Mind if I gatecrash your question Popsider? I've just got a club place and am hoping to run 3.45 (or a few secs under to make sure I get good-for-age place next time!).I was re-reading last year's RW schedules last night and have concerns. Compared with the Hal Higdon Intermediate II schedule there is a LOT of speedwork in all the schedules; in effect 4 hard sessions a week incl the long runs. Hal Higdon has similar mileage, but only one marathon paced run a week, the rest slower.I have a sneaking feeling I won't be able to do all the speedwork and the long runs in the RW schedules. Was thinking of maybe forgetting the short intervals and swapping one steady paced run for a tempo run at 1/2m pace on the Hal Higdon schedules. I already run a lot on the hills anyway.What really are the benefits of say 400 m intervals and hill sessions for a marathon on the flat? I can see there's an overall benefit to speed but important are these considering the increased likelihood of injury/and the effort needed to do these sessions?

I'm interested in all these training schedules. Recent e-mail in RW said he coudn't run 2 days consecutive as got injured. I tend to agree but then I'm 41 and an over-pronator and run sub 1h 45m for a 1/2 marathon. How then do I train for a marathon seeing I want to do better than last time? do I do an extra x-training day and split the total weekly milage into 3 parts eg Total 40m is done as 10m,10m and 20m.