Dopey Was Always My Favorite Dwarf - 2015 WDW Marathon+DDD+Wine & Dine (New 6/18)

[Eight]

Hello and welcome.

My name is Eight or Rachel (or I occasionally respond to “hey you”), and I am Dopey. Like, really Dopey.

In other words, I am signed up for the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend Dopey Challenge.

In other words, I will be doing a 5K, 10K, half marathon, and a full marathon in four consecutive days. That’s 48.6 miles. In four days.

Like I said, Dopey.

Table of Contents
Introduction + Race Calendar
Why Am I Doing This?
Cutest. Medal. Ever.

 

[Eight]

Alright, so now that we’ve established that I might be a little Dopey, let’s establish the other parts of me, yes?

As I said, I’m Rachel, and I’m twenty-five. I’m a big fan of Disney, photography, theatre, running, and I just completed my Disney College Program about a month ago. It was awesome. Mostly.

I’m a huge fan of runDisney (despite some recent changes, but that’s a story for another day), and so far I’ve ran the Tower of Terror Ten Miler (2012 & 2013), Tinker Bell Half Marathon (2013), the Princess Half Marathon (2013 & 2014), Expedition Everest Challenge (2014), and the Disneyland Half Marathon/Dumbo Double Dare (2013). I’ve also run two other half marathons and other local races of varying lengths, but I’ll talk about those some other time.

This PTR is mainly going to be focused on my training for my upcoming runDisney events (and one non-runDisney event), because I thought this might be a good way to hold myself accountable to my training (more on that in the next post).

This is what my current race schedule looks like:

June

Local half marathon (non-Disney)

July

No races currently planned

August

Dumbo Double Dare + 5K at Disneyland Half Weekend

September

No races currently planned

October

My first marathon! (non-Disney)

November

Wine and Dine Half Marathon

December

No races currently planned

January

Dopey Challenge at WDW Marathon Weekend



Yeah. In other words, I have A LOT of running to do in the next six months.

Can I do it? Stick around, we’ll find out together.

 

[Eight]

To be honest, I thought my days of writing trip reports and pre-trip reports on the Dis were over. I had completed four trip reports, I started one unfinished trip report (that will never be completed at this point), and a few pre-trip reports. I was okay with this. I still enjoyed reading other trip reports, but I figured I had retired from the whole writing aspect.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I was thinking about all the races, especially all the runDisney races I was signed up for, and I was thinking about how I had put a calendar on my fridge for all my training, and I was thinking about how it all seemed to be going good so far, but I was lacking one thing.

An outlet.

I like to share my experiences with things (just about anything and everything) with people. Usually with my running, it’s my parents, and occasionally social media, but I’m tired of hearing the same (but very encouraging) responses from my parents, and social media is not always the place for my occasionally long and rambling posts.

Plus, I thought by posting about my training in a public forum, I might be forced to hold myself accountable more because who wants to look like they’re not doing their training when thousands of anonymous internet people are watching them…?!

Or maybe just like two or three anonymous internet people, but same thing.

And since several of the races I am training for are runDisney events, I was like, well, there’s always the Dis…

(I suppose I could do a blog, but I have my reasons for choosing not to do one for now.)

So here we are. Me, the runner with lofty goals, and you, the anonymous internet person. But please don’t stay anonymous for too long. I like comments and if you ever have any runDisney questions, not to brag, but I feel like I’m pretty great person to ask.

Now that I’ve gotten all my introductions and goals and reasons out of the way, what about you? Like, are you a runner or do you hate running (because that’s okay, I used to as well) or what’s your favorite ride at Disney or did you click on this on accident or…? Tell me something about yourself.

Cool?

 

[Eight]

So. Training. Kind of a big deal. Which is exactly why I don't want to write about it right now. It’s such a large topic and it feels weirdly personal. I’m not quite ready to write out exactly what I’m doing because that’ll eventually end up meaning I’ll have to write about my slip ups and mistakes and days I didn't run.

And I’m just not ready for that yet.

I will say I’m on week three of marathon training for my marathon this fall. I’m following Hal Higdon’s Novice 1 with a few slight changes to accommodate my schedule, as well as adding some long walks the day before my long runs to prepare for the multiple days of running at Dumbo, as per by Jeff Galloway’s Dumbo training plan.

So far, things have been going according to schedule, and I’m happy with myself. Consistency isn’t always my best attribute, if I’m being totally honest.

Mostly I want to ramble about how excited I am for Dumbo.

And for those who might not know all the runDisney lingo, Dumbo is short for Dumbo Double Dare, which is running the 10K (6.2 miles) on Saturday and a half marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday at the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend. I ran it last year (though to be fair, there was a lot of walking going on those two days, but that’s another story for another day…) and I loved it. Plus you get an adorable Dumbo medal for completing both, and I am all about getting extra medals.

The past week they released the medals and Lasting Commemoratives has pictures of the bibs.

Could the 5K medal be any cuter? I’m obsessed with it. Lilo and Stitch is my favorite Disney movie, so I was thrilled with when I saw the 5K and 10K medals.

Although I’m kind of confused by the addition of the ring to the half marathon medal. I can’t figure out if I like it or not. It makes me think they wanted to do or add something new, couldn’t think of anything, and were like…. maybe if just add a ring around it, people will think it’s really fresh and different. Okay.

I’m glad they changed the colors for Dumbo at least, and the 10K medal looks solid.

But mostly I think that 5K one is the cutest thing ever.

And can I also say how happy I am that they’ve added women’s cut shirts because I like the Dumbo shirt from last year, but it doesn't fit me well. Unisex shirts don’t work well for shorter people.

I have a feeling this summer will go by fast and before I know, they’ll be releasing bib numbers and I’ll be getting all excited about that. I love finding out my bib number. I don’t know why but it’s like Christmas morning for me. Except I have very strong opinions about numbers, as there are certain numbers I love and certain numbers I hate, which means there’s always the possibility of getting a bib number I hate. So maybe it’s more like Christmas with a possibility of opening a present and finding out it's a swarm of bees. Yeah.

Don't judge, just go with that statement.
That’s probably a great philosophy for reading this PTR.

(but surely I’m not the only one who feels like that about bib numbers, right?)

Until next time.

 

[fernfritters]

Hi, Rachel! I'm planning a trip to WDW myself to participate in my first Run Disney event on my birthday -- ToT 10-Miler! Thought I'd subscribe to your PTR since you're a runner and planning various trips around RD (I'm also looking for different PTR/TR inspiration because I have an itch to write my own TR).

I look forward to reading your PTR and following along with your training!

--Chrissa