Need to set a new schedule for my training

I decided a couple of weeks ago to focus on half-marathons instead of marathons. Marathons put a lot of stress on ones body, and I don't want to subject my body to that amount of stress. I ran four marathons about 24 years ago and enjoyed them and the training for them. Now that I'm significantly older, I want to run distance without the stress of 26.2, and 13.1 seems about right.

I'm capping my distance at 33 miles per week, so the next phase is speed training. I think I will continue to run LSD during December to strengthen my base, and then I'll begin running fartleks in January. My current thoughts are to run fartleks once a week by reducing my long run from 2 1/2 hours to an hour and running fartleks during that run. I would keep my 1-hour rest runs on Monday and Tuesday and my 2-hour medium run on Wednesday (all LSD). That would give me 25 miles/week with speed training once a week.

I would like to do that during January and February, and then run intervals during March. The intervals would be on Saturday for half an hour. My Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday runs would be the same. April would be a week of LSD (hopefully faster than my current LSD) and then a two-week taper to Saturday, April 21, 2006 and the Salt Lake City Half Marathon. My real goal for the year is the Senior Games in October, and the SLC half would be to check my progress and give me a better idea of the training I need to do before the Games.