In Every Run That Must Be Done; There is an Element of Fun (comments welcome)

[NYC_MW]

Another great finish shot for the half! All the photos look like you're having fun

 

[Baloo in MI]

Congrats on a great race weekend! Plus you got Disco Inferno - twice and hugged Mickey. Sounds like a good weekend to me!

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Congrats! Loved reading your recaps and am v sad I didn’t get to meet you.

The goal of today was to get a slushie with liquor.

This made me laugh.

Yes, I had to sit there for over an hour, but I had my Kindle, so it was fine.

I did the same thing during MW. It was nice.

So glad that I practice running hills so I can do this with (relative) ease.

I have learned my lesson about this. Did running in the grass help you avoid the camber (I think that’s the term)?

 

[Naomeri]

Congrats! Loved reading your recaps and am v sad I didn’t get to meet you.


This made me laugh.

I did the same thing during MW. It was nice.

I have learned my lesson about this. Did running in the grass help you avoid the camber (I think that’s the term)?

That particular point was the straight ramp, so no camber to worry about. But I have run in the grass on the cambered ramps a couple times, and it is flatter. But if I recall correctly, there wasn’t much flat space before the grassy part dropped off down a hill, so that‘s a worry.

 

[Naomeri]

Princess Weekend Trip Report: Monday, Feb 27

Stats of the day: 19,630 steps; 7.89 miles

I woke up on time to get G+, and I bought an $ILL for Rise of the Resistance because I haven’t been on it in a while. My first LL was Tower of Terror for 9:15-10:15, and my $ILL was for 9:30-10:30. I actually managed to get myself going at a reasonable time, so I was actually early for my Tower of Terror window and had to wait a few minutes until it would let me in. I booked a 9:35-10:35 LL for Midway Mania, figuring I would have more than enough time after Rise, but before my 11:15 lunch at Sci-Fi. But an exciting wrinkle got thrown into the schedule on my way to Rise: Goofy and Max taking pictures just before the tunnel into Galaxy’s Edge! The lines were totally reasonable, and I had plenty of time, so I was like “heck yeah, I’m stopping for Vacation Goofy and Powerline Max!”

But then, just before it was my turn with Goofy, he went on a 5 minute break (which in typical Goofy fashion, was more like 15) Max also took a break after Goofy did, but returned before Goofy did. I was watching the time and I was getting a little nervous, since I know Rise is temperamental and you never know how fast everything will go. Finally, Goofy came back!




Then I hopped in Max’s line, which was shorter than Goofy’s and got that picture too.



I made it to Rise on time, and walked right into the first pre-show room, and everything worked fine. I had to kind of hurry to get to Midway Mania, but I made it within the post-window grace period (and scored 125,100 with 74% accuracy). Since I figured I would have a little extra time before my lunch reservation, and knowing that riding Star Tours right after lunch is a bad choice, I booked an immediate LL and did that quick before walking across the “street” to Sci-Fi. Lunch was amazing as always. I tried to start stacking LL for my pre-After Hours evening in MK, but the crowds were light and it was hard to find times late enough. I did grab Jungle Cruise, since that’s a long ride and I didn’t want to waste AH time on it.

On my way out of HS, I tried to grab a medal selfie with Edna Mode, but couldn’t get me, her, and the medals in, so I settled for a selfie with Edna. I also saw that Mr and Mrs Incredible were out, so I headed over there, waited through their break time and got pictures with them too.




Since I wanted to go to AK on Tuesday morning before heading to the airport, I was going to have to pack on Monday before going to AH at MK. I got a lot of the packing done, but decided that I would just have to make time on Tuesday morning to finish. I got to wear the other Dress Shop dress I brought with me for my MK AH event, and I got a ton of compliments.



