Hangin' with Mickey

It's been awhile since my last update on my training for the upcoming Disney marathon. There were some good things to report... and then a whole lot of not much.


Peak Week

The peak week of training had gone pretty well. The two short runs of the week went well as I did my usual 4 mile trail run and my 4 mile hilly neighborhood loop and I was able to get complete both in my best times ever.

Then came my long run - which was strategically scheduled the day I before I flew home for the holidays. I had decided long ago that I would do 18, not 20, this time but I was still worried about running this long of a distance by myself.

As usual, I ran the LG creek trail. I decided I would walk all the water breaks which I would take every two miles (since there is an abundance of water stops during the real thing - 22 I think) with Gu's every hour or so. And guess what - it worked out really well! I didn't "cheat" with extra walking breaks - I only walked while I drank and then immediately started running again. For the last four miles though, I took water breaks every mile.

The whole thing took about 3 hours and 15 minutes which ended up being a 10:50 min/mi pace. Actually, my real pace was a bit slower than that since I now have a Forerunner 305 in my possession which has shown my Nikeplus is still a little bit off despite my attempts to calibrate it on a track. Either way, I was still really happy with how I did since my previous long run involved an hour long break on my couch!

Extreme tapering

I followed my 18 mile run with a short easy 3 mi run the next morning before my flight home to OH. My legs didn't really appreciate that.

With temps in the 20's and me just wanting to enjoy the holidays, I knew there would be no running in my week at home with the family so I didn't even bring my running shoes home with me. I thought maybe I might do some other types of cardio, but no such luck.

I flew back the Sunday before New Year's and I had all these grand plans of completing my 12 mile run on Dec. 31 since I had the day off anyway. But unfortunately, I had received the DVD set of The Office - Season Three which kept my glued to the couch until it was time to get ready to meet up with my friends for New Year's Eve.

I did manage to participate in a race on New Year's Day - a 5 mi Resolution Run in LG. There were some crazy hills on this race - very steep! I thought I could follow the race with 7 more miles on the trails but my legs did not respond well to the extreme uphill and then downhill course so I only managed three before deciding to give them a break.

And then it was back to work. I did a short 2 mile run on Thursday and then Friday I was off to Austin for a super fun wedding weekend. I had another grand plan of doing a 6 mi run on Sunday around Austin's Town Lake with my friend but again, that did not happen. (Notice a trend?) I caught a cold that weekend and on Sunday morning took a Sudafed which I think made me too spacey to participate in any kind of run.

And then the sickness

So now it's a week before I'm supposed to run 26.2 miles and I'm sick! On Monday and Tuesday, I had a full-blown cold. I stayed home from work because I was so sneezy that I decided to keep my germs to myself. But I did drink a ton of fluids and got a lot of rest so I guess that was good.

On Wednesday, I started to feel a little better. I even did a really short run in the morning - more for my mental state because I wasn't even sure about my running condition at this point. So far, so good! I then flew to Orlando fully armed with Airbornes and cold medicine stuff. Amazingly enough, I actually felt OK when I finally arrived at 10:30PM that night!

Greetings from Orlando

And now I'm reunited with my family again! My parents and my sister with her family have joined me here in Disneyworld for this little adventure. (And also because we're Disney freaks as we're here all the time) As you can tell, my family didn't waste time to hang with Mickey as we visited Magic Kingdom this morning. We're staying at the Polynesian Resort which is really nice and which means I can take the monorail to the marathon start. :)

Last night, we went to the "Spirit of Aloha" dinner at our hotel. The food was yummy and they had some great performances like this fire dance!



Today, I plan to go to the expo and my brother arrives as well.
Hopefully, I will post again soon but if not, my live tracking results will be posted here on Sunday. Race starts at 6AM EST. (And I have to be there at 4AM - yikes!)