Added! I've never read or watched Game of Thrones - Should I add that to the list too?? I tend to be weary of things that are "too popular."

Yes you should. The first three books are excellent, as are most of the seasons of the show. The Binge Mode podcasts from the show are very entertaining, though I think the Harry Potter one’s are better.
 
Lynchburg 5k Recap

This recap starts on Thursday night. I was working my closing shift when I was transferred a sup call at 11:54pm (we close at 12a - so that's how close I was to not having to deal with this.) This customer was extremely irate because she couldn't figure out how to use her computer. She was literally screaming that she only shops with our company under pain of death. If she could get her kids clothes anywhere else she would.. She had signed into her google chrome account instead of her shopping account and was freaking out that she couldn't get her AMEX unsaved. Also, because she didn't sign into her shopping account she didn't qualify for our companies reward program. She was literally screaming profanities at the top of her lungs.. ONE OF MY ASSOCIATE'S CUSTOMERS HEARD HER THROUGH THE PHONE AND ASKED THE ASSOCIATE WHO WAS GETTING YELLED AT!!!! So needless to say when I got off the phone with that lady I was a little shaken up. As the closing supervisor I have to be the last one out of the building so I waited till everyone was gone and tried to finish up my work. I was getting ready to leave and out of no where.. HUGE crocodile tears... and then I was sitting at my desk sobbing. I pulled it together long enough to get home from work, but I pretty much cried myself to sleep and didn't fall asleep till around 4am. Here's the thing. It's not just that customer though. Our company has made some changes recently, that really limits what exceptions we can make and when we can make them. Because of this, I've taken more escalations that I have in my 10 years with the company. They are not nearly as bad as this particular customer, but I've been getting yelled at non stop for the majority of my time at work. Not to mention, because I'm taking all of these calls there's no time to do my actual job which is taking care of the associates who are also getting yelled at by everyone. So they are grumpy when I do get to meet with them. I just feel like all the confidence I gained last year.. has kind of gone away. For the first part of the year I was struggling both mentally and physically with running and now my work life is kind of destroying that last little bit of confidence. And by the way.. I know I get emotional alot here, but I don't cry at work... This is not normal for me 1 bit. So you're probably wondering, "Um Katie, I'm sorry that happened but what does this have to do with your 5k?" Fair question! It really doesn't but I wanted to kinda share the mood I've been in all weekend. This has been in the back of my head since it happened.. more often that I'd like to admit it's been the only thing I've been thinking about, but definitely not the best way to start a weekend.


Friday! I actually had plans to meet a friend for lunch when she texted and said "I'm off work - wanna go to the lake?" UM YES PLEASE! So I spent all day Friday getting sun burnt on a float (even though I religiously applied sun screen every hour). It was nice to catch up with an old friend, enjoy the last little bit of summer and there were alot of boats on the lake so there were actually waves :-). As fun as the day was, it was probably a little more active and long than a day before race day should be. I got home at like 9pm. By the time I ate and did my yoga it was 11p. The good news is, that after a late night Thursday and a long day Friday, I went right to sleep and probably had some of my best sleep in a while.

RACE DAY! I wake up at 6:15am and uh oh.. my back hurts. Not nearly as bad as it did last Saturday but there is definite back pain. Oh well - it's race day. What am I going to do? I get dressed and am out the door at 6:30am. Get to packet pick up at 7am. Got my shirt and took it back to the car and walked around for 30 mins. It's a pretty no thrills race so not much to do. I watched the half marathoners start at 7:30 and cheered for them. Then walked around some more until time to start. I was nervous this morning. Like 10 miler/ Half marathon nervous. At first I thought it was because of the magic mile, but I don't think that was it. I haven't had a "good race" in a while. Also, my husband wasn't there. He had to work today, so he couldn't make the race. This is the first one that he hasn't been at, so instead of having someone to talk to and help get me out of my head, I pretty much stayed in my head. Finally 8am rolls around. At 7:58, I start my playlist. At 7:59:40, I start strava. As I cross the start line I start my Garmin and just like that, I was off.

