TOW #4 - How To Recover After a Half Marathon

I choose an article from a running blog for my TOW this week. Although I came across this own Pinterest, I found it suitable for this assignment. The blogger, Laura, is a distance runner and RRCA certified running coach. She has run numerous 10Ks and half marathons, as well as the Portland Marathon. Her half marathon PR is 1:38:40. She wrote this article to explain her remedies and recovery tips after completing a half marathon. Her audience seems to be anyone who has just trained for the half marathon themselves, catering to rookies like me who are not aware of ways to have sufficient recovery.

One rhetorical device she uses to achieve her purpose is showing a sample recovery schedule. It is common for runner blogs to share their personal schedules when giving out tips and ideas. In giving a general guideline as to what activities can be done on a given day, Laura aids the reader’s comprehension as to what recovery looks like. She also is able to show the gradualness of the recovery process by showing a span of days. Her central argument of showing that the recovery period is essential for your muscles and should be taken seriously is supported by this general plan. It also gives her a sense of credibility, as she has been through this process enough times to have an outline of what this stage looks like to her.

I think that Laura achieves her purpose well. She earns automatic ethos when you see that she is a certified running coach, so the facts she gives on muscle injury are reliable and give a cautionary tone to her work. I also appreciate her anecdotes about her own recovery experiences and feelings (another device at which she gains integrity). I will keep this article in mind when I finish the half marathon in 2017.

http://www.thisrunnersrecipes.com/how-to-recover-after-a-half-marathon/