Marathon Training after injury

Question
Hi Ryan,

Just got a quick problem that I would like your opinion on if you don't mind. I am training to run my first marathon on 10 June this year. Unfortunately I have picked up a knee injury and my physio has advised that i don't run for at least 3 weeks or so. The problem is, my 15 week marathon programme is due to start on monday which means that, if i'm lucky, I'll only have 12 weeks before the marathon for training (assuming I recover in time). I have a pretty decent base to work from. Before I got injured I was running around 30 miles per week and my best race times have been 39.51 for 10K (August 06) and 1:24:50 for half marathon (October 2006). 13 miles has been my longest run so far. I am trying to keep up my fitness just now by cycling (which hurts my knee the least just now) and I cycle around 140-150 bpm for around an hour 4 days out of 7.

Sorry if this is getting too complicated. My question is...assuming best case scenario...assuming I have 12 weeks to train for marathon. do u think that will be enough for me to get round given my base. Also, if you think that is enough time, what do you think would roughly be the minimum number of weeks required to get me round (assuming best case scenario doesn't happen!)?

Thanks for your advice
Paul

Answer
I have trained with the best of the best and most of them prefer a 10 week program. This is when you start in pretty good shape and base. You having 12 weeks will be fine. The most important thing is to get healed before putting in the hard stress, otherwise you will wind up hurt again. I have a friend who runs about 30 miles a week and runs 3:10 regularly when he runs marathons. I would spend the first 4 weeks of your program getting in quality miles though.

Ryan