Hello! I've just joined the group! I am fairly new to marathoning. I just ran my first half last weekend with a time of 1:59:13 and am really ready to start training for a full. I really enjoyed the half and it's really gotten me hooked! Right now I'm wanting to focus on building a really good base of mileage, at least 50mpw, before I start really training and would appreciate any advice or words of wisdom anyone could offer? Great to be here

Its a fun place to be! The only marathon I've run down in the southeast was Jacksonville back in 2000, which was my first marathon. It was nice and flat, and pretty decently supported. I'll be running in Georgia in March. I think that your best bet is to choose a marathon and then structure your base training around that. If you are going to run a late spring race, then you'll want to go from base into a training program for the program in the next couple of months (depending on when the race is) but if you aren't going to do one until Summer or Autumn then that isn't as important for quite a while.

I'm planning to run Jacksonville this weekend. I'll let you know what I think.