HM one week after full M - smart?

Discipline is the key! 

I ran a marathon on Friday night and a 30-mile trail run the next day and lived to tell about it.  I have a friend who's done the Tahoe Triple (3 marathons on successive days to circumnavigate Lake Tahoe).  There was a lady doing the 100-mile trail run last spring doing her 5th consecutive 100-miler (working on 13 consecutive).  The key is to know you're doing another race very quickly and "race" both with a viable plan. 

Flying Pig is a great race!  (Did it as my first marathon last spring.)  Are you planning to run the half with your bride, or simply both of you run the race?  You won't win any favors if the FP effort causes you to screw up her half-marathon day.  So if you go too hard in Cincy, shut-up and deal with it for the mini. 

Guess I didn't make that clear.  I'll give a race-worthly effort for the full, but understand that I'm going to race it quite conservatively, probably around 9.5 to 10.25 minute miles.  Maybe faster if training goes without incident and the speed work does something for me.  So if anything, I'll be more disciplined this time around (hit the wall back in October).

The half will be raced with my wife, who will probably be running 10.5 to 11 minute miles.  My primary roll will to be her entertainment/pacing buddy for the 13.1 miles.  And it won't kill her race if for some reason I need to bow out after 5 or 10, but I would really like to cross the finish line hand-in-hand with her.

You can do whatever you want.  If you don't plan to race either event...then yeah...people have done marathons, then done a long run the following weekend no problem.

Where I scratch my head is when I look at your race log and see your first marathon was a 4:40 or just under 11:00 pace.  You say you hit the wall...but from what I gather, you were trying to pace 9:45 the whole way...and failed to do that.  What makes you think you'll be able to run a 9.30-10:15 pace for this next marathon...and feel good enough to run a HM 6 days later at a faster pace than you should be doing your normal long runs?

Sure...4-5 months of training can give you some improvement...and it's very possible you could do this.  I just wouldn't advise it.

Sounds like you're going to do it regardless...so good luck.

Partially to have a bit of fun, but also to see if I can gain any strategic/tactical insight from the collective BT wisdom on how to best make it work.  And yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

Tri808 - some good points, and certainly pacing is a bit of an unknown I hope to figure out a bit over some interim races and as the long runs increase.

But hey, based on my last race (4 mi), McMillan says I should be running a 4:05 marathon (9:23), and we know that's gotta be accurate, right?

Fine, now I'll go from being cheeky to being defensive.  My working logic is that if I race the marathon smartly (i.e. in a disciplined manner), I will actually be better off than after my first one (where I ran 8 miles in the next 7 days).

And I'm wondering why it's so wrong if most training plans, including mine, have two or three 20 miles followed by little or no rest days.  Sure, I know they're to be done at a LSD pace, but what if we just consider the half to be a glorified active recovery run?

And to respond to the base question - sure, there could always be more.  I ran 1100+ miles in 2010, which isn't much to most "runners", but it was weighted to the second half of the year, and if everything goes to plan, I'll have 1,500 (trailing 12 months) prior to the marathon.

Hell, I'm just happy I was able to receive two posts from world-renowned guest blog columnist Scout7!  (Notice the lack of sarc font)

Listen, a lot can happen to derail things over the next 15 weeks, and I'm fully prepared to back out of the marathon if things go awry.  This whole scenario is of the best case variety.

But it seems the basic premise of those against is that I can't really race the marathon if I've got the half the following week.  That I don't get.

Now, on to trying to run like a Stoic