I know a couple of runners who are training for marathons, who are using low mileage training plans. Their mileage never gets above 32 miles a week, several weeks it's dropped to below 15 miles, and some of the runs are less than 4 miles. They only plan to do 3 runs above 17 miles, and a lot of the runs are above or at MP. They both want to break 4 hours but I fear they will be ok for first 20 miles but struggle for the last 6 miles. Neither do any sort of cross training.
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I should point out it wasn't my first marathon and I'd been running 4 years. This year off 32 mile average I did 3.04 with almost even splits.
Personally I don't see how you can run a decent race with such low mileage and only 3 runs above 17 miles. Wouldn't you lose the training benefit of accumulated fatigue if you did each long run pretty much fully recovered?
i managed a 3:38 for my first with an average of approx 35 miles a week. I had been playing lots of rugby beforehand so wasn't a stranger to fitness.
in the last few years I have been increasing my mileage up to 55-70 per week and have got down to 2:55.