My $0.02 -- take it without inflation... If your goal is strictly marathon speed, I would look at how you are doing your long runs. If you are looking at overall speed to use in other races, then the shorter intervals (tempo, VO2, etc.) are very helpful. And I would agree that 8/mi. is too slow for you... Going under the assumption that you are looking strictly at marathon speed, I think that pace runs and fast finish long runs will get you where you want to be. For the pace runs, I have always found that a two mile warm-up and cool-down with a good distance at marathon pace is a great workout to build confidence in the pace without taxing you so much that you kill the rest of the week. So, you could do two miles at 10:00/mi., 10 @ 8:45/mi. and finish with two miles at 10:00/mi. This is a very nice 14 mile run. Another favorite of mine is the fast finish long run. This one is a bit taxing, so do plan to have an easier week following it. For me, I like to do these on my longest runs of the training cycle. My last one before a marathon would be a 22 mile run with the first 17 being at my normal long run pace. Then I do 4 miles at marathon pace. The last mile, I try to pick it up to half marathon pace. If you can pull this one off, the marathon should be a breeze. A wonderful confidence builder!!!

What has worked for me matches pretty closely with HermosaBoy...although I don't pretend to know a whole lot about the science behind it, what worked for me in my last (successful) attempt at a PR was to do only two big workouts a week (as recommended by Tinman) - I would do one as a longish tempo near Marathon pace - and then long run with fast finish. I didn't do any running below marathon pace at all. Hope this helps - as I said, I'm more of a "run by feel" guy than a science guy - and we're all an experiment of one! ray

This is a great thread!

Of all the different activities you could possibly do to prepare for a marathon, build a base, run intervals, run tempos etc., the most important and BY FAR, is mileage base. You want to run a fast marathon? Get yourself up to 65 mpw and hold it there til you know your body can stand it. Only then should you be thinking about adding in the other activities. Spareribs

But what about those of us who cannot sustain 65 mpw without injury? As this is a Master's forum, I would think that this is not uncommon. We all have our pet peeves, and mine is dictating some arbitrary weekly mileage as being "right" for successful marathon training. Perhaps a better statement would be to build to your own safe base mileage and then add in speedwork of some sort. Again, being cautious of injury, my risk-benefit analysis pushes me towards embedded MP miles in long runs, progression runs and tempo miles. The risk of interval training, for me personally, is not worth the marginal benefit for marathon distance.

I'm somewhat similar and high mileage just hasn't worked for me -

But don't you run like 80 miles/week? I certainly would consider that high mileage.

I've never done more than 53 mpw, and that was just three times... I can't do 65 mpw either, PDR. I think my hips would pack up and leave me. I also, from a real-life standpoint, don't have the time. BUT, I do love running marathons, and I have sort of "plateaued" in a sense. I do keep racking up BQ times, but can't seem to break that 3:45 barrier. How important is that to me? Well, it is, but not worth injury. I'll stick with tempo runs and the fast-finish long runs, and also more MP miles. I can see that I'm gonna get my marathon travel wings clipped here pretty quickly in 2008 (financially...), so the ones I do will be fun, interesting and challenging... but not necessarily fast. Holly, I'm so glad you posted this question, this thread is truly one of the gems for me... I rarely save threads, but this one's a keeper. And Ilene... I'm so glad you chipped in...!

Hi Tall, rbbmoose, hemosaboy, I would love to see your training logs. I am very interested in this quality vs. quantity subject, and it would help to see the details of your runs. I am doing FIRST-like training now...

ALL RIGHT LISTEN UP!!! That was just to get your attention. The original question was what kind of speedwork should I do, from a woman in her 40's running her 2nd (or 3rd if you count that strange one) marathon, and I took exception to the advice she was given, in her 3rd week of her plan, which we don't know about, regarding doing track work at VO2 max speed. There have been many useful additions to this thread, but nowhere does anyone demonstrate that I am wrong, including that troublemaker Tallrunner, who could run up Everest if he felt like it. Let's talk about this some more. Number one is always miles, always was, always will be. No one has argued that point. If you have had some success running fewer miles, it doesn't mean you had an optimal performance. You would probably have run better were you able to run more miles or if you were inclined to train that way. That's you Tall, and probably Erika as well. PDR and Ray, I quite agree. Last year I ran two weeks of 60 mpw and I know how I felt. I couldn't do that through a sustained marathon training program, but given my choice of miles over track, I will take miles. Ray, even though you follow the basic Tinman (two big workouts a week, which include tempo or some other quality work), which is the same as my program, you only learned how much you could tolerate when you got hurt after some super workouts (pretty long runs with some quality miles within them). I bet you now know what is the knife-edge of training for you. And incidentally, I am glad you are back and healthy again. As for PDR's post, this is important. Many, many people cannot sustain a 65 mpw regimen. So we have to do what we can to train. All I am saying is that if you COULD do 65 per week, you would have a much better chance of running your best performance. I bet Holly could get her miles up there. She runs 5 days a week and does core the other two days. MCSolar is in another group of strong runners, and I am including Tall in here too. Once you are up to a very high level of training and if you can sustain it, of course you go work on the track. MC did a 10 x 400 workout last week that was supposed to be at 90 seconds, but as he posted, "testosterone" got the better of him and he averaged 85 seconds per lap. Well, he can do that. And of course so did Shorter, but we are not talking about MC and Shorter here. I am glad the post stirred some comment and some feedback. Hup had the best post of all when I think of it. He said "go find a good plan." Holly, if you are in the 3rd week of a marathon training program, you should already know what speed work you should be doing. I hope this helps. Spareribs