Dublin Marathon

 I'm in a similar position Fitzyshea. Just did the Achill half there two weeks ago. Surprised with how relaxed I was and I quite enjoyed it apart from the killer hills on the last few miles. I got in just under the two hours so it's given me a bit of confidence to aim for Dublin. Just want to run one marathon in my life and I think this is the time. Just finding it hard now to get the motivation to get back into it. It's a bit all consuming I find esp coming up to races. I think though if you can think it you can do it. I find the training and commitment is harder than the actual race although I might not be saying that at mile 22....

Its the training the requires the dedication, the race is painfuil but possible once you have done the training. If you are finding it hard, especially as you up the miles/time on the road when training, then try and get a running partner that is at your pace. You will find you can chat for 80% of the time and then quieten down for the last bit as you both dig in to get the training run ddone.
 

Fitzyshea, I run in the park all the time too and try and stay off the paths/road as much as possible, purely to protect against injury and it works great. When I started I got a lot of shin, leg injuries just from pounding on hard surfaces. If you run the park then you know there is a trail run that runs around the perimeter wall thats almost exclusively soft underfoot. I normally come in the little gate at Chapelisod village, run up the hill, down the Furry Glen then keeping the school on your left shoulder, run the trail from there to Farmleigh, Castelknock Gate, Ashtown Gate, Garda HQ and get back on the road to the Wellington monument then onto trail again by the magazine fort, along the pitches and start again if you want. Much easier on the pins.
Only thing I would say, personally speaking, is that I would drop the fartlek runs unless its somethign you really enjoy. Fartlek stuff is for building speed and quick recovery after exertion, rather than helping with the distance. Your first marathon is something you want to finish, hopefuilly keeping a consistent pace throughout and crossing the line without having much (anything?) left in the tank. Your second marathon is where you beat that time :) you are running more than enough in terms of days/miles, but I am not a fan of very hard weekends. If you look at your schedule, the week is relatively easy and consistent, then you jump up on sat and even more on Sun. General advice is to bracket hard runs with easy ones. So maybe throw in your 8 mile on one of the runs during the week and have a 6m on the Sat.
Be very careful about overtraining, your schedule sounds good, and it shouldnt be a problem, but any sudden increase in mileage can play a part in crossing the barrier from optimum to over trained. I burned out earlier this year after increasing miles for Conn Ultra and not taking enough rest, so I'm that much wiser now but its basically killed 2 months of training and I'm hoping to go for my PR in Dublin this year.
Stick with it and you will succeed! And I did mean try to have at least one 18-20 training run under your belt prior to the half, else it will be too late in your marathon training to put in those long runs.

Is it necessary to be running 6 days a week for the marathon? I'd be afraid of overtraining completely. Can it be done with 4 days a week? Just wouldn't mind some bit of a social life (don't mean drinking, just a life) outside of it.