Hal Higdon's Marathon training program is widely recognized and wildly popular among both novices and marathon veterans alike. Interestingly enough, when I began serious research last week on marathons, I realized that the Philadelphia Marathon was exactly 18 weeks away and coincidentally, Higdon's program happened to be exactly 18 weeks long. Just as a sidenote, I looked specifically into fall marathons due to the difficulty of running a spring marathon because of the need to train in January-March in Boston, when most days are below freezing. Wanting to run a semi-popular and prestigious fall marathon, that left me with looking at NYC, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Upon further research, I realized that NYC and Chicago registrations were both closed, and both seem like a zoo. NYC's marathon averages close to 60,000 runners, while approx. 40,000 runners traditionally start Chicago's marathon. To me the size of these 2 events seemed a bit overwhelming. Conversely, Philadelphia's marathon had 9,000 runners last year, and expects about 10,000 entrants this November.