Mile 1 - My first walk break of a race is always the hardest to take. We are so close to the start that people aren't expecting me to stop and I'm always scared of getting trampled. So this time, I ran off the path on the grass until the crowd thinned out. That worked really well and I didn't feel as pressured to start of fast. Since I was running the first 2 miles easy, I didn't really pay attention to my pace. I just ran when my watch beeped and walked when it beeped again. When Strava told me that my first mile was at 16:58, I started thinking "This may be a good race after all."

Mile 2 - "Crazy in love" was my first song of mile 2 and I thought to myself "I'm pretty sure I planned this to be the first song of mile 2." I realized how incredibly close to the plan I was running and started dreaming of a new goal. "New goal.. Cross the finish line during the first time "Good to be alive plays." I get to the turn around of the course and realize I'm turning a little shy of the 1.55 mark. So I start trying to do the math in my head of when to start my magic mile to make sure I don't cross the finish line early. This starts making me nervous. So at 2.03 miles - I decided not to get in my head and just go for it. I'd rather run a little extra for the MM than come up short. Finished mile 2 in 16:52.

Mile 3 and .11 - the sad thing about starting my MM early is that I missed the water stop. I think the people around me were confused. I had been back of the back, run/walking easy peesy and then I was running a 11 min mile and blowing through the water stop like an Olympian or something. LOL. And yes that's right - my first quarter mile was ran at an 11:20 pace. That's probably not the best thing though. I definitely went out too fast. 2nd quarter pace was 13:02, 3rd quarter was 14:24 (I took a small walk break), the 4th quarter was 13 even and the last little bit (0.04 miles) was run at a 9:58 pace. I had an overall pace of 12:51 and that's my fast mile to date! I definitely feel like I know why so many people hate running. I think when you're starting out you go as hard and fast as you can and you think every run has to be like that. I do appreciate a hard race effort but I can't imagine doing that every day.

Overall paces

Mile 1 -16:59
Mile 2: 16:52
Mile 3: 13:17
0.11 - 12:29
Chip Time 48:41 - Overall Pace 15:42.

Magic Mile - 12:51.
 
Training Update Week – 33
Total miles ran – 4.1 (don’t including todays run)
Month to date – 29.78
Year to date – 118.71
Life Time – 403.94

Plan for week 33:

Wednesday – 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 – Started but not finished.
Friday – Yoga Fix - Done
Saturday – Lynchburg 5k – Done
Sunday - 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 - TBD

Things I learned this week:

Wednesday was rough. I woke up at 1:40am with some stomached issues and didn’t get back to bed until 3:40a. I worked a split shift, which meant going to work from 9a – 11a and coming home and going back at 5p -12a. During the first half of my split shift, I was miserable. I was feeling very nauseous and my head was pounding. I took a nap when I got home and I felt a little better when I woke up. The nausea was gone, but my head still kinda hurt. I got out there and at first I thought I was going to make it through, but about half a mile in my head started pounding with every foot strike. I don’t remember making a decision to cut my run short but when I ran past my house, I instinctively turned into my driveway instead of running past. I took another nap and felt better by the time I got to work for the 2nd half.
I’ve been going back and forth with if that counted as a run. It doesn’t really matter because I’ve already missed a yoga so this isn’t my perfect training cycle; however, if this was my first miss of the plan, would this count? And I think yes it counts. I made the goal of having a perfect training cycle because I was tired of making excuses and skipping runs/ workouts that I didn’t need to skip. I’ve never had a problem with not finishing runs that I’ve started. So it counts. And while this may not be my perfect training cycle because of that skipped workout I can still say “I haven’t missed a run.” That’s my new goal and motivation to keep me going.

I’ll be wrapping up Phase 1 of my training plan this week! Next week starts Phase 2 in which there are 27 work outs. I had to look a little ahead, just because I’m going to be at the beach again for week 35 so I needed to plan for it J.

