10 day training week?

I'm already starting to plan for my training for spring (I plan to run the Illinois marathon). Reflecting on my problem areas that tend to mess with my training, I find that I recover very slowly from both long runs and pace runs, and that makes it hard for me to get in all the pace runs that I would like and leaves me feeling more beat up than I should feel. I also find that I never quite am fresh at the end of 3 week taper, I think I really need 4.

So, I am looking at a 10 day training week instead of 7. It would look something like this:
1 rest
2 easy or cross
3 easy
4 pace (medium-long run)
5 rest
6 easy
7 med-long run easy (fast finish or some fartlek mixed in once in awhile)
8 easy or rest
9 easy
10 long

This would also work out to about a 4 week taper. My overall length of training would probably increase to about 20 weeks doing this. My longs runs would progress something like this (starting from a base of regular 10-12 for the long run): 13, 10, 14, 16, 11, 16, 16, 12, 18, 20, 14, 20 then taper. My medium-long runs would almost always be around 8, maybe a few at 10. I also put three 16s in there because that seems like the distance where I tend to always feel like I had a really good workout without feeling super broken down.

Thoughts? Has anyone done a program like this? I'm really sort of just pulling my numbers out of the air to some extent!

I've always wanted to try a 10-day training "week." Long runs don't come as naturally to me either, and I think the 10-day cycle is a great idea. If you have the flexibility to do long runs during the week, I say go for it.

I would advise aganist the 4 week taper though. That's a long taper, and if you're already spacing out the long runs, don't think its necessary.

I'm intrigued by the 10 day week as that would work for me as well. And like Dave-O, I like everything you've laid out but the 4 wk taper as I think it is too long and you'll lose your sharpness. Myself, I use only a 2 wk taper, and I don't recover as well as I would like anymore. However, I find that I need the mental sharpness more than the physical rest when it actually comes to race day. If I can turn it on mentally, the rest follows. We are all an experiment of one however, which is why we all approach this marathon training thing with different plans.

I was waiting for some more experienced people to chime in before I added my 2 cents, but I was feeling the same way about a 4-week taper. Some people even think 3 is too long. And I, too, have heard good things about the 10-day cycle.

I'm definitely going to try the 10 day "week." I played around with it on a calendar and decided that I really like it. I'll actually probably end up running a bit more miles on it overall, yet will have rest days in all the key places that I could never get into one week. I work from home several days per week and have some flexibility with that so that I can do long runs on weekdays with no real problems.

I'm torn on the 4 week taper. Every taper I end up feeling not quite ready at the end of three weeks and find myself wishing I had even a few more days. But at the same time, the idea of 4 weeks does rather freak me out, and I worry about feeling flat. I think I'll go for the 3 weeks based on all your advice and based on the idea that the 10 days spacing all along might leave me not feeling quite as beat up as other times. Plus, I think my feeling not quite ready at the ends of tapers is mostly all in my head anyway. I always complain that my legs still hurt and then it all disappears when the marathon actually starts.