I am unsure about using the Hansons plan with 6 days a week of running. Obviously a LOT of people have used their plan to great success, but is that not too much running?
It's all relative. In my view, current fitness relative pacing (effort) X duration = miles. The "miles" to me is mostly irrelevant and instead I focus on the current fitness relative pacing and duration. If two runners of vastly different fitness levels run for roughly the same amount of time at roughly the same effort level, then they're going to get similar adaptations to that training run (with a few variables like what's going on on other training days, stress, nutrition, etc. not withstanding). Just boiling it down simply, those two runners could have covered 4 miles and 8 miles, but both done 60% effort for 60 min and the effect of the training is similar.
So with that in mind, whether the Hansons book plans is too much running is relative to your current fitness level if you follow the mileage based plan. For someone aiming for a 7 hr marathon, Hansons is probably too much. For someone aiming for a 4 hr marathon, it's in the right place more or less. For someone aiming for a 2:30 marathon, it's probably not enough. I go through some of the calculations when considering training load in the following links. Training load is much the same as the idea of Effort X Duration.
Training Load Calculations on Different Training Plans for Different Fitness Profiles
Training Load Calculations on Different Training Plans for Different Fitness Profiles: Part 2
What do you think based upon your experience with Hansons and Daniels respectively? When I trained for the marathon, I was running 5 days a week (Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday).
I've done several iterations of Hansons plans and have found great success. I only attempted the Daniels marathon plan once (Chicago 2018) and got what I believe to be an unrelated ankle tendonitis injury due to a recent move in running location to more cambered streets.
It is definitely possible to run a good marathon on a good 5 day a week plan. It's also possible that a well followed 6 day plan will yield better results. All of us individually speaking have upper limits on duration capabilities when it comes to run training. I've seen some flourish at 6-7 hrs per week, and not do as well with 8-9 hrs per week. I've seen others do better at 8-9 hrs per week than 6-7 hrs per week. I've got one guy that does his absolute best at 12-14 hrs per week (not recommended volume level for most).
Hence, I was partially leaning toward using Daniels for 5 days a week, but I feel lost without guidance about distance. If I understand correctly, you should base your initial runs upon your peak mileage (.8P). How would one even go about figuring out what your peak mileage should be?
My advice is not to increase your total weekly duration of training much more than a few hours from your last training plan. So if peak week in your last training plan was 4 hrs, then see how a well balanced/designed 6.5 hrs training plan goes. If you've done 6.5 hrs peak week and done well with it, try 8 hrs as a peak week the next time around. Once you know how many hrs per week, then you can back calculate how many miles that would be by roughly using your current fitness pacing and choosing a value about mid-point between your assigned long run pace and easy pace.
The other thing that I wanted to ask is how to avoid crashing again. My longest training run was 18 miles. I am a SLOW runner and I know that I ran too much based upon what Daniels et al say about maxing your run at 2 1/2 hours. Nonetheless, my right leg seized up on me at Mile 22 and I slowed down tremendously from DHS to the Finish Line. I was hydrating every 1/2 mile and taking a gel every 30 minutes. Was the cramping the result of not having trained enough or do you believe that it was something else? I tried researching this online and am getting frustrated because some sources say that it was an electrolyte imbalance and other sources say that that is inaccurate. Thank you in advance. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
There are a myriad of possible reasons why you'll crash during a marathon. I've done quite a few (15-16?) and would say I've only not suffered a true fade twice (never a cramp though, just a fatigue induced stop). That's despite my best efforts when it comes to pacing, nutrition, goal setting, adjustments due to temperature, etc. A marathon is super tough. So don't get super hung up on a single attempt and trying to perfect your marathon experience. It's really really hard if you're going for a maximal effort.
The first place to start is your training. Not so much that you didn't go far enough, but if the training was poorly balanced, trained too fast, etc. as plenty of other reasons why the marathon experience can suffer. So getting in "good" training for a marathon is probably going to explain 85% of the fade experience.
I'm a proponent of finding your maximum tolerance of nutrition intake in training. So I'm consuming 96g carbs/hr when I race a marathon as an example. Some can't tolerate that much while running and need to do less. So in training, try to find your maximum with something you can tolerate. That's a good place to start with carb consumption. Electrolytes can be imbalanced as well and there's lots of good products out there that when taken appropriately can be helpful. There are also extreme electrolyte solutions for those that really need a lot, but be wary of using it if you don't truly need that much.
eta- Alsp be wary of online calculators converting your HM or less times into a marathon prediction. Most of those calculators represent a time that only about the Top 6% actually achieve. The average runner tends to be quite a bit slower than those predictions.