> A-to-Z of half-/full- marathons [...] a challenge to see how quickly I could cram them in.
Isn't this really bad for your health? I thought you needed a significant rest period between marathons to give you time to recover?
(Please don't interpret this as 'a problem with' what you're doing - it sounds fun and a great way to see the countryside, I just hope it's not damaging you!)
If you throw yourself at it without any prep it won't be good for you.
But a proper marathon training plan at my sort of level includes a long run between 13 and 20 miles most weeks. My full recovery time after hammering for a PB at half distance is over a week but going even a little easier brings that down considerably. So a half every ~three weeks, with a couple of longer breaks here or there, should be perfectly fine. I'm not particularly planning to gun for a PB on any of these.
Doing a full is a different beast requiring more R&R afterwards, even if taking it easy, as is a fairly technical trail run, and if I'm travelling further to a new place I want time to see some of that place beyond running through part of it, hence the plan is now "several years" to spread the annual leave & travel costs out a bit more, and to allow more time for R&R and reconditioning as needed.
This way some of the more local road halfs fold nicely into a conditioning (or condition maintaining) plan for the longer/harder runs too. The longer time also helps with arranging the runs: due to the way the organised events tend to bunch around spring & autumn that becomes a constraint if you want to do it in a short time (not being able to do that particular B because it is too close to the C & D I've already set sights on, etc.)
Depends on who you are and how much you run. If you're running 50 miles a week, a slow marathon here and there would probably not hurt you too much. I know a guy who used to run a marathon every weekend through the whole season, but I think he ran way more than 50 a week.
Isn't this really bad for your health? I thought you needed a significant rest period between marathons to give you time to recover?
(Please don't interpret this as 'a problem with' what you're doing - it sounds fun and a great way to see the countryside, I just hope it's not damaging you!)