Both the marathon and half marathon are high quality races, but the half is one of the deepest fields nationally. You will have people to run with and chase the entire time. It provides a large, competitive field, but not the logistical problems of some similar sized road races that can lead to less than ideal circumstances for running fast times (like poor parking, standing around for a long time at the start, inconvenient race number pickup). Worth traveling long distance to run this race. Half feels like a cross country size field.

The marathon is also competitive, fast, and a nice course. It attracts high level competitors, but after the first few spots, does not have the same depth as the half marathon field.

A place to come run a PR.