Marathon Recovery and Next Steps

I have had precisely one Z1 recovery run since CIM. I was hoping for a 5K run, but my right knee was tight throughout the run. I started with sore lower abdominal muscles; that pain disappeared after the first half mile. Then my tight right gluteus medius reared its ugly head, causing soreness from the half-mile mark to the one-and-a-quarter mile mark. I decided to cap the run at one and a half miles.

As for the next steps, I will not be running in the Berlin Marathon or the Chicago Marathon because neither of those cities accepted me in their lottery. I will not be running in a new pair of ASICS since I did not win the Runkeeper CIM 40 for 40 contest. Ten pairs of shoes were up for grabs for the 18 people who completed the challenge.

I am looking for a new core strength program and want to incorporate lunges, reverse lunges, and squats. I was doing three sets of body weight core exercises: bicycle, plank, bridge, side plank, clamshells, and reverse plank for 45 seconds on and 10 seconds off. I took a two-minute rest between sets, 3x a week. Unfortunately, I stopped halfway through the last training block and never returned to the exercises. 

I still need to figure out my race schedule. The New York Marathon is the only 2024 major marathon lottery remaining. The window for New York opens in March, so I will leave my fall options open for now and look for a spring race.

Do you have any suggestions for races? Please let me know in the comments below.

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