Plan for week 34:
Tuesday – 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:46
Wednesday – 2.75 miles easy or 47:31
Friday – Yoga Fix
Friday – 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:46
Saturday – Yoga Fix – leaving for beach trip.
Sunday – 4.25 miles easy or 1:13:26 – End of Phase 1

Plan for week 35:
Wednesday – 2.75 miles easy or 47:31
Friday - 2.75 miles easy or 47:31
Saturday – Yoga Fix – Back from beach
Sunday - 2.75 miles easy or 47:31

Race Day Count Down:

Lynchburg 5k - DONE!
27 - days till the VA 4 miler
76 - days till Richmond Half Marathon
175 - days till Princess Half Marathon
 


So you're probably wondering, "Um Katie, I'm sorry that happened but what does this have to do with your 5k?" Fair question! It really doesn't but I wanted to kinda share the mood I've been in all weekend. This has been in the back of my head since it happened.
It's not always easy to set aside frustrations from outside running and just forget about them when a race comes. As much as we wish they would not effect our running, they absolutely do.
This is the first one that he hasn't been at, so instead of having someone to talk to and help get me out of my head, I pretty much stayed in my head.
I find that sometimes I need to get out of my own head when I struggle either during a race or in training.

I've learned that I can earn the right to feel confident come race day even if it's a brand new distance or brand new running challenge if I have put in the work leading up to that point. It's not a cocky or brash thing, but rather knowing that I have put the work in so I am prepared. Now it's time to have the experience.

But in order to feel appropriately confident, I need to remember that I put the work in.
 
No weekly update! At the beach with my mom and godmother! Very thankful that Dorian skipped right over our beach!

I did: however, finish phase 1 today. I ended up skipping Friday’s run which I’ll tell you all about in my next update. That left me with a score of 19/21. In School that would be a 90% or an A-! It’s not the Gold Star/100% that I wanted, but if C’s get degrees, then an A- will be good enough for me!

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Training Update Week – 36
Total miles ran (since last update on 9/1/19) – 26.4 – Surprise I’ve run a whole marathon since my last update (j/k obviously)!!
Month to date – 26.4
Year to date – 145.11
Life Time – 430.34

Plan for week 34:

Tuesday – 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:46 -Done
Wednesday – 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 - Done
Friday – 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:46 - Nope
Saturday – Yoga Fix - Done
Sunday – 4.25 miles easy or 1:13:26 – Done

Plan for week 35:
Wednesday – 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 - Done
Friday - 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 - Done
Saturday – Yoga Fix – Nope
Sunday - 2.75 miles easy or 47:31 - Nope

Plan for week 36:
Tuesday – 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:43 - Nope
Wednesday – 3.5 miles easy or 51:50 - Done
Friday – 5.5 miles easy or 1:35:02 - Done
Saturday – Yoga Fix – Will do tonight!
Sunday - 4.5 miles easy or 1:17:43 – Will do today


Things I learned this week:

Sun Bum works better than Coppertone. Still burns my eyes like crazy thought.

I think I need a sun visor. I hate running in sunglasses because my sweat pools at the bottom of them. So I’ve been wearing a hat, but it’s been hot and that make me hotter.

Pouring water on your head does help, and all the scientist and “experts” who say it doesn’t really do anything are lying to you!

78 degrees with 90% humidity in costal NC is not the same as 78 degrees with 90% humidity in Central VA.

If you really want some good sea shells, go to the beach right after a hurricane.

Garmin doesn’t fix cracked screens. Even if you offer to pay them for it, it’s just not a service they offer.

Cracked screens do not fall under the Garmin 1-year warranty. I don’t know what happened btw. I just looked down at dinner on our last day at the beach and it was cracked. I’ve been obsessively racking my brain to figure out when I bumped into something, dropped it or anything and I can’t remember anything that would have cracked it. I can still see the screen though so minimum harm done. I just really wanted to get it fixed so that it didn’t get worse. I’m also assuming it’s not fully water proof anymore.

Don’t order fried pickles at a restaurant with my mother. She will eat them all while you cry about your broken Garmin, but you’re stuck paying for them because you were the one who ordered them.

