Finally.....2012 Disney World Half Marathon Recap

What a terrible blogger I am...I have barely written anything in weeks and I've been saying for two weeks that I would recap the Disney World half marathon. I'm going to try to keep it short and sweet with just posting some pictures and captions.

The two days before the race we spent walking around Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios - I thought my feet were going to be toast for the race, but we left the parks early on Friday afternoon and had a low key dinner at the hotel. I think I was asleep by 8:30 the night before the race!

My race bib

THEN - We woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 2:30 AM - yes, you read that right - Two-freaking-thirty in the MORNING. The race started at 5:30. Painful.

On the shuttle to the race

The shuttle dropped us off, we porta-pottied, Vaselined (me), posed, and hydrated.

Pre-race picture

After using the porta-potties twice (nervous peeing), we hearded ourselves to the start line. It was about a half mile walk that took the better part of 20 minutes. It was kind of annoying, but at least we had given ourselves plenty of time! We still had over an hour before our corral started by this point.

Hearding the cattle...er...runners

Finally at the start line - they had the corrals so spread out from the actual start line - they had big screens to show the back what was going up at the start line. Crazy!


This guy was in full Jack Sparrow garb. How was he going to run in that? I'm still wondering...



Then we were off! They actually do full fireworks when the first corral takes off - pretty cool!

The race starts out on the streets around Epcot and heads in the direction of Magic Kingdom. It wasn't even daylight out before we entered the gates outside the parking lot of Magic Kingdom!

Can you find the little vegan aka Sarah?

It was pretty much awesome running through Magic Kingdom and right under the Castle (where we had dinner, two nights before). Then as you exit from the Castle, they have professional photographers ready to take your photo.



All business...



After exiting Magic Kingdom you follow the streets back toward Epcot. This is about mile 11 or 12 as we're making our way towards Epcot.


You run about a mile through Epcot (maybe a little less), then you exit back into the parking lot. I made the girls stop and take a picture at mile 13 :)



Right before we crossed the finish line...



The coolest medal ever - even cooler than Mercedes!



They gave us special buttons the next day at the Polynesian :)



We finished!

Official time: 3:33:45 - an 11 minute PR

As expected the race - and the trip - were amazing! Maybe it was the magic of Disney. Or spending 5 days with great friends watching them crush their first half marathon, but I seriously had so much fun that I would consider making this an annual trip. Even though we walked about 20 miles Wed-Fri, I felt strong pretty much the whole race. True, my feet hurt really bad the last 1-2 miles, but compared to my other half it was nothing. I didn't feel like I trained very hard for this race, but it proved me wrong. I was more than ready. So ready, in fact, I'm considering doing the Nashville Rock n Roll race in April. JUST CONSIDERING....so far.

I also caught myself thinking about a marathon while I was racing two weeks ago. I thought to myself, "Disney is the ONLY place I would consider doing a marathon." Then I quickly realized that I have never had any desire to do a marathon up until this point. Scary.

Of course since the race I've only ran twice...haha...post-race laziness is ensuing. I'm going to try and do 6 this weekend. It may be rough...

Diary of an overweight runner - 3 weeks till Disney!

The Disney Half Marathon is now less than 3 weeks away (20 days to be exact) and I realized I haven't talked about my training much since this post almost a month ago. Since then I have done a 10 miler and as of today a 12 miler with a few 8 milers thrown in. A few notes on the last few week's worth of runs.

10 miles
Two weeks ago I set out for 10 miles. Honestly, it wasn't the worst. I was familiar with the trail and a pre-mappped my route, which was out and back, so I knew exactly where I was going. I had a little mental self-concious thing with this speed walker who I would pass when I jogged and then she would pass me when I walked and when she was in front of me she KEPT LOOKING BACK AT ME. C'mon trail etiquette police, isn't that totally rude to keep looking back at someone?! So I hit about 2-3 miles in the middle of my run a little too hard trying to pass her a few times, which is my own damn fault, but it also caused me to need to walk the last mile or so. I still finished 10 miles in approximately 2:34 - well within the time limit for Disney.

