Out-of-town half five weeks before out-of-town marathon - good or bad idea?

5 weeks is more than enough time to recover from 13.1 miles for a concentrated marathon effort.

don't worry too much.

5 weeks should be plenty of time.

That would be the last thing I would be worried about right now.

5 weeks is plenty of time to travel to a half, go home, have another good few weeks of training, and then be ready to rip in NYC.

If you run the Chicago half, I would do a light workout the Tuesday/Wednesday of that week, run the half (goal marathon pace for 10, 3 progressive), think about a day off after the race, no workouts during the next week (strides on one of the days), and then a good long run 4 weeks out. Back to a good workout 3.5 weeks out & another good LR 3 weeks out. Something like that.

FWIW, the Chicago Half is pretty low key for a big city race. It's nothing like the Chicago Marathon or Shamrock Shuffle 8k. It's also super flat which isn't NYC specific. You might want to just opt for a race closer to home if you're worried about travel or would want a half before then. Chicago is a cool city tho.

This cannot be a serious question.

This is great, thanks! I'll also keep that in mind regarding the magnitude of the race. The other option is to defer to next year's Spring Half, which I was unwilling to do since it's so far out, but it might be the more sensible option anyway.

Do you care to elaborate?

Both races will be cancelled.

LoneStarXC wrote:

Both races will be cancelled.

I didn't ask.