kanjigirl

I did it for the first time this year - by far the most fun race (I did the half) I've ever participated in. It was a great time, I plan to do it again in a few years.

Geez, the Dumbo is sold out Registering for the half now. Shoot.

Wow, the Dumbo Double Dare is $320! That's about what our plane tickets would be! Seriously considering it though, that's a lot of medals...

Hmm, that's not bad. I wish there were a 'Dopey Light' - run all but the marathon.

What's the Dumbo?

Yeah - I'm more than a little tempted to go for the Coast to Coast. A long weekend in LA in August would not be a bad thing at all... and the medals are so nice!

very well thanks - I wrote a big blog post about it: http://www.slowroad.net/races/disney-world-half-marathon-january-11/

Thank you thank you!

Lifting at the gym this morning, plus 15 minutes of rowing. I've never used the two Concept 2 rowing machines at this gym, it was quite nice. I did an upper body routine (3 sets of 10 each), planks (normal and side), Russian twists with a 6-lb ball, and Bosu 100's for core. I also do 3 sets of 10 each on the leg press (two feet and one foot) and seated curl. My calves are feeling a lot better today. I had waffles and bananas for breakfast after

December 21 - indoor 3-mile track run with the last Magic Mile. Today was the last Magic Mile (time trial mile) before the half in January. Funny but I did it in the exact same time as 2 weeks ago – 10:16. That was all-out for me, and pretty good considering my calves are still sore from Tuesday. I went to 3.12 miles today and a time of 35:10, 3 seconds slower than my last 5k. The track goes above the weight room and the pool. The pool side was so hot today – I’ll bet it was 82F easily over there. It was hard to run in that as the workout went along. Based on the three Magic Miles my race pace will be 13:20.

December 19 - pool run. My calves were very very sore from the long run Tuesday (which was odd because I was taking very short, quick steps and wore my calf compression sleeves) so this pool run felt really good. I’ve been doing a lot of Stick this week to try to work out that soreness. I did the ladder workout in the pool this morning: 1 min easy alternating with 1 minute hard for 20 minutes30 seconds easy alternating with 30 seconds sprint for 10 minutes

December 17 - Long run. I’ve been working out inside during the deep freeze we had recently – I tried an outside run a few days ago but there was still too much ice out there for me to feel comfortable. So today was a nice change, it’s gotten very warm in the last couple of days. I decided to run on the Power Trail since it’s in the sun, it only crosses I think 3 roads, and there was likely to be less ice, if any. I was right about that, I only encountered 2-3 icy patches on the whole run. The Power Trail is about 5-ish miles from end to end, and my plan was to run down and back and then do a bit more at the end (the goal was 12 miles for the day). My long run 2 weeks earlier was really crappy due to my own screwups so today I was careful to stay at my target slow pace (about 13:30-14:00) and walk consistently 1 minute out of five. I did both. It was about 25F when I started and I had my hydration pack so could shed the arm warmers and long-sleeve top as needed. The run down was nice, no problems. When I got to the south end I was a bit over 5 miles (due to where I’d parked) and decided to run through the neighborhood there to pick up a bit more distance. The neighborhood is a hill – very steep hill. I ran up and down and back to the south trailhead, that put me at about 5.6 or 5.7 miles. The run back was harder. I kept on pace and run/walk schedule, but didn’t get to 12 miles, I topped out at 11.11 when I reached the car. That’s all I had that day, plus I was stressing about work since it was a Tuesday and I normally do long runs on the weekend. Overall, a much better run than the last long run. One more to go before the half in January, the next one is 14 miles.

Catching up on entries here. December 11 - Treadmill hill run. 31 minutes on the treadmill, no zombies today – I just watched the news, which was scarier. Today I increased the incline by .5 every five minutes. No problems with the ankle, except some tenderness on stretching as usual. Average pace 13:38 today (kind of slogging up those hills) and total distance of 2.26.

It was around zero again this morning so I went to the gym to do my Magic Mile and the other two miles. This was the second of three time trial miles leading up to the half on January 11 per the Galloway plan. Today was good - I did the first mile in 10:16 (better than the 10:29 I did two weeks ago) and the last mile at 10:15. If I'd thought, I would have gone 0.12 miles further and smoked my 5k time for this year, but I failed to think and started walking at 3 miles. My time was 32:49, and my best 5k this year back in the summer was 35:07. I could have shaved 2 minutes off that! Happy with the run today! Two more long runs, one more Magic Mile and I'll be at the half. And in warm, sunny (maybe) Florida, away from this Colorado winter.

I'll keep that in mind and make one of my short runs a hill run each week...

This week - Tuesday Dec. 3 I was super-sore after the bad run Sunday so I did 30 minutes of fast walking on the treadmill. That was kind of nice, actually. I walked from zombies, surprised nobody ate me. Friday Dec. 6 I ran uphill from zombies for 30 minutes on the treadmill, since it was -6F when I got up. Not a big fan of burning lungs... I raised the incline 1 setting every 5 minutes. It's supposed to finally get over 20F next Tuesday! This has been a super-cold few days.

