Winter Maintenance, Marathon Training, and some Loop Questions

I last ran a whopping 6 days ago.   Last Tuesday to be precise.   That was a tough 5.5 mile run at that.   The run was just two days after my fastest half yet, at 1:49:02.  I followed up that race, by running 3.6 miles as soon as I got home that Sunday  Needless to say the Tuesday run was hard, even at an easy 9m/m pace.   Both my friend and I felt as if we were moving a bit too fast.   So I didn't really mind that I was going to force myself into a running break.

I spent the weekend watching football and playing with my sons.   It was not a weekend wasted.   The week off left me rejuvenated and a bit antsy.   It also marks a distinct line between Racing season and Basketball/maintenance season.   I am looking to the off season to do some major things for my running, let's hit them in list form.

1. Obviously, I want to maintain my endurance.   I plan on doing this by getting in some mid-range long runs over the winter (8-10 miles, 12 if I feel good).
2. I want to build speed.   I referee basketball in the winter, it is a good way to stay running and active during the winter.   Plus chasing high schoolers up and down the court counts as a speed session, especially when I do 2 one hour long games.  Plus my Winter races are all 5k and 10k varieties.  
3. Add at least an extra day to my running over the winter.   To me this means going from 3 days a week running to 4-5 days a week.   Mostly I will just get some shorter 3-4 mile runs in until I can build that solid base.  
4. I want to drop another 15 pounds.   I really want to get down to 185lbs.  And now that I have put this out here, I hope that I can be accountable to this goal.   I say this because I love food, and running has been a way for me to eat as I want.   Time for another change.

Now, all of those goals are focused on completing next year's goal.   Completing a marathon, all 26.2 glorious miles.   Tentatively I have set my sights on the San Francisco Marathon in July as my goal race.   I should be able to firm that up come the end of basketball season, but that is the goal.   I have already started scoping out training plans, and have all but settled on one of the Hal Higdon Intermediate plans.   I like these plans because they appear to focus on mileage rather than on a mixture of workouts.   I attempted the Speed type workouts mixed with high mileage training runs to disastrous results this last summer and since I want to complete a marathon the idea is to get the mileage base to do so.