Running blind every now and then can be glorious. My watch was dead on Friday so I just used Strava on my phone. Instead of looking at my phone and almost subconsciously counting down till the finish of my run I actually stopped to enjoy it. And when Strava would beep at the mile markers, I couldn’t believe how fast time was flying by. I found a little of joy in running that I didn’t realized I had lost. Also, It didn’t hurt that it was clearly fall during my run. The air was crisp and I stepped on a couple crunchy leaves.

I learned that I like having the interval timer come from my phone instead of my watch. I hate going back and looking at run data. because when I program intervals into my watch, I can only look at those intervals. I can’t look at the mile splits. When my intervals are set on my phone, I can just tell my watch I’m going for a regular run and then I’ll be able to see the data a little more clearly.

Okay time to address the skipped Runs.
WK 34 – Friday. We went to Holden Beach, NC this time and that island was evacuated Tuesday due to hurricane Dorian. I spent all day Thursday watching the weather cams, and latest Dorian predictions. The eye of the hurricane was going to be just off the cost but they were expecting a lot of damage to the island. Thankfully Dorian barley grazed the cost and there was very little damage. Residents were allowed back on the island Friday morning, and we got the all clear Friday afternoon. The only issue was that I hadn’t packed or pre-paired for this trip because I really thought it was going to get canceled. I simply ran out of time to get my Friday run in.
WK 35 and 36 – Sat -Tues. I’ve been pretty sick. Some stomached issues on top of some female stuff. Not getting into details, but a very painful and not fun time. All better now.
Last night – I procrastinated getting yoga done until it was too late, so I’m going to do it after my run tonight.

Thoughts about my misses lately. Wk 34 was due to a lack of planning and that always hurts. I physically and mentally could have done that run. There was no reason to skip it, but I ran out of time. I should have known that it was going to be a long day whether or not our trip got canceled and got my run in earlier in the morning.

Sat – Tues: I’m not that upset about. I felt like death and running was the last thing on my mind.

I am concerned though. That’s a lot of missed runs back to back and I need to make sure I don’t get used to that feeling. Yesterday’s yoga was completely unacceptable and my casual “I’ll just do it tomorrow” attitude is eerily familiar and I need to stay aware of that and make sure I don’t fall into old habits.


Race Day Count Down:
7 - days till the VA 4 miler
56 - days till Richmond Half Marathon
155 - days till Princess Half Marathon

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Who says that? It's actually advised that on hot days you go nearly 50/50 with your water because keeping your core body temp down with water on the body can sometimes be more useful than drinking it.

Are you serious?! When I first started running people either told me that it wasn’t good for me or that at a minimum it actually doesn’t help. I never looked it up because enough people volunteered that info to me (without being asked) that I just assumed it was true!!!!! I was pleasantly surprised at the beach by how much it helped and now your telling me on the official first day of FALL that it’s been BS this whole time????!!!!!!! Next summer is going to be much less miserable! Let me tell you!
 
Are you serious?! When I first started running people either told me that it wasn’t good for me or that at a minimum it actually doesn’t help. I never looked it up because enough people volunteered that info to me (without being asked) that I just assumed it was true!!!!! I was pleasantly surprised at the beach by how much it helped and now your telling me on the official first day of FALL that it’s been BS this whole time????!!!!!!! Next summer is going to be much less miserable! Let me tell you!

Sure am. There are certainly variables that influence the effectiveness of it, but in general in hot conditions it will help.
 
Not running related but I’m planning our Disney trip in Feb for princess. I’m really upset right now and think this may be our last trip for a while. We are slowly getting priced out of Disney! I can not believe how expensive it’s getting. Anyway I just wanted to vent to people who I knew would understand my pain. Also at the end of the day, I recognize that I’m still very lucky and this is such a 1st world problem, just a really sad one.
 
VA 4 Miler Recap!