I decided to try to use LLs before the event to knock out the Adventureland and Frontierland rides so I could focus my AH time in Fastasyland and Tomorrowland, since I don’t usually spend a lot of park time in Fantasyland. This strategy worked well, almost too well, because I still had a lot of time to kill before AH started. I did the Tiki Room to burn some time, and then decided to head back to Gaston’s Tavern to sit and watch fireworks. I don’t really care about the castle projections, I just love fireworks, and Gaston’s is the ideal place to watch them in peace and comfort.




After fireworks, I wandered back toward Liberty Square, planning to kill the last of my pre-AH time in Hall of Presidents, but I missed the last show, so I just sat at a table and took a break. And once the event started, I hopped in line to get my “free” treats. They decided to hand out the ice cream bars to everyone waiting in line for popcorn and drinks, which was a little tricky to handle, but I managed. Then I headed right back to the table I had been sitting at to enjoy my food and let the day guests clear the Fantasyland lines. Then I hit up rides as I came to them, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, the Carousel, Winnie the Pooh, and Seven Dwarfs. I was going to do Space Mountain, but it was down. And when I rode Peoplemover, all the lights were on in Space and that was kind of freaky to see. I did Astro Orbiter, and then rode Buzz 3 times in a row (scoring 134,800, 212,200, and 155,900). By then, I was pretty beat, so I started heading toward the exit at a leisurely pace.

I grabbed a couple pictures on the way out:

Cinderella Castle



And lovely, lit-up, emptier-than-usual, Main Street

 

[Naomeri]

Princess Weekend Trip Report: Tuesday, Feb 28

Stats of the day: 17,422 steps; 6.86 miles

I wasn’t 100% sure when I went to bed I really wanted to go to Animal Kingdom when I got up, so I chose to not set an early alarm (but I did set one that would give me enough time to finish packing before I needed to be out of my room, just in case I was actually able to sleep) and just let the day play out. I ended up waking up early enough to get an $ILL for Flight of Passage between 10 & 11, so I got up, finished packing, and dropped my bags at Bell Services. My Sunshine Flyer was scheduled for 1pm, so I planned to be back at the resort by noon or so.

I caught a bus to AK, and headed for Pandora. I had time to kill before FoP, and the line for Navi River was shockingly short at only 40 minutes, so I did that. It’s so pretty and peaceful. Then I did FoP which is always amazing. I headed to Everest and zipped through the single rider, and then wandered over to Restaurantosaurus to grab lunch. I did some pics on the way out and got back to Movies right when I planned to. I collected my bags and settled in to wait for the bus, which was right on time. Nothing much to report about the trip home, other than discovering that the Nashville airport has the most uncomfortable chairs of any airport I’ve sat in

I have apparently discovered my default medal picture pose

 

[Naomeri]

21 Days Until: Springtime Surprise

So, now that I’ve finally finished writing and posting my Princess Weekend report, I can get back to actually journaling my runs and such. The winter weather has been making it hard to stay on schedule, so I’m glad that the time between Princess and Springtime is more about maintaining than actual training.

These are the runs I’ve completed since Princess:
Sunday, March 5: 2.37 miles in 31m43s; avg. pace 13m20s; avg. HR 157–outdoor
Tuesday, March 7: 3.46 miles in 44m48s; avg. pace 12m56s; avg. HR 167–outdoor
Thursday, March 9: 2.27 miles in 29m7s; avg. pace 12m48s; avg. HR 166–outdoor
Sunday, March 12: 2.02 miles in 28m4s; avg. pace 13m50s; avg. HR 159–treadmill
Tuesday, March 14: 3.34 miles in 42m21s; avg. pace 12m40s; avg. HR 160–outdoor
Saturday, March 18: 2.31 miles in 30m9s; avg. pace 13m1s; avg. HR 167–treadmill
Monday, March 20: 4.52 miles in 57m50s; avg. pace 12m46s; avg. HR 170–outdoor
Thursday, March 23: 3.32 miles in 43m59s; avg. pace 13m13s; avg. HR 159–outdoor

I have thankfully figured out shoes that I can wear on the treadmill to keep it from irritating my Achilles, and also figured out that sometimes my Achilles just needs a little time to adjust to running.

