Welcome to RA, Heather! You'll find a lot of what you need to know to get ready by browsing these forums and asking questions. There's a few people that are pretty good about answering questions.

Hi, Heather...glad you found RA! I have no advice, as I have yet to run any marathons, much less a TRAIL marathon...wowsers! But I wish you luck in whatever training you do. What an exciting endeavor! k

Never having doen a trail marathon I can only imagine how hard trails would be after hitting the wall.

I've found that avoiding the wall is the preferable situation, either on trails or on roads.

Welcome Heather. I'm also training for a first marathon (but not until October). From my perspective, I'm not too worried about setting a time goal as the distance itself is enough of a motivation. Good luck with your training.

You pick some good races! I have both the Napa valley trail, and the Stinson beach on my list. I live in Ohio, but have a sister in the bay area of CA, so I get a free place to stay, and awesome trails to run (I am jealous). Anyway, I've run several road marathons, and one trail marathon in your neck of the woods (I am assuming you live around there, or else you have a nice travel deal like I do). Golden Hills in Berkeley. Comparing road to trail, while my trail marathon was my slowest time (note the hills!), I never felt out of energy or exhausted in the same way. The scenery, the other people running, and the constant challenge of the trail, made it so I never hit a mental 'wall' in the way I did in a road marathon or two. There were no mile markers, so I just checked in with the aid stations to find out where I was. I remember getting to one person, and I asked what mile we were at, and she said "17", and I thought to myself, "17, wow, I had no idea I was so far!" So I think mental burnout is much less likely. Physical? Not sure, I don't think I've ever had a physical burnout. If these are the kinds of trails you're running on anyway, especially for your long runs, well then you'll be very well prepared I am sure. Hard to say on the goal time. I did not set a goal time for my first road marathon, or first trail marathon. I just started out easy, at the pace I had done most of my long runs at. I always think you can pick it up, if you get to 20 and feel awesome! Welcome, and good luck! Post a report when you finish!

Hallo, Just started running last Xmas. This year I've done 2000 km, a few 15km+ races and a HM in 1h43'. Next year I'm becoming 40 so, what better target to fill "not that old" than running a marathon? 20th June should be the date (somewhere in Belgium), wish me good luck !

I'm training for my first marathon (target August) as well. I've got my training plan broken up into 2 segments. The first segment is roughly half of the program designed to tackle the half marathon, then the second part picks up from there and continues on to the higher milage. All in all, I will have trained for 10 months, provided I can stay healthy and motivated. I'm taking it slow and steady, building in time for weather, business trips, etc. (when I might miss a work out or two), where I can repeat some weeks and stay on track to the tapering stages. I'm now into the 3rd month, during which I've put in a couple 5K's. I have some other runs/5K's/10K's, etc built in for fun and to measure my progress in a race setting prior to the half. So, I'll certainly be asking for advice (especially from those who travel a lot and magae to keep up with training) and plenty of questions now that I've found this great group. I have no finishing time expectations (although I secretly would like to finish within 5 hours). Looking forward to hearing from other first timers as they complete their marathons and those who already have their first one's under their belt.