I never posted my race plan here but it was because I ran out of time, not because I didn’t have one! Going into race day, weather underground was predicting this:
Time​
Temp​
Feels like​
Dew Point​
Humidity​
8a​
69​
71​
67​
96%​
9a​
72​
74​
69​
89%​

Coach Billy and I dug into my 10 miler results (pretty much the same course) and I learned all about gap pace. These were my results from the 10 miler.
MilePaceGapDifference
1​
13:18​
13:30​
-12​
2​
14:57​
14:24​
33​
3​
15:37​
14:52​
45​
4​
15:42​
15:42​
0​
Total
0:59:28​
0:58:28​
1 min 6 sec

And finally, this is the plan we came up with!
PaceGap
1​
15:16​
15:28​
2​
15:31​
14:58​
3​
15:13​
14:28​
4​
13:58​
13:58​
0:59:58​
0:58:52​

My goals for this race were:
My A goal is to finish in under an hour. While I was at the beach I found out that my 60 year old Godmother walked it in under an hour so the pressure is on lol! Also, while the 10 miler is on a slightly different course I crossed the 4 mile mark of that at right at an hour last year. The only difference is the last .25 miles so I think it should be pretty doable as long as all goes well.

My b goal is less than 1:07:00. That’s my husband’s PR and the jerk doesn’t even train he just runs this race every year and I need to beat him!

C goal is a course PR. That’s 1:15:00 and from the year I had bronchitis and had only done couch to 5k. So pretty confident in that goal.

Friday night, I remember that I’m supposed to make a sign for a friend of mine who was running the 10. Originally we were going to staple it to a pole on the course but I found another friend who would be spectating at mile 5. I texted her and we were set to meet at 6:30am Saturday morning before the road closed. This shouldn’t have been an issue. The race started at 8am and this would put me at the start of the 4 miler at 6:45am. I like to get there 2 hours early but this year I decided only 1 hour early was fine.

WELL! After we dropped the poster off at 6:45am because we were running late, my husband decides he wants a coffee…. Starbucks was 15 mins out of the way so I did the classic thing wife and said “whatever, that’s fine.” To which he took at face value and didn’t understand why I was upset at 7am when we were still in the Starbucks line. Next time I will clearly communicate.

Starbucks took FOREVER! Okay they took 5 mins but then traffic was bad getting to the start line and we had to park half a mile away and we get to the start line at 7:30am right when they are making the first call for runners to line up. Now it’s important to know, I am a rule follower. I don’t care if I’m literally going to try and be the last person in line, I line up when they say line up. Those are the rules! I hadn’t stretched yet and recently I learned that my PT stretches are absolutely still necessary. So I found a tree and half way did the first or 3 stretches. Then they call again for runners to line up. So we get to the corral (it’s a self-corral system where you line up behind the right pace card). And as we are standing there, I used my husband’s arm for balance and did the other 2 stretches.

I was so nervous at this point. My husband tried to calm me down by telling me that “this is just the 4. You weren’t this nervous last year when you did the 10.” That made things worse. I didn’t know why I was nervous but I never doubted that I was going to finish. So hearing this “reassurance” from someone who hadn’t trained, doesn’t care about running and was most likely going to beat me, didn’t help one bit. I honestly don’t know if anything would have helped though, I was pretty far in my head.

Then we started seeing people we knew and I had to fake a happy face. Asking them how they are doing, wishing them luck “Oh you’re doing the 10! I did that last year – you’re going to kill it!” and “This is your first year? The farm basket hill is absolutely as bad as they say, but it’s so much fun!” I’m not sure when I stopped faking it but at some point I got out of my head and just in time. They played the National Anthem, and the assisted participants started. 5 mins late, we were off.

At this point I feel like I should mention that the weather forecast LIED to me!! It was 74 degrees at 6am when we left our house. I’m not sure what the temp was up to at 8a when we started but it was 83 when I finished. I also had pretty specific pace targets so I had written them on my arm in sharpie so that I didn’t forget.

Mile 1 – Target 15:16 – Actual Pace 15:10. I started off at what I felt was pretty easy, but every time I looked at my watch, it was in the 13 -14 min rage (even when I was walking.) Also, my husband was still with me and even he thought it felt easy. I knew that I needed to slow down though. So I did. It took about half a mile until I saw the first 15min pace on my watch. My intervals for the whole race were 60seconds running 30sec walking. I felt great, and even though I was pretty close to my targeted pace, I was starting to get hot.