In lieu of streaking, I'm committing to a minimum of 2 strength training days per week until the half in January. Did 30 minutes of upper body work this morning.

Today was rough. When I left it was about 31F and sunny, very light wind. According to the Galloway plan I'm following for the half, I should have been maintaining about 13:00 pace running with 1 minute walks (about 14:45) thrown in every few minutes. What I did wrong today: Started too fast. I kept finding myself going 11:40 and 12:06, could not keep the slow pace. My average was 13:06 but only because I had to walk so much after 8.95 miles where I hit a wall. Had a different lacing pattern I'd not tried on a long run before - I had to stop and relace around mile 3 as my right toes were already going numb. Didn't walk enough. I was walking every 6th minute but for this long slow run, it should have been every 4th minute (what I've kept to in the past successfully). Got overheated. I kept passing runners wearing gloves and hats even when I was almost back to the car - but when I got in the car I was surprised to see that it was 53F. It didn't feel that warm. I was wearing a long sleeve Nike Drifit (warmish) top over a Drifit t-shirt; I should have pulled off the top layer about halfway through. Cadence too slow - 160. Should have been a bit higher. Just a crappy run. I didn't finish 11, I got to 10.52 miles and that was it for me. I think I'm going to stop the Streak challenge; I really like the idea of doing it, but I have always had a hard time running back-to-back days since I started again this spring and even though it's just one mile, my plantar fasciitis is noticeably worse after just four straight days of running. I don't want another injury so close to my half marathon, so I'm not Streaking any more at this time. Rats.

Day 3 of the Streak. I was scheduled for 11 miles but I have a mild cold and will do that tomorrow morning. I see the high's supposed to be about 16F later this week - I suspect that will be a treadmill day! Today I did 1 mile, 45F (shorts!), 11:13 pace. 168 average cadence.

We're actually going shopping now (8:28 am) Day 2 of the Streak - 1 frosty mile at 7:00 am, 11:19 pace. No walking (cause it was too cold to slow down).

I signed up for the Runner's World Holiday Streak yesterday and got it going with a 4 mile Thanksgiving Day Run this morning. I love running on Thanksgiving, it was such a fun time; there were about 3000 people today. The Streak is running at least one mile every day between now and New Year's. I'm going to give it a shot. Here's the nifty long-sleeve tech shirt this year. My goal today was to finish in under 48:00 and I did it in 47:55, woot! It would have been closer to 47:00 as it took me almost a minute to get to a place I could actually run in the crowd of walkers, strollers and dogs… I was about midway in the pack at the start, but I couldn’t believe how many walkers there were even at the very front of the pack. The person beside me as we were moving to the start line kept hitting me in the leg with her stroller. After turning the first corner, a woman with two Pomeranians dropped the leash of one of her dogs and it ran toward me yapping; I almost tripped over it. Other than that, no incidents today. I taped up my ankle with rock tape and had no problems, but I did watch carefully where I was stepping. Great weather, it was sunny and 30F at the start, no wind. I tried to stay around 10:50 pace (run 4 minutes, walk 1) but found that to be hard, I was either at 11:15 or 10:30 most of the time so I guess it all evens out. The cadence was around 166, that’s pretty good for me. Super-happy to start my holiday with a beaten goal, and kind of looking forward to Streaking tomorrow (not going shopping at 4:00 am).

The movie was great Maybe I'll start doing one of my short runs during the week on this half-humid track...

Good start today - I went to the gym (since there's ice on the sidewalks/road edges) and ran on the little indoor track, which was possibly good training for Florida since half the track is above the pool, all warm and humid. Today I was scheduled for a 3-miler with a Magic Mile, Galloway's term for the time trial used to calculate projected finish time for a race. This was the first of three. I did the Magic Mile in 10:29, woot! That was cool, the ankle felt fine (still tender to touch though). And then did the rest at a more comfortable 12:00 mile or so. Afterwards I did my new arm routine (this one, it seems quite thorough even though it's short - http://www.runnersworld.com/workouts/the-body-shop-arms-race. And then incorporate my hip girdle routine (http://www.erwinrgonzalez.com/2012/02/hip-injury-prevention-myrtl-routine/) into the stretching. Now it's time for lunch and 'Catching Fire.'

Went to the gym this morning as it was 24F and snowing. I did about 25 minutes of arm, glute and core strength training, then tried to run on the treadmill but my stupid after-market shoelaces kept coming untied. I ran for about 20 minutes, may go again Friday but definitely have a run Saturday morning to look forward to. I'm going to replace my shoelaces (these are in the off-pair as I have two pretty new pairs of Asics GT-2170's in the stable).

Maybe I should dress as Sleepy...