Hi Kara ... I'm not super-experienced, but I'll take a stab at it. :-) It's like anything else, it depends on your fitness level, the length of the race, and how hard you raced it.
1. After the shorter races - 5 to 10K length -- I don't really do anything special for recovery. I just go with how I feel. If my legs are tired or a little sore, I'll back off on the length and speed of training runs for a day or two, but that's it. Even after a half marathon, I just backed off my training run distance for a few days, and ran a shorter "long run" the next week. But after a week, I was right back on my regular routine.
2. I could probably run a shorter race (5 or 10K) every week if I wanted to. I'd just count that as my speed work! I personally think the minimum time between half marathons is about 2 weeks. I only did one full marathon, and that was enough for me! I was really exhausted and sore after that and never wanted to do another one. A half marathon is about perfect -- enough to be a challenge, but not so much to beat you up. IMHO
Everyone is different though. I know people who do the Disney "Goofy" which is the half marathon on Saturday followed by the full marathon on Sunday! There are those who do a 3 or 4 full marathons over the race season plus other half marathons for training purposes. I think you have to be careful and listen to your body to avoid overtraining and ending up with some kind of stress injury.
Racing is fun, but it also does get expensive, and how many T-shirts can you use anyway! I live in a hot climate and our race season is about over -- this year I did about five 5K's, one 10K, and one half marathon over a space of 5 months or so. Next year I'm planning to do 3 half marathons over 3 months (one each in Dec, Jan, Feb) along with the other assorted shorter races. That's plenty of T-shirts for my closet!
Hope that helps!
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