welcome to TSC, Sonic 1 is one of my main games, and it's one I've really enjoyed playing, within about 6 months you should be able to play this game to a pretty good standard, being able to do every major zip too.
I think naegleria has a tutorial somewhere however I'm unable to find that.
The best thing you could do is look on teentee314's youtube channel, he's probably the best sonic 1 speed runner out there.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TeeNTee314The other place to get help is to head over to
http://soniccenter.org/chat there are people there (including myself) who can help you out with various things in Sonic 1 and other sonic games. Best time to catch me online there is probably at weekends, friday evening to sunday evening. :)