The March 9th run was going to be about twice as long, except that it was snowing, and the snow was sticking to my glasses something awful and I wasn’t confident that I could see potential hazards like slippery spots well enough. Otherwise, it was really neat to be running in a snowstorm.




I had to skip a run because it was my birthday and we went to a show (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical—very good), and dinner, also in a snowstorm.

I got a couple new Pandora charms from my grandparents and my mom.



On March 14, one of my chipmunks made his way out of his burrow and through the snowpack! He wasn’t ready to come all the way to my hand for food, but he would sit in his hole until I threw a peanut toward him and then he’d go grab it. I’ve had a few more appear since then, but I haven’t been able to get close enough to positively ID them. One is probably Fern though, based on location.

Hello, Albert!!

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Happy birthday!!

I’ve seen lights on in SM before too— so weird!

 

[azrivest]

Happy Birthday!

Always impressed you can differentiate your chipmunks

 

[Naomeri]

Happy Birthday!

Always impressed you can differentiate your chipmunks

Albert has a notch in his ear, and I had labeled pictures from last July, so it was easy in his case. And chipmunks are very territorial, so they’re usually in the same areas all the time.

 

[striker1064]

Happy birthday! The chipmunks are back!

 

[Naomeri]

20 Days Until: Springtime Surprise

I got outside to run today. It was kind of a mixed bag. I did the first 2 miles at 60/60 intervals, and miles 3 and 4 at 30/45. Then I walked for a mile because my ankle was bugging me. Then I ran the last mile because it was too cold to walk because the wind was NNW and there was a lake on my right (which was north on the way back to my car). The final mile was an unstructured run where I played “run until” with the signs and such along the trail. This ended up being my fastest mile.



Apparently, I should be on the lookout for Bigfoot along this trail



I don’t have much else to say, so here’s a cute picture of one of my cats from earlier today (currently, she is sitting between my legs while I write this)



2023 workout data to date: 71h 43m 32s of exercise; 32,349 active calories burned; 39,414 total calories burned

 

[Naomeri]

18 Days Until: Springtime Surprise

I completed most of my run today (4.33/5 miles). I was starting to feel it in my ankle and just didn’t feel like adding the last 3/4 of a mile that was left. I was trying to make a conscious effort to control my pace, and obviously overdid that control a little bit in mile 4, but the overall pace was right on for an easy day.




Other than running, it was a very exciting day in the backyard: Ein has emerged from his winter den! And unlike all the other chipmunks, he hasn’t forgotten the drill and came right up to me and took a peanut from my hand. And later in the day, he hopped right into my hand to grab a peanut



2023 workout data to date: 73h 18m 41s of exercise; 33,074 active calories burned; 40,289 total calories burned

 

[HangWithMerida]

Just got caught up on everything since Princess. Your costumes were very cute! My kid really liked your Maleficent. She is probably their favorite villain. They dressed up as Maleficent for Halloween one year and really got into character.

Spoiler: Costume pics

 

[eminemilie]

I wrote this in the general DL thread, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned to you specifically because I know you are flying out of the same airport we are. We were able to book pretty cheap tickets on Delta flying in and out of San Diego instead of SNA. We’re using rewards points, but it was half the “price“ or redemption value. Not sure who you typically fly with but may be worth looking at!

 

[Naomeri]

I wrote this in the general DL thread, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned to you specifically because I know you are flying out of the same airport we are. We were able to book pretty cheap tickets on Delta flying in and out of San Diego instead of SNA. We’re using rewards points, but it was half the “price“ or redemption value. Not sure who you typically fly with but may be worth looking at!

I usually fly Southwest so I can use the little MSP airport, and bring lots of free baggage (I’m not a light packer )

 

[Naomeri]

End of Training Plan #5 Summary

Yesterday was the last day of my fifth training plan, so I thought I would write up a quick summary of how it went.

This plan covered November 13, 2022 to April 22, 2023—from the weekend after Wine & Dine to the weekend after Springtime Surprise.

