I wish I had something to add about marathon training but I’m nowhere close yet, maybe in a few years. Currently dealing with some nagging likely overuse injuries the past few weeks, IT band syndrome, I dunno. Before that still just running 5-6 days a week for 45 min to ~1h20m, mostly at an easy pace (8:45-9:30 minute miles), just trying to see where I can get my base fitness level to without much structure.
From nerding-out and reading LetsRun and reddit, it seems like common advice is simply just putting in consistent time/miles on your feet, most of them easy to avoid injury, with some ”speed” work sprinkled in. I’m newer to running, so not sure how that resonates with you long-time/multiple marathon runners here?
For the hell of it, I tried to run a sub-20 5k on my own the other day running the length of Golden Gate Park from east to west— it has some gradual rolling hills but ultimately net-downhill which put me at…. 20:01. Damn! I blame getting tripped up at the end making a wrong turn in the last 150 meters or so. I kept a decent pace looking at my kilometer splits 3:50, 3:59, 3:58, and then fell down to 4:15 trying to relax a bit, then back to 3:59 for the last km (For reference 4:00/km is about 6:26/mile). Damn near all out effort, despite the net downhill the uphill portions really take a toll. I didn’t realize I slowed so much on the 4th km since the GPS on Strava app never showed me over 4:00/km.