However, about an hour after my 10 mile run I got what I can only assume was a migraine. We're talking laid out on the couch, can't move, nausea inducing migraine. I often get headaches after I run, but I've never in my life (even outside of running) had a migraine like that before. It was so bad I got physically sick. All I could do for 4 hours is lay in the dark with the TV on mute and a cold wash cloth on my face and neck.

I'm pretty confident it wasn't a hydration issue since the week leading up to the run I was nailing hydration with 130 ounces the Friday before the run. I also carried about 25 ounces with me and drank 80 ounces in the hours after the run. I did decide to try a new routine the next long run.

8 miles
This was a good run. I was able to pretty much keep my 1/2 mile run, 1/4 mile walk intervals up and averaged approximately a 15 minute mile. I also had no headache after this run! I changed my routine and I hope this solves the issue going forward. Normally, I would just get up, get dressed, grab a peanut butter sandwich and immediately go out the door the mornings of my run. Last week; however, I got up about 30 minutes before I wanted to get dressed, had a cup of coffee, a glass of water and "woke up" before getting ready and having breakfast before leaving. It seemed to help because no headache last week or this week.

12 miles
Today was 12 miles and let me tell you I was NOT looking forward to it. Earlier this week I had an allergic reaction to amoxicillin and my run schedule got off pushing this run to Sun instead of Sat. Even though I got to sleep in yesterday, something about doing a very long run on a Sunday is not fun. I think my mental attitude really threw me off. I could not keep up with my 0.5/0.25 intervals even a few miles in, so I went to 0.25. Around mile 6 I hit a wall and was just kind of done. 6 miles into a 12 mile run is really early to hit a wall! I walked a lot between miles 6 & 7, ran normally miles 8 & 9 and probably less than mile 10. Then I straight up walked the last two miles. My time still came in at approximately 3:01 - hallelujah that is still 15 min per mile and way under the Disney time cap, but part of me still felt defeated. Sometimes, I feel I can just walk faster than my tired jogging shuffle where my feet are barely leaving the ground takes me. My feet hurt the last 5+ miles, I have blisters and my water bottle leaked all down my back. But it's done and now it's onto taper...oh taper how I love thee.

Fastest 5K time
So y'all don't think I just complain all the time, I'm gonna tell you about my fastest 5K time, which was an unexpected surprise since I haven't really cared about my overall speed this training cycle. Last Tuesday I worked from home because I had a terrible cough and was sick of hacking all over my co-workers. So, I took the opportunity to do my run on my lunch break. The weather was perfect - chilly and just rained. The stars aligned and I was able to run over a mile straight TWICE during my run around the neighborhood. Once I realized I was kicking major ass, I decided to make that run my fastest 5K time. I ended up doing 3.1 in 41.47, which beat my August 5K time of 44.29, and walked very little of the run. Success!

So, 20 days and I'll be a 3X half-marathoner. I want a 13.1 sticker with Mickey Mouse ears around it. Surely they make those, right?

Diary of an overweight runner - Disney half marathon training check in

After having a little nervous break down a few weeks ago over my half marathon training, things have been going better on the training front. I have missed one mid-week run because I had to go buy new tires two Friday nights ago and thus I did not go to the gym.

After writing that post, I did 7, then 8 miles and this week I did 9. And I have survived!

The 7 and 8 milers were pretty nondescript. I did them within my 15 min per mile training goal and I didn't collapse after either of them.

The 9 miler on Saturday wasn't bad either but trying out a new unfamiliar (unmarked) trail combined with the Garmin Fit app on my phone freezing at 2.5 miles, I had that horrible sinking feeling of having no idea whether I was actually completing 9 miles since I just did it by time; figuring I run about 15 min mile. I also turned around a little earlier b/c I didn't want to cross a 4 lane busy road towards the end and I ran out of trail. I mapped part of my run afterwards (it was too tedius to do the whole thing) and I at least came within .2 of 9 miles. If I can do 8.8, I can do 10, right???

