I thought I'd repost this on the Med Tent board to see if I could get some more advice.

I have/had been training for my first marathon which is schedule for April 15th. I have been following the Hal Higdon novice program which calls for 3 runs of varying distance during the week with a long run on the weekend.
My problem is I've been shut down with a cold for the last week and a half that has caused me to miss some important training runs. Prior to my illness I peaked with my long run of 18 miles on March 10th. I did my weekly runs of 5 mile and then 9 miles on March 13 and 14th but I've been sick since. March 17 was supposed to be a step back week where my long run was 14 miles - which I missed, followed by some weekly runs of 5, 10 and 5 and then a 20 miler this past weekend which I also missed.

So I'm finally starting to feel a little better and feel like i can go running again but here lies my dilema. I'm supposed to start my taper over the next couple weeks. I'm supposed to do 5, 8 and 4 this week and 12 this weekend followed by 4, 6 and 3 next week and an 8 miler next weekend and then it will be race week. What should I do? Should I try to do as many miles as I can over the next couple weeks to try and build my endurance back up? Should I just follow the program as is and try to regain all my strenght back? Something inbetween?

As this is my first marathon I am just trying to finish(in 4:30 - 5:00). So at this point I don't want to give up on the work I've put in but I feel like this cold has screwed me.