Going sub 3:00 on less mileage

This is about my husband, not me.

My husband ran his first marathon in 2017. He was not a runner for long (1-2 years) and didn’t have a long history of aerobic training (he did bad handball in HS, went to the gym, etc). The sob did it in 3:09. He kept training and then did another marathon in 2019 in 3:02. Then the pandemic hit and he stopped properly training, and never got back to it.

For the last 6 years he has kept running maybe an average of 8-10k, once a week? With some weeks in which he does a bit more. He did a 25k trail run (almost 2000m of elevation gain, technical terrain all over) in 2024 and finished completely pale and wishing to die. He barely trained for it.

He now wants to do his third marathon, and adapted a few plans (maybe Hanson?) to less mileage. According to him, that’s what he did the last two times, peaked at 60km. He is afraid of getting hurt, as he has been feeling a twitch in his calf when he barely ramped the mileage. But everything I read says more mileage, and I’m encouraging him to ramp up. He says he didn’t need it before, he doesn’t need it now.

He recently did a 15k, according to him running at 80%, not going all in, at 1:05~. That’s him in week 2 of a 16 week plan. He wants to qualify for Boston (3:05) and dreams of going sub 3:00. I’m telling him he should focus on just finishing this first marathon and focusing on another one next year to do both.

He has a half in October. How good does he need to be then so he has a chance or BQ and sub 3:00? Has someone done a sub 3:00 peaking at 60?

Honestly, the man is a freak of nature.