I did like the trail, so I would use it again if I pre-mapped my run and knew where I was going.

A couple good things did come out of Saturday's run. 1) I was definitely running more than walking, I would run approximately a 1/2 mile and then run a 1/4 mile. (Or run 2 songs and walk 1). Also, after my Garmin app froze, I ran for 15 minutes straight or 1 mile without stopping.

I've always ran intervals with the longest run interval being 8 minutes when I did the 5K in August. So this left me feeling accomplished.

10 miles is up next. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but I know I can do it. It may happen this weekend, but with being in St. Louis for the holiday I may only do 6 or 8 and do 10 the next weekend.

The race is less than 7 weeks away!

Cinderella's Castle!

Tuesday I when I got done running 3.3 miles, I picked up my phone and had a text from my friend that we were booked to eat dinner IN Cinderella's Castle at Disney World during our half marathon stay. So excited. This tweet pretty much sums it up:


I then proceeded to spend way too much time looking at restaurants on property at Disney World. There. Are. So. Many.

I haven't been to Disney World since I was 5 and I barely remember it. No that's a lie. I remember screaming my head off on Space Mountain and trying to climb out of the ride while it was moving. Um yes, at 5 years old my parents let me ride Space Mountain. I was a tall kid.

In short, I'm getting super excited about spending 5 nights at Disney World in January. You know, except for that whole running 13.1 miles thing.

There are good runs and bad runs

Aside from weigh in posts, I've been pretty absent from blogging lately. It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's just after 8-10 hours a day in a stressful work environment, starring at a computer screen I don't really feel like blogging much in the evenings. After work I'm usually good to barely get my workout in and get a healthy dinner eaten before zoning out in front of the time waster aka the TV. I know I should watch less TV, but most days I don't feel like it.

Let's pick our battles here, and I'd rather battle my impressive sweets addiction I've let back into my life.

As I mentioned in my weigh in post earlier, I did get all 3 of my training runs in last week. Oh yeah. If you haven't followed amongst the long gap of updates, training has officially started for the Disney World Half Marathon I am doing in January.

After 2 weeks of skipping workouts, I finally completed a full schedule last week. And I realized you truly have good runs and bad runs. Thursday was a bad run. I just felt really off. I was at the gym on the treadmill. I felt overheated and I finally gave up around mile 2.5. I was so focused on my pace and how it wasn't good enough (15 min miles), I frustrated myself and talked myself into quitting.

I decided late Friday not to do the Germantown Bier Fest 5K as planned. I love this event so it was a hard decision to make, but doing 3.1 miles when I needed to be doing 5.5 as I outlined on my training schedule wasn't going to cut it. And I'm still not sure about running two days in a row. Plus, I needed to save the $35 I would of had to pay day of the race since I have a lot of travel coming up (Atlanta, holidays, Orlando)

I was so glad I decided to focus on my long run instead.

I woke up at 4:30 AM on Saturday morning (not on purpose) and laid in bed until my alarm went off at 6:15. Surprisingly, the too early wake up call didn't phase me and I was at the greenway by 6:40. It was a beautiful morning and I ran by 2 deer (twice) literally inches from the trail.

I decided to do something different and leave the phone (stopwatch and music) in the car. All I carried with me was my car key and water (I forgot the Shot Bloks at home, but I ended up not needing them) and off I went. When I was warming up I thought, "Crap, how am I going to do my intervals without a stopwatch." Silly me quickly realized the trail is pretty much marked every quarter mile, so I decided to take it easy and run a quarter mile, walk a quarter mile; out and back.

It worked like a charm.

