Thanks to everyone for the kind words! Debbieandroo and others, trust me, if I can do this, you definitely can too! I mean, would you call
this clown an athlete???
Yes, I really did wear that during the half. If you saw the weird guy with the propeller beanie, that was me. I figured I'd wear something funny for my kiddo, who ate it up. You can't see the neon green knee-high socks in that photo. That's probably for the best.
Congratulations!!!! I think you did wonderful, and i want to follow in your footsteps. I am a repeat-injured runner and will likely have to walk in a couple of my upcoming races.
may i ask, what training program did you use for the Goofy? Did you a traditional marathon training program or a special "walking" program?
I started out doing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then 10 miles on consecutive weekends. Then I added a mile every other weekend and did lesser amounts on the "off" weekends. During the weeks I tried to do at least two miles three times a week, but honestly with a 5 yo and a newborn (during training!) it didn't always happen. A few times, evenly spaced, I did half of my long distance the night before (in other words, walks on consecutive nights) to get used to going on tired legs. I deviated from the training when I did the full Goofy distances that weekend I mentioned in my original post.
That all sounds pretty tedious, and it was, but I tried to keep my mind occupied by focusing on technique and, later, by sort of daydreaming about the course, the finish line, how I would tell doubters I had done it, what I would tell my kiddo about it, and so on. The music, once I got it right, helped too.
I discovered during training that the loop I live on is exactly .25 miles per lap. That made the math easy and, after a safety scare in a neighborhood during a late night session, I decided to just do laps. I figured if I could endure the monotony of the endless laps around the same quarter mile, then Disney would be a pleasant change. Sort of like swinging a bat with a donut on it in the on deck circle. Turns out that strategy did work, but it sure was brutal to train in and my neighbors probably think I'm crazy for doing as many as 105 laps around the neighborhood in one night.
My last session was a second full 26.2 two weeks before the races. I had the bona fide flu over Christmas and it messed with my schedule a little. I did 6.5 the weekend before the race.
Don't know if any of that helps. As Coach says, we are all an experiment of one, but at least I can say that this worked for me at least once!