If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead

[MommaoffherRocker]

Last night I had a phone conversation that really lit a fire under me. I have been running for almost a year now and with marathon weekend registration coming up I was thinking of running the marathon in 2017. I told DH that I wanted to run it by myself (he is my loyal running partner) to prove to myself that I am strong enough to do this. So when I told my parents last night that I was going to do it my dad said that's impossible. I asked why it is impossible people run them all the time. He then told me it was not impossible just impossible for me... Thanks Dad But I am not going to cry about it I am going to use it as inspiration. I am going to prove him wrong and run the marathon. I am going to use this journal as a way to hold myself accountable during the next 9 months. Please join along and feel free to comment.

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

My Background

Growing up I enjoyed sports but as I got older exercise and being healthy took a backseat to having a good time. I have spend years trying to get back on track. Now I am a stay at home mom with 5 kids. I started running in May of last year to run the Castaway Cay 5k on our Disney cruise and shed some baby weight. With the cruise being so far away DH and I decided to do a local race and after that we were hooked. Since then we have done 7- 5ks and 3- 10ks.
Here is a picture of me after finishing the 10k at Princess weekend. (I hate pictures)


Right now I am coming to the end of my training for my first half which will be Darkside, only a few days away! I then will be making my way to DL to run Tink and get my C2C! For these races I have been following the Jeff Galloway training plan. I have worked really hard to stay on schedule, even when I was sick and didn't feel like running I made sure I was out there. I feel like I have come a long way since college. I have been looking at training plans for the marathon and think I am going to try Hal Hidgon this time. Before I start that training I am going to take the summer to work on my pace. I would love get faster (who wouldn't right).

Here are the races I have scheduled so far this year:
April 17th- DarkSide Half
May 8th- Tinker Bell Half
July 16th- Bridge of Lions 5k
November 13th- Rock 'n' Roll Half Las Vegas

I am sure I will add many more, my goal for 2016 is a medal a month.


​

 

[ZellyB]

Joining in. I also have family members who at times tell me I'm nuts or that I can't (or shouldn't) do something. I just brush it off and pursue the goals I want to pursue. It sounds like you have a solid plan in place. If you find a good solid training plan and stick with it, you can certainly be ready for the marathon in January. Looking forward to reading more and good luck on the Darkside half!

 

[Ariel484]

You can totally do it!! Not sure which Higdon plan you're looking at, but I've used his Novice 1 Marathon plan 3 times now (for the WDW Marathon, Goofy and Dopey) and it has worked well for me.

Have so much fun this weekend at Darkside!! I'll be at Tink as well...wait until you see that Coast-to-Coast medal, it is sooooo pretty.

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

Joining in. I also have family members who at times tell me I'm nuts or that I can't (or shouldn't) do something. I just brush it off and pursue the goals I want to pursue. It sounds like you have a solid plan in place. If you find a good solid training plan and stick with it, you can certainly be ready for the marathon in January. Looking forward to reading more and good luck on the Darkside half!

Thanks for joining in and the words of encouragement. It is nice to know that I am not alone!

You can totally do it!! Not sure which Higdon plan you're looking at, but I've used his Novice 1 Marathon plan 3 times now (for the WDW Marathon, Goofy and Dopey) and it has worked well for me.

Have so much fun this weekend at Darkside!! I'll be at Tink as well...wait until you see that Coast-to-Coast medal, it is sooooo pretty.

I actually looked into Hal Higdon when I saw one of your posts and it dawned on me there are other training programs out there. I really liked the added days & miles in his plan. The Novice 1 plan is what I think I am going to use. I just have to figure out how to add in my other races. Thanks for your support! I can't wait to have all my awesome medals. I need to get a new rack at the expo on Thursday to hold them all, I'm thinking a glittery castle one will look nice on my wall

 

[Ariel484]

I have a castle rack from Allied Medals and really like it. It's not glittery, but it's nice and shiny.

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

We are one week out from AP registration for Marathon weekend! I know I could probably hold off on registering for a while since it took months for the marathon to sell out last year but I know once I pay my money it will be real. So I feel like now would be a good time to post my current PRs so I can see my progress along the way.

They are 5k- 38:09 10k- 1:19:17

I guess tonight will be my last run before Darkside. I would normally run Thursday but we are going to go to the expo and then to MK so it will be a late night. Park time counts as training right? I think that tomorrow night will be my last strength workout for the week. I started strength training with a video on youtube that a friend recommended to me and I feel like that has helped so much. It is Fitz Koehler's workout out for runners. It is only 10 minutes which is perfect for my crazy life!

 

[Ariel484]

Have fun this weekend!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible"

I love this motto. I used it to help me get through many of my running journeys. People always like to doubt me and to tell me I couldn't do something. But that feeling when you pull it off is amazing. I'm in your corner, you can (and will) do this!

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible"

I love this motto. I used it to help me get through many of my running journeys. People always like to doubt me and to tell me I couldn't do something. But that feeling when you pull it off is amazing. I'm in your corner, you can (and will) do this!

Thanks for your kind words! When I found that quote it was like it was meant to be and I hope to use it as inspiration in my training too.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Here is a picture of something I pinned to my running shirt when I was attempting my first Dopey. It was a surprise that I didn't tell anyone about and that I pinned after I left the hotel room each morning and removed prior to the finish line of every race other than the marathon. After the marathon, I let others know it existed. I did it to show my daughter one day who at the time had yet to be born. Someday it will be a lesson for her in what is impossible. Have fun at Dark Side!

 

[ZellyB]

I love that quote too. I had it on the back of our race shirts when we ran Goofy.

 

[CherieFran]

Joining in as well to follow what I'm sure will be a successful journey! Interested to hear your thoughts on the race this weekend. Hope it went great!