Mile 2 – Target Pace 15:30. Actual Pace 15:53. The first half of mile 2 is still downhill and the 2nd half is where the “Farm basket” hill starts (it finishes right at the end of mile 3 btw). So for the first half of mile 2 I picked up the pace a little. I knew that my effort should be slightly harder than mile 1 even though my pace was supposed to be slower, because the hill was going to eat a lot of that time in the 2nd half of the mile. I was holding pretty steady around that 15:10 from mile 1. Then the hill. I swear my intervals would ding for me to walk as soon as there was a break in the hill and it was dinging for me to run at the worst parts. I told myself “I don’t care how slow you go. Just run when it dings and run your intervals. Forget the pace just keep going.” That mentality lasted until mile 3. I looked at my watch and doing some very bad math decided that I wasn’t that far off from my target pace since I finished the first mile a little faster. (Now looking at it from a birds eye view I realize that 15:53 minus 6 seconds is 15:47 and is pretty much not on target lol).

Mile 3 – Target Pace 15:13 Actual Pace – OUCH – 16:31. That whole “Just keep running.” Mentality wore off quickly. I caught up with the guy from my job that signed up for the 10 miler after looking seeing my Instagram post. My phone dinged to run as I said hello and he was walking so I didn’t want to be rude. I walked through that interval to chat with him and see how he was doing. He did great btw! But at mile 3 in the middle of the worse hill, he was feeling it as much as I was. My phone dang to run again, and I asked if he wanted to run with me but he said not now. That walk break was a mistake. My legs didn’t want to run up that hill and I was hot and didn’t have the mental strength to make them run up the hill. I finished that run but from that moment on it was spotty at best. I ran through some of the runs, but I also walked through some of them. About half a mile in, I passed the first elite coming back for the 10 miler (the 10 is an out and back.) I usually pass the first elite runner right at the 2-mile mark, so I was kind of excited to have made it a half mile further before seeing the first one. It was a tight finish too. There was 3 of them and they were so close to each other, I thought “Surely one of them is going to trip and it’s going to be ugly.” But that didn’t happen.

Mile 4 – Target Pace 13:58 Actual Pace 15:44. If I have any regrets from the whole race it was mile 4. The plan was to stick as close to 13:58 for the first quarter mile and then dig deep for the rest. As soon as my watch beeped to tell me that I had finished mile 3, I looked at my total time 47:34. I knew to hit my A goal of less than 1 hour, I’d have to run a 12 – 13 min mile (now that I can do the exact math 12:25). My fastest mile to date is 12:52 and that was just back in August. So shooting for a mile that fast on a hilly course in hot weather after I had just put in a great deal of effort on 3 previous miles, just didn’t seem smart. I knew my A goal was dead, but I also knew that barring a serious injury or act of God, I was going to meet my B goal. I struggled to hit that 13:58 pace and when the quarter of a mile mark hit, I didn’t dig deep at all. In fact I did the opposite and I slowed down to what felt comfortable. At the half mile mark, I thought “What am I doing right now?!” and I picked up the pace back to a hard effort. Not the hardest effort but still an effort that I couldn’t talk through. Of course once I saw the finish line I popped on my Andy Grammer song and I blew through it. I always wonder what the spectators think when I sprint through the finish line like that - “clearly that girl did not run the whole race at that pace if she’s finishing now.” At least that’s what I think “If I could just run a whole race at this pace, I’d be breaking tape!”. Either way, I felt great. I grabbed my half a banana and walked back to the finish line to cheer for my husband who finished in 1:09:32.

I thought about it in the car and I realized for some reason, I like that race so much that I think it’s impossible for me to walk away feeling bad about my performance. I didn’t do my best here, but I survived those hills. They were challenging and honestly they get the best of everyone. We drove the course the other day and my car struggled there. But looking back on it now that I don’t have the warm and fuzzies and can see things a little more objectively, I could have done better. I’m happy with my 1:03:48 time – my PR for the 4 miler was 1:15ish so I PRd by around 11 mins – that’s nothing to turn my nose up at. But that 1:15ish time is from 2 years ago before I knew what training was. I’ve come a long way since then and I should have been able to at least knock out at least a 1:02:00. I wish I had just been a little more mentally tough on the hill, and I wish that I had fully stuck to the plan for mile 4.

