Learning how to recover with yoga.

Ugh.  Yesterday's half took a much greater toll on my body than the previous week's long race.  I am fairly certain this is almost completely due to the heat index yesterday (over 100, I believe) but the faster early pace didn't help me, either.

Most of yesterday afternoon and almost all of today has been dedicated to learning how to recover after such a rough run.  I started with a lot of REST yesterday - that was the easy part!  With aching knees and hips, there was nothing I wanted more than to stay off my feet.  As always, there was some stretching and icing throughout the day, as well.

But I've never been this kind of sore for this kind of reason before, and my typical RICE treatments may not be enough.  I've got a couple events coming up in the next few days, and soccer starting again on Sunday, so I need to be sure I'm doing the right things.  My foam roller and I have definitely been getting even better acquainted, and I'm learning some new techniques to specifically treat my post-run injuries.

The most vital resource I've been using for post-race rehab has come from a surprising source: yoga.  I'm sure many of you will say "that's not surprising at all!" but for me, I guess even after dabbling a little in yoga I'm still so under-educated in the breadth of the practice.  There's a great site that is showing me how versatile and flexible (har har) yoga can be: it's called Do Yoga With Me, and it's amazing.

With classes broken down into plenty of searchable categories, it's so easy to find a routine that fits your schedule and needs!  You can search by length, difficulty level, or style/purpose - there's even "yoga for runners" - and once you've become more acquainted with the site, you can even search by specific teachers once you figure out who best speaks to your personal relationship with yoga.  And best of all - it's totally FREE.

This is a phenomenal tool to add to my fitness workshop.  Now that my first half is behind me, and I've wracked up a summer full of race experiences, I'm excited to take my training and my awareness to the next level.  I'm getting smarter about training, and learning that there's more to "training" than just pushing myself to run faster or farther.  As I continue to learn and develop, I'm only going to get better.

So watch out for me next year - I'm gonna be kicking some butt.

How do you use yoga in your fitness plans?  Any tips to help me better recover from a rough run?