I had been doing 5 minutes running and 1 or 2 minutes walking, but I was finding myself nosediving halfway through my runs. True, a quarter mile recovery walk is probably a bit too much recovery time, but it was easy for me to keep track of with no watch.

I finished 5.8 miles in my fastest time.

5.8 miles in 84 minutes. Of course that time is approximate since that includes walking to/from the car to look at the time. But by all conservative estimates, that is a 14:29 minute mile!

Timing my intervals by distance and allowing myself more "recovery time" WORKED!

Also, I got my head out of the clouds from Thursday's run and realized my pace is JUST FINE where it is for right now. I don't HAVE to be any faster for the race in January. I ONLY have to be able to do 13.1 miles in 3 hours and 30 minutes. And even if I take every last second of 3 hours and 30 minutes to finish, that will still be my fastest Half Marathon time, and an accomplishment.

So no more worrying about "going faster." My natural running pace right now is 15 minute miles and I am finally OK with that.

Diary of an overweight runner - First 'long' run

Today was my first official "long run" for the Disney Half Marathon in January. The word long is relative because in the grand scheme of 13.1 miles my plan to do 4-5 miles is not really long comparatively.

I ended up doing 4.8 miles in about 71 minutes, which calculates to about 14:47 minutes per mile. This included warm up/cool down. But it is still perfectly on pace with where I need to be for the 3 1/2 hour time limit on the Disney race. Proud of this.

I didn't really have a plan for what me run/walk intervals would be. I just listened to my body and ran when I felt like I could run and walked when I needed to rest. It worked out pretty well. I probably walked more than I needed to, but mostly I tried to run 5-7 minutes and walk 1-3 minutes.

I also tried shot blocks for the first time during a run. I ate 2 at the halfway mark and although I'm not sure I really needed them, I did not ever get a light-headed feeling like I sometimes do when I'm out doing longer distances.

I still don't have a plan on paper for training going forward, but I'm hoping Brad Gansberg can help me with that once I get off my ass and email him to take him up on his offer.

I hope to continue the "Diary of an Overweight Runner" series with a report on my training each week. The thought of doing the double digit training runs make me anxious. Yikes!

Diary of an overweight runner - Beginning half marathon training

This is the final week of the 5Kin100days program. Today I ran 4 loops around the library/park across the street from my neighborhood. 1 loop is a little less than a mile, I think, so I'm estimating 3.5 miles or so.

The run was good. Great even. I only wanted to die at the end and I'm ok with that. I'm no exercise expert, but I'm a firm believer that it should be hard. You are building your endurance. If you are training and your walk/run is easy then how are you improving? If it's easy are you honestly pushing yourself?

What's amazing to me is that today's run (10 minute fast walk/warm-up, 2 x 16 minutes with 1 minute of walking in between). I've found 80% of learning to run has been mental for me. Case in point: during rest weeks, I always think to myself, "oh, 4 minute intervals, this is easy peasey." And then it kills me. That's what happens when you go in over confident. I'll learn....maybe.

This weekend I will switch gears from 5Kin100days to my half-marathon training for the Disney World Half Marathon in January. It is 18 weeks away from this weekend and I must train to run 13.1 miles in under 3 hours. This frightens me, but I know this race is going to be one of a lifetime because A) my 3 very good friends (and first time half-marathoners) will be doing the race as well and 2) well, it's Disney World. Enough said.

I don't have a training schedule yet. Anyone out there want to build one for me? (I kid...sort of) This week at least I'll start with 4-5 miles of run/walking. I plan to do 3 runs a week + continue yoga/strength training.

I'm trying not to think about how I'm going to juggle a crazy work schedule and 10-20 miles of training a week. The important part is I know I can do this.

Time for a new weight loss goal

It's no secret I've lost my momentum lately. I missed my July 1 goal and it's taken me 5+ months to lose the last 20 lbs (see progress pictures on the right). In fact, as I type this I am licking remains of a peanut butter bar from my fingers. I just haven't been as aware of my nutrition lately as I should be.

