Welcome to the forum

[El Gordo]

Depends where you live and how far you can travel to races I guess, Liz. In Britain there seems to be a lot going on. You could do a half marathon almost every weekend of the year if you wanted to, and there are even more 10Ks. Quite a few marathons too.

I agree that being slow has its advantages. I read somewhere the other day that regardless of your age when you start running, the tendency is to keep improving for seven years. So my London marathon victory has to happen before 2010, or I've missed my chance.

As for run-walking, Hal Higdon has often mentioned that his son did a marathon in something like 2:25 by walking for one minute each mile. So you know the time you have to aim for...