So is anyone doing training and actually planning on RUNNING these events?
That feels like an odd question.
Does it change anything for you if I tell you I run/walk? Except my running is more like a jog?
What if I told you that from WDW marathon weekends '14 to '15 I participated in 6 Halfs, my training slacked off between each one worse and worse, and my times got worse and worse (after an uptick for the second one)? I got massively sick before the WDW '14 Half, am not sure how I started, let alone finished. I had no plan for getting back into training, and was still
very sick for over a month after I got home (and our trip was 4 weeks long). Which caused my St Patrick's Day Half that year to be a bit painful (though I was better than the "sick.0" half). And it got worse. I had thought that I would join Half Fanatics b/c of one of the small and close-together series that year, but then I realized I HATED the distance LOL. (I've pulled back from that feeling a bit) (thank you RnR Vancouver)
Does knowing that I wasn't
as serious as others cause a problem? I wasn't doing them
for a medal, though I do want the medal if I do them. I like the bibs, I like the shirts, I like the medals. I don't really do events that don't have at least a shirt or medal; what's the point of paying money for a run if you're not getting something like that? Training doesn't generally involve medals (unless you want to do virtual events, which I sometimes do, though just recently it took a Half and some other long distance AND 5 hours of helping to cut down ivy at our new house until I let myself give myself the Umbridge "13K or until it sinks in" medal from Hogwarts Running Club). But to PAY money for an event? gimme something other than the joy of having done it. (because for me there is very little joy in running alongside my 10,000 new closest buddies) I like, in general, Rock&Roll because of their awesome medals and relatively low costs. I've never considered going to Vegas until I got an email about RnR Vegas yesterday and saw the cooooool medals. I did Seattle Half, I'm doing Vancouver 10K and Half...at the end of all that I'll have the Seattle Half, Vancouver 10K, Vancouver Half, "remix" for doing the two in Vancouver, a Pacific medal for doing the two Pacific NW events, AND a World Rocker medal. Holy moly. Thank you RnR. And yet all my medals are in boxes, just sitting there, waiting for someday.
I've heard some horror stories (from the running thread) about the 10k where people just walk a mile or two and then stand to the side and wait for the bus to sweet them.
So I'm a little at a loss, since I don't always participate in that thread, because I don't know what the "horror" part of that story is. I'm trying to skim back to see what you're reading and where you're coming from, but unless the bus ran those ladies over I see no "horror". What they do in their lives doesn't change your life at all. Saying they finished doesn't change your experience.
OK, found it. I, too, started in Corral C for the 10K (the corral with no fireworks). And I guarantee that I'm slower than the poster who talked about it (and that poster is one of my faves here). So you would think that I would have seen that same thing; I'm not SO much slower that the bus-coming-in-an-hour would have already been by. But I didn't. So that's odd.
But I also just don't care about that stuff. I remember worrying about a young woman who was walking "backwards" at the WDW Half '15, looking for her special needs sister who had gotten separated from her. I remember worrying about the man who had fallen in the first 100 yards of Star Wars 10K this year and must have broken his nose, and later as we were in the ART/shuttle area a woman hit the ground HARD just as the path opened up again. I'm pretty sure someone bit it very soon after crossing the start line in my corral at Princess 10K. And there was another woman bleeding on the ground at Princess, but she already had help around her. I worry about that stuff. I don't worry about if people are waiting for a bus or why they are waiting and not walking. I don't know their stories. Maybe they were all in cotton socks and they'd all stepped in puddles and they were already blistering. Maybe they all came from an orthopedic clinic for some sort of fibularis injury, and while some of their group was still ok they were not. Who knows? I don't care. Doesn't change my world.
Apparently ladies were making fun of ladies who were heavy set ("fat") for running
The same ladies that were waiting to be picked up? Ladies in the running thread? Other ladies? Making fun of heavier (or thinner, or medium) people isn't very nice.
OK, obviously I found it. Different ladies talking about a different lady. Glad I have earbuds in when I run.
the expo was black friday style for all of the merchandise (fighting, etc)
That was true. Absolutely. Well, at least, during parts of it. It wasn't ALL like that. The part where there was a man carrying two cases, and pushing along another with his foot, of the coveted wine glasses, to buy them all in the first hour or so of the expo was true (heard it from many sources). That's not a pretty part of the expo at all. As I waited behind two women looking at some merchandise, to not be rude and reach through to get a shirt I wanted, a woman *behind me* reached through and grabbed the shirt I was waiting for. Sigh.
I hate all of that negativity!
Which negativity? The negativity of not training? The negativity of people commenting on the training schedules of others? Those making fun of sizes? Having physical fights over shirts? Those talking about the fights over shirts?
Unless someone wants to get into the conversation with you, or you get punched while walking through the expo, none of it has to affect you.
Honestly, the MOST negativity I found in the runup to this year's princess was on FB and it was from the "serious" runners. They were just nasty IMO. I got really really tired of their nonsense. Their oh-so-helpful advice that would have been good 6 months prior. NOT 3 weeks out. 3 weeks out it was useless. Try giving people the info throughout the year, ladies. Basically telling those whose training had gone awry in some way that there was no point. Not believing that those people had ever *wanted* to do all the training. etc
I don't like people questioning the motives of those who wait for the bus any more than I like people making fun of a too heavy or a too thin woman on the course.
d-in-the-T, you already are estimating an hour for the 10K. You're already faster than me.
No you can't submit POT for the 10K. That was all in your estimate of finish time. You're always going to have to weave unless you're up in the elite corral. And with princess you're going to have to deal with fast, tall, elbows-at-face-level men who started behind you and are now trying to get going. Those guys that I saw had ZERO etiquette (and sometimes they were dealing with 3 groups of 3 women all across the road, having NO idea what a blockade they were making, but not always), but they were obviously seasoned runners. At TOT '13 a fit, seasoned-looking runner passed me on my right, when there was literally NO road on my right and tons of road on my left, as we went through the pathway to WWoS. I was hugging the right in order to walk, because I couldn't see in there, I thought I was doing the right thing, but this seasoned runner blew right past me from the woods, basically.
Put in the time on your feet. Work out your nutrition pre-during (if you need it)-post-run. Try to not get injured and really try to not get sick 2 days after your plane lands. (ugh) Focus on you.
We discuss All The Things here because it's a discussion board. Remember that there are people here who did Princess FistFight and who have signed up again. Heck, I don't even want to do Princess, but my cousin did, and now it's a cousin thing. We came back for a reason! And it's not just so we can see more police officers at the expo.

Remember all of that whenever the discussions of ebay buyers and the sag wagon come up.