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

My computer decided to die on me this morning I'm posting from my phone so please excuse this post if it is a mess.

I had an awesome Darkside weekend!! DH and I went over to the expo Thursday so we could make sure we got everything we wanted. I hesitated on getting a Darth Vader tank top that said RUN and when I went back on Saturday sure enough it was gone. After the expo Saturday we went to HS for a couple of rides. DH wanted to do ToT with his eyes open this time lol. He is starting to warm up to it. Afterwards we checked in at AKL, had dinner at the quick service restaurant and tried to go to bed at 8. I don't think I actually fell asleep until 10. The room we were in was a pool facing room and the music was so loud!! Next race I am going to make sure I request a room far away from any pool. We were back up at 1:30am. People were posting that they shut the lines to the characters for the 10k early so we wanted to make sure we had enough time. At 2 when we got there it was s ghost town and we pretty much walked up to each character. View attachment 162937View attachment 162938View attachment 162940 View attachment 162939
I thought it was awesome they had so many characters out before the race. We decided that we wouldn't stop at character stops along the route since we got so many great pictures already.

At 4 they opened the corrals. I did not realized just how far the corrals were from the starting area. We were in H and started running at 5:35. It was slow going almost from the beginning. At 1/2 mile we were walking because it was the off ramp going into the backstage of Epcot. I ran a lot on the grass because I really just wanted to run. There was a lot of people running on the other side of the cones and up the dumpster pads and jumping off to get a head of people. It was nuts...

 

[ZellyB]

Great pictures!!!! I love all the photo set ups they had for Darkside. Awesome.

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

We have been training for the half at a 2:1 run/walk ratio but we ended up running the first 4 miles. There was so many people and I didn't want to break the groove I was in. We did have to make a bathroom stop. I think I over hydrated the day before, I really don't like to make bathroom stops during races. We walked for a little bit going into HS and then after we left we started our 2:1. Once we were on the roads it was much easier to do the intervals. We still missed some here and there. The course never really seemed to thin out. When we got around AK the sun was out in full force. I feel like I can deal with hot, cold, rain but the beating sun kills me. I like to say it is sucking out my soul. We ran all of AK and most of the parking lot. On the way out I saw a huge line of "parade" buses clearly they were expecting a lot of runners for the parade Once we got back out to the main road we were able to pick back up the intervals. Miles 9-11 were pretty uneventful. Then we turned on the dirt road into the back of WWoS. At that point it was like everyone gave up. They were walking 4 people across blocking the whole road. I was so upset because I felt like we were going into the home stretch and I was pumped up to run. So I ran on the other side of the cones to get around these people. I pretty much ran the rest of the race only walking once to catch my breath. We crossed the finish line with a time of 3:17. Not even close to what I was hoping for but I had a good time running so I guess that's all that matters.

Overall I thought they did a great job with theming with the movies playing on the course, sound effects, the marching band playing the theme song and the characters. And the 501st being there was a big highlight! Their costumes rock! Everyone we came across was friendly the runners, cast members and the volunteers.

After the race we took the bus back to AK (we left our car at Epcot in the morning and decided to just leave it because that line was a 90 min wait/ the bus to AKL was no wait) and tried to take a nap but again the pool was super loud. So after a shower we headed to Epcot threw our stuff in the car and head in to see the Flower and Garden festival.

I can't wait to do it all again in 2 weeks at Tink!

 

[Ariel484]

Wow, huge score with the characters before the race!

The course crowding can get extremely frustrating, but it sounds like you guys made the best of it! Can't believe Tink is almost here...

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

Wow, huge score with the characters before the race!

The course crowding can get extremely frustrating, but it sounds like you guys made the best of it! Can't believe Tink is almost here...

yeah 8 characters before the race even started was a huge score! And I loved that they did some old characters mixed with some characters from the new movie.

The course crowding I feel like come with the territory for Disney races, there is no point in fighting it you just have to deal with it. I'm not going to let that ruin something I have invested so much time/money in. Now if I was in a later corral I might be singing a different tune.

Tink is so close! I really need to work what I am wearing.

 

[MyFavEeyore]

Joining in as well. Just saw this today and I love, love, love what your doing, and I say go for it all the way!! My eyes are welling up as I read so far what you've accomplished and what you intend to do with such an awesome motto! We have some similarities as I ran back in the day as well, and picked it up again for fun as well as trying to fight old age every inch of the way. I'm 48 with a DS23 and DD24. My DS actually loves to do what runs he can with me which I smile about on the inside as what twenty-something wants to be anywhere near parents to do anything. But it's something that's turned out to be "our thing" together. He lives in FL while I'm stuck in NJ, but before he moved we had a blast with mud, obstacle courses, color runs, and just a nice running race for a good cause(s). While we still run on our own, we just did the Princess 10k together, and I helped significant other(58) complete his first ever run which was the 5k the morning before. Now DS laid down the ultimate challenge to me... complete a half. Like your marathon, completing a half has always been on my bucket list and DS would like to do one as we just upped our game with the 10k. He figures to keep the ball rolling. We would like to attempt Star Wars Dark Side next April 2017 and do the 10k and half together. The one thing you have to understand is my 5k & 10k times match yours. Again, 48 here and I think I've got a few years on ya' so you'll do well with improving your time with more training. I believe you have the proper frame of mind with your training discipline and can do all you wish and more! Go for it! You'll for certain put Dad in his place. I'm hoping to try and follow your journey and use you as encouragement for my half. I wish you all the best, and commend you on your efforts thus far! You'll do it - nothing in the way to stop you (including Dad).

 

[MyFavEeyore]

P.S. LOVE the pics as well! How did you get so many when all I've been reading is how others got one or none cuz the lines were too long, or closed?