So it's time to get back on track and set a new mini-goal. Which is:

When I lose my next 20 lbs I will buy a Garmin (or other comparable GPS device) to track my runs.

I've been thinking for awhile that in order to train for the time limit on the Disney half-marathon, I'll need to track my runs and make sure I am training at about a 15 minute per mi pace. The easiest way to do this is with a Garmin. Also, Miss Lynn was recently gifted a Garmin and loves it.

But I don't want to just go out and buy one, let's make myself work for it!

I chose 20 lbs because it is still a significant loss, but I estimate I will still have ample training time to use the Garmin before the Jan race by time I reach the goal.

So, there's no time limit on losing the weight, but I don't get the goods until I am 20 lbs lighter.

Today I weighed in at 256.4 so when I reach 236.4 I will purchase a Garmin. I've already planned a few dinners for the week, and sworn off sweets (I swear no more peanut butter bars as of today).

Here's to getting back my willpower!

Diary of an overweight runner - Michelin Man

Another week of 5Kin100days down on the books. I'm actually looking forward to getting our schedule for next week.

Today's run was rough though. First, it started when I wore the wrong pants. Yes, I know it seems like a minor thing, but there are certain qualities to clothes that I like when I'm running and these pants didn't have them. Combined with the shirt I was wearing, I looked like the Michelin Man and people stared at me.

Now I know you think I'm just overreacting but no, really, I caught one woman giving me a dirty look (which I shot right back). I tried not to care, but it's hard to concentrate on your rhythm when you feel self-conscious.

Secondly, I could not slow down. I kept speeding out of the gate during each 7 minute interval unable to slow myself down. I'm not sure why I was in such a hurry today, but I felt it.

Also the hills killed me. Now that I'm doing much more running than walking, I had two hills to reckon with. One is a gradual incline and the other is the infamous Mount Crumpet. I took video of Mount Crumpet today, but if I posted it you would just get motion sickness.

What's important is that I kept going. Yes, I cut two of my intervals short and I walked 2-3 minutes in between them, but I didn't stop, I eventually picked myself up and finished running.

However, my run Thursday was good. I timed my running portion and I was able to run 2.85 miles in 41 minutes for a 14:23 min per mile pace. This was the first time since I started running that I thought, "Oh hey, maybe I'll be able to do this Disney half marathon afterall."

I'll start training the beginning of September - just 4 weeks away!

Disney bound + beginning running again

Disney bound!

If you follow me on twitter, you probably already know on January 7, 2012 I will complete the Disney World half marathon. It will begin at 5:30 am. I will maintain at least a 16 minute pace per mile (or be kicked off the course). And I will do it with dear friends.

With Warrior Dash in September, this will be my next big half-marathon. Of course I'll continue to do smaller races in the mean time.

The biggest challenge for the Disney race is the time limit. I walked the Mercedes half with a 16:25 pace. I don't see myself getting much faster than that unless I begin jogging. My back problems have prevented much progress.

I've signed up to complete Brad Gansberg's 5K in 100 days program. I hope with some instruction and 35+ lbs lost since I tried running last August, I can overcome this issue. I have a weak back. I know the problem stems from a weak core and I am trying to fix it, but it is no easy feat when you carry the majority of your weight in your midsection. After running a couple 1 minute intervals last week I've also realized I strike too hard on my heels causing my back and hips to absorb the shock. I'm not sure how to correct this.

So running is still scary to me. Remembering all of the injuries I had last summer/fall (2 ankle sprains and the back pain), I'm really insecure about running/jogging causing an injury. All I can do is try again, if I end up with another back injury then I know I am not ready and maybe I need to go see an orthopedic doctor to have it looked at. I've never had imaging on my back, so there could be a slight possibility I have a slipped disk or something else causing the pain.

If you have any advice on running form or preventing low back injury, please, please share!