So, here's how my schedule is shaping up. First, here's what I was doing before the Run to Remember, which is fairly typical of my training for the last few years:
Sun: Swim (1 mile), Weight Lifting, Elliptical (1 hour, about 750 calories)
Mon: Rest
Tue: Short (5 miles), Hills
Wed: Medium (10 miles), Flat
Thu: Short (5 miles), Hills
Fri: Swim, Elliptical
Sat: Long (20 miles), Flat
The mileage there represents my peak mileage. The general rule, which I probably got from Hal Higdon's basic training, is Long = 2 Medium, Medium = 2 Short. So an early week might be 3-5-2-10. This year, I tried to build up the shorter runs first, so I'd get to say 5-10-5-16 before adding mileage to the Long run. I've been reading a lot about the Hanson method, which talks about how your Long run shouldn't be 50% of your weekly mileage, more like 30%.
The Weight Lifting mainly focuses on secondary muscles: hamstrings, ab/adductor, hip flexor, and then a bunch of core stuff. I've phased out anything I did with quads and calves. The Elliptical is something I started doing again only recently. I used to do it a lot early in my running career. I added it back in to help with the weight loss I've been trying to achieve (more on that in a bit) but I think it may also be helping fight my various aches and pains. Still, I'll probably phase it out as the weekly mileage increases. Even I can only eat so much, and my Sunday gym trip is already exceeding three hours. Throughout the week I also do pullups, pushups, and abs.
Here's what I'm thinking now, based on the Hanson schedule but modified to fit my schedule (with peak distances):
Sun: Swim, Weight Lifting, (Elliptical), Medium (10 miles), Hills?
Mon: Speed (10x Yasso 800s)
Tue: Short (5 miles), Hills
Wed: Medium (8 miles), Flat
Thu: Tempo (10 miles), Hills (in the warmup; flat for the speed)
Fri: Swim, (Elliptical)
Sat: Long (16 miles), Flat
That'd be like 60 miles at peak, which might be a tad much, but I can cut back on Sun, Tue, Wed if I need to.
I've done intervals and tempo runs a few time each this year. The Yasso 800s are the latest manifestation of my obsession with rules of thumb. The idea being, if you can run 10 x 800 in 185 seconds each, you can run a marathon in 185 minutes. I generally never do speedwork, though, because every time I do I get tendinitis or worse (including this spring, when I did some interval and tempo work as a test), so we'll see how that goes. I did two tempo miles on Thurdsay and 3x800 on Monday and felt good after each. So I'll add one mile/rep per week, at most. Even that would get me peaking around August, so I have plenty of time.
As for the weight loss, the rule I always hear there is 2 seconds per pound per mile. That seems a little high, but even one second would be a great help. I'm 5'8", and had settled into a range around 147, with the occasionally dips down to 142 or so after a really long run, but also the occasional cross over 150. According to my fancy electronic scale, that put me around 18% body fat. I've long wanted to get down 10%, and after hitting 152 over Easter I decided it was finally time. Since then I've gotten carefully down to around 133-135, which has me around 11%. Now, I doubt that alone will let me run 20 seconds faster per mile, but even five would be a big help.