this year (I don't have a 10,000m time for Given Wilkerson) they have an AVERAGE marathon time of 2:14:58, an AVERAGE 5000m time of 13:57.95 and an AVERAGE 10,000m time of 28:51.62.
this clearly suggests that pr's of 15:00 / 31:30 are not sufficient, and that the OP is delusional if he thinks he can get under 2:18 without a considerable investment in his performance at shorter distances.
name / marathon / 5000m / 10,000m
Galen Rupp 2:06:07 12:58.90 26:44.36
Elkanah Kibet 2:13:35 13:44.59 28:22.31
Aaron Braun 2:13:16 13:20.25 27:41.54
Jonas Hampton 2:14:19 14:17.55 29:53.44
Parker Stinson 2:14:29 13:31.70 27:54.98
Ahmed Osman 2:14:40 13:58.20 28:41.04
Fernando Cabada 2:15:00 13:34.92 28:25.62
Jeffrey Eggleston 2:15:44 14:22.05 29:42.95
Given Wilkerson 2:15:52 14:11.34
Brendan Martin 2:16:26 14:06.03 29:43.27
Tyler McCandless 2:16:37 14:26.79 29:15.73
Tyler Jermann 2:16:39 14:56.38 30:36.21
Andrew Epperson 2:17:01 14:09.02 29:04.39
Alan Peterson 2:17:15 14:10.08 29:04.02
Andy Wacker 2:17:34 13:41.45 28:52.81
I don't care if you want to disagree with this, but just claiming that some dude is an ultra runner and therefore 2:18 is "easy" is completely missing the point. it's "easy" if you have the core ability to run 5000m under 14:00 and 10,000m under 29:00. do that first, and the other stuff falls into place.
cheers.