Actually I recommend the "BarryP Plan" (note: I've never actually called it that, but that seems to be its name), and then making modifications in the following way.
My plan begins with a point based on A) fitness, B) race distance (time to completion), and C) ow far out you are from that race distance.
From there, you make two key modifications.
1) Remove the easiest workouts and replace them with days that you don't run.
2) Make the other workouts progressively harder until you've reached a point in your training where you are pushing yourself enough to improve, but not so much that you can't repeat the workouts on a weekly basis.
To do this, take easy days and turn them into tempo runs first. Then take tempo runs and turn them into longer/harder tempo runs. Then take longer harder tempo runs and turn them into interval sessions. Finally, take interval sessions and fur them into harder interval sessions.
To give examples of two extremes, if training for, say, a stand alone 5K, you'd likely want three interval sessions a week…..or maybe two interval sessions and a tempo run. If training for a marathon, you might want one long run (would have to violate your 6 mile cap) and two tempo runs.
-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485