Don't get discouraged. You'll have totally awesome days. You'll have totally sucky days. You'll have plenty of days where you look out the window and say "F that".
You know what your goal is. It will be far easier to achieve your goal if you train more. I can give you a first hand example of this. I spent the end of November and first portion of December in the ICU. Not only did it land at a horrid time in my training schedule, but it depleted most of my endurance, lung capacity and muscle tone. On my pre-Christmas cruise, I went on the Disney Dream and did the 5K on Castaway Cay and saw just how bad I was. Worse than before I started training for my first event. I had a decision to make. And what my goal truly was.
Choice #1: Throw in the towel and skip the three event I signed up for over Marathon weekend (thereby losing the registration fees) and cheer on other racers--all the while be longing to be on the course.
Choice #2: Still participate mostly as a walker and probably have some pretty horrid finish times.
I went with choice #2. And although my times were significantly and embarrassingly bad, I used the opportunity to smell the proverbial roses. I cheered on my fellow participants more. I took more photos. I listened to what my body was telling me and when I needed to slow it down and when it allowed me to pick up the pace. I am glad I went with choice #2. My goal was to have a good time and bring home the bling. My goal will probably never be to get a personal record time at a runDisney event, there are too many distractions.
I expect my Tinkerbell time to be improved, but I'm not sure by how much, as I only have two weeks and don't want to injure myself.
I totally agree with you; pick a goal and go with it, even when you don't think you can go on. Many a 5 am would come for my morning run, and I'd think of the pride I'd feel when I got my medals, and that would get me going.
However, I too, had something that disrupted my training when I pulled 2 ligaments in my left knee in August. The lesson here kids: BUY NEW SHOES REGULARLY... I was pushing through old shoes, and it had lost it's support, and I was damaging myself so much, that I couldn't train at all since then. But, I did the races anyway... not as great as I'd like to have performed, but I still finished, and it was totally worth the pain.
Disney does the best job that I've ever seen in preparing race courses, arranging food and water stops, getting the best volunteers that I've ever seen, characters and music, etc. Plus, how magical was it to enter the 4 theme parks?
I cannot wait for registrations to open up... I want to do
Disneyland's half Labor Day weekend, the wine and dine 1/2 again in November and then maybe the Goofy once more next year for the 20th anniversary of the marathon. It's an expensive hobby, but it's better then laying around the house drinking all the time.
