So as some of you may have heard, the Minneapolis Marathon and Half Marathon was cancelled last Sunday. I was set to run the half and was very disappointed by the cancellation - after taking a few years off from running competitively, I started training again this winter and was hoping to run around 77 at the half.
Anyway, my plan had been to run the half, take a week of easy running with a few off days, and then start training this Monday (6/9) for the Chicago Marathon using Pfitz's 18 week 70-85 plan.
Now, there is a small half marathon tomorrow that I am thinking of racing. I'm conflicted though because my legs have been pretty dead this week (and, actually, were pretty dead last week too). After the race was cancelled on Sunday, I ran 15 at a pretty decent pace out of frustration, and just haven't felt like I've been able to recovery this week for some reason. I'm worried that if I race the half tomorrow, I won't be able to start the marathon training plan on Monday because I'm going to need quite a bit of recovery time, based on how I've been feeling lately. I'm also not sure if I could even run well tomorrow based on how I've been feeling and the fact that I may have lost some fitness for extending my taper an extra week. At the same time, I've done three months have half marathon specific training and hate to see it all for nothing. It'd also be nice to at least have the half as a fitness benchmark for my marathon training.
Thoughts? My gut wants to race, but if I'm thinking long term to the marathon, it seems like it might be logical to take tomorrow and Sunday easy and start the marathon training program fresh and ready to roll. What would you do?