Weight
I (unfortunately) gained 4.9 pounds over the course of this plan. This is not surprising, as I fell off the responsible eating wagon, and had a very disrupted workout schedule due to weather and injury.

Running
I spent 49 hours, 39 minutes, and 40 seconds running, covering 220.02 miles. My spreadsheet averaged the paces for each run on a weekly basis, and then averaged those averaged paces for the whole plan, and that averaged pace was 13:26/mile. I maxed out at 22.57 miles in a week, when I earned my virtual Marathon Weekend Half medal.

I had 2 weeks in December with absolutely no running due to Achilles tendinitis, and then a slow ramp-up after that. Winter weather really put a dent in the number of runs I could do because there were a lot of icy days.

I did find an indoor track to run on, but because of my Achilles issue, I could only run on it on the days that I wouldn’t be turning on my bad ankle every 2 minutes, and sometimes the track was rented out privately when I wanted to use it.

Stationary Bike
I spent 19 hours, 53 minutes, and 36 seconds on the stationary bike, covering 322.32 miles. Using the same averaging of the averages as my running data, my average cycling pace was 3:44/mile. I added Apple Fitness+ in December and had some fun using their cycling workouts to change things up a bit.

What’s Next?
My new training plan will run 24 weeks, from April 24-October 8, training for the Twin Cities Marathon Weekend Loony Challenge (back-to-back 10K & 5K on September 30, 10 Miler on Oct 1) I also have a half marathon at the end of week 9.

I’ve adapted a marathon training plan, shortening the long weekend runs so they don’t last longer than 2.5 hours, and peaking at 37 miles in a week (with about 10 consecutive weeks near or over 30 miles spread across 4 runs) I’m tentatively planning to try Dopey in 2025, so I need to see if I can survive the training before I commit the money.

I also want to try to get faster, so I have some speed work in one of the weekday runs every other week, and hill repeats on the other weeks (the speed work/hill repeats will alternate between Tuesdays and Thursdays week to week to keep things from getting static) My Saturday runs will alternate between practicing 60/60 intervals (instead of my normal 30/45) and speed progression runs, mostly to add some variety and mild challenge to the longer runs. Sundays will be strictly easy pace long runs. Easy pace for me is basically my current half marathon pace because I just can’t get myself to slow down much more.

 

[NYC_MW]

Nice to have a whole plan recap like this. Have you compared across your 4 previous training plans as well to see the growth? (I should think about doing something similar).

 

[Naomeri]

Nice to have a whole plan recap like this. Have you compared across your 4 previous training plans as well to see the growth? (I should think about doing something similar).

I haven’t ever really laid them all out to see the progress, but I knew the progress was there.

These are the totals for all 5 plans (you can also the evolution of my spreadsheet ) I got slower between plans 3 & 4 on purpose, because I’d been running too fast in training and I crashed hard when the summer weather hit last year

 

[Naomeri]

Springtime Surprise Trip Report: Day 1–April 11

Stats of the Day: 18,235 steps; 7.36 miles

Wow, it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted an update here! (other than the training plan summary I posted yesterday) I only had 1 run between my last journal post and Springtime Surprise due to weather and a sudden attack of plantar fasciitis (which miraculously cleared up once I got to Orlando)

Before we get to the trip report, here’s a chipmunk picture from the weekend before I left. Ein definitely remembers the drill. Sadly, it’s been too cold and windy since I got back to see many chipmunks.



So, my day started excessively early because my flight from MSP to Midway was at 6:30. It was supposed to be 7:30, and I wouldn’t have to change planes in Chicago, but SWA changed it a while ago so I’d leave earlier and have a plane change on my layover, but still arrive at the same time in Orlando. I was sad about the lost sleep, but at least I wasn’t losing any Disney time.

