I'm curious how those not involved in a formal running team or club go about training. Is there a specific app or program you use? How do you come up with and follow through on training plans?
I ran cross-country in high school. In my mid-thirties I picked running back up doing a C25K, then just kind of building endurance by increasing the distance. Eventually I found the Nike Run Club app and did it's half marathon training program, which I really enjoyed (I've actually done it three times now). Every week they give you two speed runs, two recovery runs, and a long run to do. All the runs are guided, which is nice having a voice in your ear telling you to run, stop/rest, how to change your effort, etc on speed runs.
Long term I'd like to run a marathon at least once. My other probably somewhat unrealistic goal is to run a sub 20 minute 5k, since I never could crack that barrier I'm high school. But I don't have a coach like I did back then, and Nike's programs are limited to the half and full marathon, so I'm at a bit of a loss of figuring out how to train.
Any thoughts, experiences, recommendations welcome!
The cannonical texts after completing a couple of novice plans are Daniels (Daniels Running Formula) and Pfitzinger (I have Pfitzinger and Scott Avanced Marathoning but there also is Pfitzinger and Latter Faster Road Racing 5k to Half Marathon). I think these have been mentioned in other replys. These books are good to have as they give a little explanation as to why you are doing each workout in addition to the plan. Daniels just gives a couple of hard workouts a week and you fill in the other days with easy running. While the Pfitzinger plans are the usual prescibed workout (or rest) for each day. These plans don't have as much of a ramp up as the beginner plans so you want to be used to putting in some significant mileage each week along with a hard workout or two before you start one of these plans. But other than that they are pretty accessible.