Back to the Running Grindstone

Build slowly.  If you haven't been running at all for a month and 16miles is near where you were before, I wouldn't start increasing 10%/wk from the get-go. 

As you build, consider replacing "cross training" with more running. 

A track workout after the first month is entirely unnecesssary and counter-productive to your primary goal--to run more.

Push the track/speed workouts to much further in the plan.  Incorporate tempo/medium effort runs after a couple months.  Intervals and speedwork are great to prep for a race.

Do the strides; three times per week.  You can do them after a workout, or even in the middle of a longer run.

Don't increase mileage every week.  Go up, hold for three to four weeks, then go up again.

A good starting point for pace is one that feels comfortable.  Who cares what the actual time is right now?   It will come when it comes.

Make a commitment to go out every day.  You won't actually do it, but it will help you get out the days you really need to.

This may seem nitpicky, but I think it's vitally important:  Do not view it as work.  I assume you are attempting to be facetitious witht the title, but there's usually a certain kernel of truth when people do it.  If you look at running as a grind, it's much harder to get out there and do it.   I'm not saying this to be an a$$ (even though I am one), I'm saying it because I think it is something worth noting.

I've also run more in the past year than ever before.

Since you're not returning from an injury, perhaps you can work on increasing your volume even more. A rough estimate from your logs indicates you've run approximately 20 miles/week this year through September. If you can build this to several months at 40-45 miles/week by next spring you may be amazed at how much faster you'll be when you start doing speedwork.

Several years ago while training for a marathon I found it amazing at how much faster all my running became after a couple months of 40+ miles/week of easy running. Unfortunately soon after I suffered an injury from snowboarding that severely limited my running for quite a while. When I finally recovered I took that discovery and built upon it. I first built to 40+ miles/week, then slowly increased to over 70 miles/week - almost all done at an easy pace. The only speedwork was doing some kind of race every other week. The results have been dramatic! I've PRed 15 times so far this year in distances from 2 miles to the marathon - some by huge margins. I relaxed the volume a bit over the summer, but I'm once again building. Now I'm doing 60+ miles/week with plans to go to around 90 by next Feb/Mar. Once again I'm only doing races as speedwork and my times are still improving - even though my overall training paces have remained relatively constant. IOW, just running a high volume at easy pace has made me substantially faster at race pace. So far the higher my volume of easy running, the faster I'm getting in the races - all without doing any form of speedwork during training. No tempo, no strides, no intervals, no fartleks, etc. Maybe if I was doing some of those things I could be even faster, but then again maybe those things would lead me to injury.

The point of that ramble was that volume can be very beneficial. Build up to some solid volume slowly. Don't attempt to get there faster than your body will allow. Just add a few miles a week and in a few months you may have attained the physical adaptations that allow you to run 40+ miles/week on a consistent basis. During the process don't be at all concerned with speed. Go for it and see if it works to improve your running by next summer.

Ski season has started, but there is only one run open at two areas. I've done that stuff in the past, but it really isn't much good for another month or so.

I'll be doing a 5K tomorrow and an XC race of about 4.5 miles on Sunday. I might limit myself do running only 8 miles or so today for my taper. LOL

When I was off running 6 weeks, I started running 3x a week first week maybe 90' max. I wouldn't do 16 miles first week.

Be conservative starting out you don't want to get hurt.