Taken on a trail cam about half a mile from my house.  This is about 2 miles from my sighting.

If it doesn't show, maybe the link will work.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vMMAuJKEcAwASA4SA

In other news, it seems the airline took it upon themselves to change my flight time, plane and seat for NYC. I was in row 6, now I'm in row 22. I'm losing and haven't even toed the line yet. lol

ROS, does your coach do a mix of distance and time based workouts? I know I've seen you do intervals based on distance, but I also remember a funky long run that was something like 80 minutes out, 70 minutes back. Where I'm going with this.....is it possible that the idea is that as your fitness improves, you are running more in the given times? So maybe initially the 2.5 hour long run is 13 miles, but over time, it becomes 14, then 15, etc. Now, that said, if you feel like you aren't getting an answer or discussion about mileage, then I would think a coaching change makes sense.

One thing I've done is run the report on this forum for the year or whatever time frame you want. First sort it by distance, I like high to low. Then sort it by time. The rank of people changes. This has always put things into perspective for me--how much time are people spending running, not necessarily how far are they running.

 

I remember before my first marathon, people here were telling me Jack Klompus had BQed on his first marathon while his peak week in training had been 55 miles, tops. And people were using him as an example to tell me that mileage doesn't have to be that high.

I did well on my first also while alternating between maybe 50 and 60 mile weeks during peak marathon training.

 

So my opinion is that as a rule of thumb you need 55 mile weeks in your training to run a good marathon. Of course that's just a number, and people are different and all, but you were asking our opinions, and to me 45 is not high enough.

 

That 50-60 mpw range is about I what was running before my first marathon, though I'd been averaging 40-45 mpw for about a year before bumping it up to 50+ mpw in the 5-6 months leading up to the marathon.  That was also with a lot of high quality interval work and a heavy racing schedule. All that resulted in a BQ in my first.

He may or may not have his reasons for not increasing mileage. But you should be able to have discussion about it! If he's keeping it lower for x, y, z then you should know that. If he's just not paying attention to what you've asked for, then that's a different issue.

Right now, you need more effective communication with him.

You guys are all awesome. Thanks to each of you for weighing in about marathon mileage and my coach.

 

I think he really does like to talk (he says he is always open to my feedback and encourages it), but now that I think about it, I've asked him at least a couple of times about increasing my mileage, and he hasn't. Now, granted, maybe he would have for this training cycle after Green Bay Cellcom, but since my iron levels were so low maybe he was giving me a reprieve (as he had given me a reprieve from doing more intense workouts, as I asked him to back off those). But, to play devil's advocate to that point, it is only 3 months between Green Bay and Tunnel. And why wouldn't he have increased my mileage for GB Cellcom. b/c I had talked to him about it in Dec or Jan when I started training. 

 

I don't really listen to my coach either, but he's kind of an idiot.

6 miles. The local deer are now to the point of not caring that people are around. I was less than 10 feet away.

Pleasant Ridge, cool cat. Although I think I'd freak out seeing that on a run.