Maybe marathon?

I got an email from my wife yesterday. Apparently her company has a couple of free entries for the Chicago Marathon. With the free entry comes a starting position a lot closer to the front of the pack and some additional perks, I suspect. So now she is thinking about training for the marathon. If we were to start soon (this weekend?), we could build a longer, more injury-resistant training program than the one that we've tried in the past. I'm honestly ambivalent about running it again, but a free pass or even half-price admission would do wonders for my motivation. I'd like the idea of doing well in Chicago in front of my family. I've run it before, but the last time I did cringingly bad.

I think that what I'd like to do is complete a marathon training program but not make it the center of my summer running program. I'll continue to focus on the half-marathons as my race of choice while completing the distance necessary to run the full marathon. I like this strategy as it takes the pressure off of the marathon and sets me up for a race that I can run a couple of times before the marathon itself.

Wish me luck