Why you should ignore most marathon plans

I'm now a "veteran" of 5 marathons and 1  ultra marathon. They have all been bog standard times (PB is 4:35) and I've trained for all of them slightly differently. It's really confusing when you first start out as there's a million different plans which will help you run your perfect marathon. Except they can't all be right because most of them contradict each other! There's assumptions made about your fitness, lifestyle and your body that can't be correct across the board. So, what is the answer? Honestly, I still don't feel like I've found the "perfect" plan for me but I'm closer than I've been before so here's my tips to help you figure out what sort of plan might help you:

1. Know your own body. I do a lot of my long runs with my brother. He's faster than me but not by so much that we can't enjoy a long run together. He runs 5 miles every single day, a long run on a Saturday and rests only 1 day a week. He's been doing that for years and it's got him a sub 4 hour marathon. My body doesn't take more than 2 days consecutive running particularly well so I put a rest day in on every 3rd day. That's my issue with these online plans. What works for my brother would not work for me and vice versa yet we've run 4 marathons and an ultra together.
2. Know your schedule. Some of the plans I see online are for those who have 10 hours free per day! My lifestyle doesn't work with that. I've got to get up at 5.30 as it is to fit my runs in and due to evening commitments, kids and actually siting down at some point in the day, I've got a limit on how much time I actually have. I can fit 5-6 miles in on a morning but if I get up earlier I won't have had enough rest so these plans telling me I should be doing 8 miles twice a week on top of my long run simply don't work with my schedule and I can't move things to make it work. So I do what will work for me and stretch me as much as I can without killing myself.
3. Write it out. Writing out how far you're going to run each day ahead of time keeps you on track, accountable and motivated.
4. Experiment. Four of my last 5 marathons have been within a 7 minute difference of each other. I've tried different things for each one and I'm still learning what's best for me to try and get the right formula. There's lots of options so don't be afraid to try a few things out.
5. It WILL hurt. Regardless of what plan you follow or devise, a marathon will hurt. A lot. You forget how much that part between 18-22 miles (for me anyway) is a physical and mental battle and no training plan will make that disappear.

Having said all that, I found www.marathonrookie.com a really good place to start!