3 weeks of recovery, and now it's go itme

Given that it took me nearly 3 weeks to finish writing about my half marathon experience, it feels fitting that I am only now writing about my recovery period as it is ending.  As of today, I start training for a full marathon.  And there area lot of words that I have for that, but I have determined that 99.5% of them are inappropriate for a mixed audience.

When I scheduled my big races for the year, I paid pretty careful attention to how much time I would have between the half and full marathons.  While I knew that I was doing both races regardless of how many weeks separated them, I was looking to see how long of a recovery period I could take between training cycles.  As it turned out, I was able to take 3 weeks toward recovery.  IT WAS AMAZING.

I bet you all are wondering what my recovery looked like.  It looked like I really didn't work out... and when I did, it was easygoing and short.  Walks with the dog.  A couple of easy runs.  Yoga once.  Like I said, a whole lot of nothing.

Strangely enough, my biggest injury of the year was in recovery.  We were walking Gunner the other night, and he decided to drag me across someone's front yard as he went after a sweet little bunny rabbit.  I know you are all thinking that I'm probably being overly dramatic, but I'm really not.  My knee ended up bleeding and bruised, and I'm surprised my face didn't end up looking the same.  80 pounds of chocolate lab can sure be powerful sometimes...

Since today is day one of marathon training, it's probably an awesome time to plug the training program I'm using.  Just like with the half marathon, I'm using Jenny Hadfield's Run/Walk marathon program.  The success I saw using her half marathon program was so incredible, and I have utter faith that the marathon program will get me to the finish line safe and sound.  Even better, her programs are 100% free!  One of the best pieces of advice my dad ever gave me was, "If it's free, it's for me!"  I follow that rule as much as possible.  When you can find awesome free content, you have to take full advantage, and that's what I'm doing now.  I could spend hundreds of dollars on fancy running coaches and running plans, or I can seek out the equally awesome free content.  I think I'll choose the latter.

Well, here goes nothing, I guess.  T-minus 20 weeks and counting to the Denver Rock 'n' Roll marathon...