Considering Return to Marathon Running

When I was struggling through my only official 26.2-mile marathon, the Ocala Marathon, back in 2011, I was forced to walk the last seven miles due to an IT-band injury, just below my left knee, that became excruciatingly painful to run on.  At the 19-mile mark, I asked a race worker if I could just end the race and get a ride back to the start where I was parked...she replied that I should stick it out and finish the marathon, even if I had to walk the rest of the way.  I did just that, although I felt a bit humiliated when slow runner after slow runner trudged past me.  Some of them were also rather advanced in years, well past social security retirement age.  I thought to myself then that these folks had forged for themselves a very active lifestyle and were, for their age, athletes in their own right with their marathon running...even if they were considerably slower then the younger "whippersnappers".  After that race, which I did manage to painfully finish, I decided to first heal from my injury and then focus instead on half-marathons...I've finished nine of them so far.  But that memory of the slower, elderly runners completing that marathon has stuck with me...

I'm not getting any younger myself, and in regard to running, I'm not planning on getting much faster, either.  No, I think that just perhaps now might be the time for me to redirect my efforts toward distance, even if it entails me running a bit slower in the process.  Of course, I'll need to be careful to avoid those pesky injuries that tend to plague runners.  Still, I can see me becoming a regular (albeit slower) marathon runner the way I've been doing the half-marathons for the past few years...