The flights were uneventful, my luggage was prompt, and the wait for Sunshine Flyer was short. While on the bus, I got the text that my room was ready, which was cool since I got in at 1:15 and they don’t always have rooms that early. BUT, it was a second floor room, right near the elevators—not a room I want to try to get to sleep early in. So I hopped on chat and asked for a new “highest floor, away from the elevators” room. Which I got, but it was SO FAR from everything, and it faced the Bowling Pin pool. And, I discovered after I was more than halfway unpacked, it only had a shower I decided to just suck it up, because it was too much work to try to pack all my stuff again (I tend to kind of explode all over my hotel rooms). It also had no connecting door, which I’ve had my last 3 race trips and I hated because I took the hanging rack off the wall and let noisy neighbors make my room noisy, so this room was survivable, but definitely not my favorite.

For context, my room was the blue dot on the right on this map I grabbed from Touring Plans. It was .25 to the skyliner station and .35 to the runDisney bus stop from my door (I did a bunch of short walking workouts in the first couple days in Disney to close my exercise ring on my watch whenever I was going directly from point-to-point, without sightseeing/window shopping). My original room was in the center of building 8, so the distances to transportation would’ve basically been reversed—closer to the buses, further from the skyliner, but with the added bonus of hearing the elevator and people walking on my head.



Anyway, enough about my resort annoyances (for now—there’s more to come )—once I got my stuff into my room and got my running gear unpacked, I head for Magic Kingdom. I had Genie+ and had stacked a few rides, and had gotten a Tron VQ before just before I boarded the plane at MSP, but the Disney gods are tricksters and they gave me group 25, the window for which ended just as I was boarding the plane at Midway. I hit up a blue umbrella as I entered the park to politely plead my case, fully expecting the ‘sorry, no’ I received. But, as I told the guest services guy, “the answer is always ‘no’ if you don’t ask.” Plus, I had also paid for a nighttime Lightning Lane, so it’s not like I wasn’t getting on that day.

I had some food at Casey’s, then started using my Lightning Lanes. I did Jungle Cruise (which is usually the first LL I grab on arrival day because it gets to late windows pretty fast), then waited standby for Pirates because the app said 35 minutes (the sign said 45 when I got there though) and I had a little time before my Big Thunder LL. Pirates ended up breaking down for about 15 minutes just when I got to the room with all the benches, then the line started moving, I got to the turn just before the loading zone, and the darn ride went down for good and they cleared the line, and I got an anytime LL (which was kind of useless can’t use it on anything big in MK, and I had LL for all the other stuff I like—I ended up using it on Buzz because I’m slightly addicted to arcade-type rides)

I did Big Thunder, then I headed for Buzz, thinking I was using the anytime LL, but I was apparently within the window of the one I scheduled? I dunno, but I still had the anytime afterward. I scored just 57,200, which may be a personal worst) I went and got a cinnamon roll at Gaston’s (I went there hoping for a Grey Stuff cupcake, but they were out, so a giant warm cinnamon roll was my only option) on the way to Haunted Mansion (yes, I wandered back and forth across the park a bunch, it’s the way it goes sometimes with LLs). Before HM, I killed some time in Hall of Presidents (why do people feel the need to cheer/boo for their preferred/not preferred POTUS—it’s not like they can hear you, you dingbats!)



I grabbed a pointless LL for Barnstormer, since I would be walking right past it on my way to Tron (I say pointless because this was post-fireworks and it was a walk-on anyway, but I like to use G+ as many times as possible) Then came the moment: time to ride Tron! It was very very cool, but I do wish it were longer.




After Tron, and buying a couple magnets in the shop, I caught the last show (I think) of Laugh Floor and it had a different opening bit (probably because there weren’t enough people to pull off the Monster’s Inc retelling) so that was kind of interesting. Then I finally used my anytime LL on Buzz, and maxed out my score (because the ride stopped when I was in exactly the right spot to easily score a ton of points)



After Buzz, I headed back to the resort to unpack a little more stuff and try to get some sleep. I’m not good at sleeping in hotel rooms, there’s too much light (why does the smoke alarm need a green light? Surely red would work just as well?) and weird noises. Also, the mattresses are just uncomfortable