Half Marathon or Full Marathon?

I have begun training again for this years Gold Coast Marathon event.

I have accessed the training diaries that are supplied at the GCM web site. I had planned on doing the HM this year, and using the HM 'Advanced' training schedule.

However, looking at the schedules for the HM 'Advanced' and the Full Marathon 'Intermediate', I see that they end up doing very similar mileage. The HM Advanced has more frequent runs, sometimes 6 days in a week. The Full Marathon Intermediate has Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday schedule all the way through, but typically has a much longer Sunday 'Weekly Long Run'. Effectively I would end up doing very similar mileage in either schedule.

In my experience so far I have found that I really do need the rest days, and tend to get hurt if I run too often without enough rest. Mileage over a week did not seem to have that much effect on me, mostly frequency and lack of rest does.

I feel that more rest days and the same mileage will be a better option. So I have decided to go for the GC Marathon, all 42.195 km's of it. If I am going to do such high mileage, I might as well do the full marathon at the end of it.

I began the 25 week training program last week, 11 Jan 2010. I missed Tuesday, Wednesday as I have had a bit of a twinged knee - The same old knee problem that has troubled me for some time.

This knee thing is really the only chronic problem I have had, and have to be careful with it.

Anyway, so here begins my training for the 2010 Gold Coast Full Marathon. I do think I am way ahead of where I was in January 2009.