Thanks for the advice ladies! I definitely don't take it as too harsh - I look at it as trying to protect each other (or just me in this case) from potential injury and bad decisions.

I think I'm going to attempt training for the half marathon. I was looking last night at Hal Higdon's half marathon plan for novices and it definitely looked managable. And you all are right, it definitely is way too much of a stretch to attempt the complete marathon.

While I haven't been running as consistently, I've been doing cross training, and I like that Hal's program incorporates that into the program. The timeline is also right in line for what I would need instead of stretching it with the marathon.

Thanks all for your help. I know the half may seem like I'm stretching it too, but I'm at least going to try the training and see how it goes.