Now What?

The marathon is over, leaving me with time to recover and time to think about upcoming races and even other hobbies. So what am I doing with myself you may ask? For one, I have not yet run since CIM and put myself on a forced break for at least 7 days. It's incredibly hard not to run for 7 days, and I have almost broken down more than once. I also know it's good for me and that my body needs some down time after a ton of fall races.

I have lots of plans to keep myself active with a little less weekly mileage for the next few weeks, a big plan being skiing. I love skiing and am currently sitting in a lovely condo at Keystone, relaxing after a long day on the slopes. It's early season so not a lot of the resort is open, but I'm thoroughly enjoying what I can. Kevin and I arrived yesterday with 2 friends and took a nice little walk down the road by our condo. As you can see, they don't have much snow especially at the bottom but they are snow making like crazy.

Mountain House Base Area

We did a couple of night skiing runs last night, then went out for the whole day today. It feels incredible to be back on my skis, especially since this pair was purchased near the end of last season and I have only had a few days on them so far.

Kevin enjoying the snow.

Lunch break!

Aside from skiing, which we'll do quite a bit of this winter, I'm planning to get back to the barre class I started going to a couple of months ago. I skimped the three weeks before the marathon because it really works the calves and my calves take a beating with running. I wanted them nice and fresh for the marathon. I'm also hoping to try more Body Pump classes; I have gone two times, but I feel like it was a lot on the quads and hamstrings when I was running and racing this fall. It should be a good option for the off racing months.

My next half marathon isn't until Oakland near the end of March, although I'm running an 11 mile trail event in January for fun. It's supposed to be a beautiful course, hard I'm sure, and it most definitely won't be a push for time. I love running on trails and can't wait to get back to that more often.

And now for some exciting news: I'm going to have my first ever blog giveaway soon! What better way to celebrate my marathon PR and the end of 2012? Stay tuned to see what it is...