I have no race photos from this one, but the only camera I saw was at mile 3 when I was not doing so hot so maybe that’s for the best.

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Congrats on the race! An 11 min improvement (16%) is amazing. Sounds like there were lots of takeaways and learning lessons gained from this one.
 
This may be a question for one of the larger forums on the runDisney board, but as a group what are your guys thoughts on hoop dee doo revue the night before a race?

Pros: I can book the 5:15 reservation and it pretty much gives a natural end to the night and guarantees an early evening.

Cons: fried chicken and ribs the night before a half marathon.
 
This may be a question for one of the larger forums on the runDisney board, but as a group what are your guys thoughts on hoop dee doo revue the night before a race?
I can't speak as to Hoop Dee Doo Revue since I've never had it. However, years ago before my first Disney World race, I managed to get a Le Cellier reservation, but it was the night before the Wine & Dine Half. Someone here recommended that I should test how long training runs felt after that kind of meal as a decent enough idea of what it would feel like come race day. I learned that I did okay with that so I could probably keep the ADR and not have to worry about it.

Speaking only for myself, I like to clear my park schedule after 4:30pm the day before the race. I usually leave the park no later than 6:30 and decompress before the race. Two of my last 3 Disney World races were major personal races since finishing the next day also meant achieving a personal dream. I prefer quiet time to settle in for the next day and quiet my mind if necessary.
 
Me -- "We're getting priced out of Disney.. IDK if it's even worth it anymore."
Me 2 weeks later - "So I priced a week for us to go down in October and it's ONLY $3800 what do you think?
Husband - IDK.
Me - Yea I know it's a lot.
Husband - "No. Not that. Would you rather go down for halloween or do Wine and Dine?"


Apparently we won the lottery and just don't know it yet.. But yea. Wine and Dine may happen :-). I'm going to wait and see how princess goes before making that call. And honestly it probably won't happen because our dreams tend to be bigger than our wallets. But Hey. The husband is on board :-).
 
Full recap time! Friday morning we took it really easy. My in-laws were staying at our house to watch our dogs while we were gone. Usually that means furiously cleaning every inch of the house and running around like a crazy person making sure everything looks perfect. This time though, we popped on Disney plus and had a pleasant mix of watching boy meets world/cleaning like normal. We left for Richmond around 3p which got us there at 6p (if you ever visit Richmond, I would highly recommend avoiding all roads at 6p). Terrible traffic aside we got checked into our hotel and chilled out for an hour or so before heading back out. We went to a really cool outdoor shopping mall that Josh took me too on one of our first couple dates. He let me buy Lush bath bombs (if you don’t know - they are like the best bath bombs ever but also super pricey) and we had a overpriced dinner at a local spot. After we walked around for a couple hours we got back to the hotel around 10p. I know I should have gone straight to bed but I took a bath with one of my bath bombs instead. I finally made it to bed around 11:30pm. I know we overdid it a bit at the mall and with the late bed time but I thought it may be good practice for Disney. Overall I was still feeling pretty apathetic about the whole thing. I was enjoying the date night but the half marathon didn’t feel real.

Saturday morning, we hit Starbucks and I got a bagel with cream cheese- it’s my little pre-race tradition. It was good. Made it to Richmond right at 6:30... found a place to park by 7a. I usually try to get to races like 2 hours before the start so I think if I had been in a better mental place, this would have been an issue (first waive started at 7:30a). We made our way to the start line, I used the restroom and did my PT stretches. Then my husband and I parted ways and I joined my coral. National anthem played and I started to get a little excited. That excitement kinda faded after the first half of the waives started, but for the first time this month I felt something other than dread associated with the race so I was still pretty happy. Finally it was time for my coral to start and the announcer said something like “You’ve got this! You’ve trained for this..” and I was like “oh ****! I haven’t trained for this... not for the last little bit anyway.” But before I had time to properly digest that though he was counting down from 10 and we were off.

I did exactly what I said I was going to do and I ran when my interval timer beeped and walked when it beeped again. I actually stuck to this plan all the way through mile 12 but my phone died as I passed the 12 mile marker (more on that later.) I actually listened to a podcast from miles 1-9 so that the music didn’t tempt me to go too fast and that was a good strategy. Listening to stories I had never heard before kept me interested and the time flew by. I also met a friend at mile 2 who I ran the whole race with. For the first half we would just give each other encouragement as we passed each other, and finally she asked what my strategy way (because I was running up all the hills and walking down them like a crazy person). I explained that I was running for a min and a half and walking for 30 seconds. And once we got out our Bryant Park and the course evened out, she started matching my intervals and sticking with me. It was her first half marathon and she was worried we were going to get moved to the side walk. I told her we were safe after the park because now we were on the marathon course and those guys get 8 hours to finish... this really confused her and she thought we were lost. It took me like a whole mile to explain that we’re were on the right path and that we were only running 13.1 miles!! At mile 9 my phone was staring to die. I had brought a battery pack with me to charge it, because I thought that might happen. So I charged my phone in the 10th mile. I was really excited at this point. Last year I started to fade around mile 9 and didn’t get my 2nd wind until mile 11. I thought this was a sign of improvement. So when we passed the 10th mile marker, my phone was at 48% battery (I thought surely that’s enough to last till the end of the race so I unplugged the charger and plugged my headphones back in and turned on my running play list. I asked Pat if she felt like picking up the pace a little and she said yes so we did. It kinda hurt but also felt great. I was so proud of myself that with the exception of a few water stops and for the GUs I took, I was still running every single time my phone beeped. Mile 11 felt good. The start of mile 12 was rough! I was still running when my phone beeped but it was more of a painful shuffle than a run. Also one of the coaches on the course started talking to me and Pat. But since Pat was a Richmond local and had followed the course training plan and had paid to be on their team, they had more to talk about and I was quickly no longer a part of the conversation. The I started struggling to keep up. At the 12th mile marker I took my phone out to record it for my Instagram stories. My phone said it had 37% battery but as I pulled up my camera it shut off.. Pat and the Richmond coach were power walking just a head. So I caught back up to them and walked along side them. They had pretty much finished talking about the training process and I was part of the conversation again. I don’t know what I would have done if that hadn’t played out that way. Also the people behind us were taking about their favorite rides at Disney. The couple of times I couldn’t keep up with Pat I fell back and talked to them, but Pat was so excited about finishing her first half marathon, I tried to stick with her as much as possible. At one point I told her “don’t cry until after the finish line! Last year I cried all the way down that hill and then my picture were ugly!” Everyone around me heard that and apparently it was just the thing we all needed to laugh at. We turned our final corner and the last half mile is on a steep downhill. The Disney girls passed us and said hold it in don’t cry yet! I laughed and decided to go for it then! I wasn’t full out sprinting but I was running. I thought Pat was going to come with me but her and the Richmond coach hung back. I made it half way down the hill but I had to stop for a walk break. I walked for about a min and then ran again. I was in SOOO much pain. I didn’t think I was going to be able finish at a run even with the down hill advantage!! But I could see the finish line and I knew that the faster I finished the faster it would be over! Then as I start my shuffle again, Pat flew right past me!! There was no catching up with her but It was just the encouragement I needed. Not my usual sprint to the finish but still I finished and I didn’t walk across the finish line I ran across it.

I was so miserable! I thought to myself never ever ever, will I run a race that I’m this unprepared for again. I’m glad I did, because the mental loss of not showing up to this race would have been detrimental to all future running endeavors, but never ever again! I need to figure out how to emotionally and mentally cope with being overwhelmed that doesn’t result in a complete and utter shutdown. I can’t help that my life got crazy all of a sudden but I should be able to control my reaction to the crazy. And that’s what I need to work on going into the next plan.

My goal was to finish happy and I sort of did that. After being in the car for an hour or so, the pain started to ease up and I felt a couple of hours of just pure joy. So even though I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy at the finish, I still accomplished the goal of “Happy.”
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