Yup, marathon is not for me! A half would be a serious stretch goal.
Just to warn you. I once thought the way you did. When I started running I had many self imposed restrictions that also created a barrier to the marathon. While these restrictions were quite reasonable and borderline sane, things such as the Star Wars Rebel Challenge and Kessel Run Challenge events meant I had to reexamine some of these restrictions as I wanted the new goal more than I wanted to keep the restrictions in place. However in order to earn the Kessel Run Challenge, I had to train during the absolute worst time of the year to train for a half marathon. What little free time I had was given over to training. As the impossible became reality, I began to reexamine many of my previously held ideas about the sheer impossibility of the marathon. Reading a few race reports here began to change my thought process from I will never run a marathon to maybe I want to experience this for myself.
Sometimes we impose our own restrictions on what we are capable of. Now this does not mean that you should run a distance that you simply have no desire to run. You have to choose the next distance because you want it for your own reasons whatever those reasons my be. But you have to want it. Rather my main point is that if you want a higher distance, you can get there through hard work and a good plan.
I'm a slower runner, for SURE. So good point about eating into park time. Then again, DH would be there with the kiddos so they can do their own thing. We have been to WDW twice already so I'm at the point of just wanting to do my favourites anyway.
As
@GreatLakes well noted, one race will impact at least 3 days of your Disney World time. When I ran the 2017 Avengers Half Marathon at
Disneyland, I drove down Friday, picked up my bib and went to the parks Friday night. I enjoyed the parks on Saturday, but had to stay off my feet extensively and went to bed early.
Any suggestions/comments on what that realistic path would be?? Pretend you're wearing your medal in the park and a random stranger is asking
Happy to. I have learned some valuable lessons about making it through the difficult times of life through the microcosm that is distance running. Furthermore, I once believed myself incapable of doing many things in running and have seen those impossible barriers fall through hard work, diligence, and a good training plan.
First up is the very first piece of advice I received from those total strangers many years ago with their medals. I find that it holds up years later.
1. RunDisney's stated pace of maintaining 16 minutes per mile is very walkable. It's certainly not easy and must be trained towards, but with diligent focused training, you can develop the endurance necessary to sustain that over longer distances. That pace is a brisk walk sustained over many miles. The recommended 15 minute per mile pace is to give you cushion for bathroom breaks and possibly a character stop or two depending on the line.
2. If you can maintain 15 minutes per mile, then you can absorb a 2-3 minute character stop or two over 13.1 miles because a 15 minute pace works out to be 3 hours and 15 minutes over 13 miles. Remember that time in line for characters counts towards your per mile pace. You do not want to be the people who spent 20 minutes in line for every character and ran 10 minute miles only to be swept because by the clock, they were maintaining a 30 minute per mile pace. If doing the 10K, your cushion to absorb character stops is smaller because the distance is less. I ran my first half terrified to take any photos because I believed that I could not afford any stops. I finished easily and missed out on some great once in a lifetime photos in Disneyland.
3. Remember that you do not have to go the new distance on your first day of training. Training is what prepares you to reach that distance. It's natural to feel overwhelmed as you being pursuing the new distance. Just remember that you will get there through diligence. Nor do you need to train for 3 hours every day to run a half marathon. 30-45 minutes twice a week with longer runs on the weekend can be sufficient.
4. Your mind is stronger than your body. At some point, your body will tell you that it no longer wants to do this not because it is incapable of no longer doing this, but because it simply wants to sit down and rest. Through developing mental strategies to cope with this response, you can essentially override your initial inclination to stop.
5. Along with the above, determine why you want to take on the next distance. I signed up for my first half because I sort of, kind of, maybe wanted to do it, but not really because it took my little sister persistently reminding me for weeks that I had agreed to run it with her. Once I did, I still wasn't fully committed. That led to me neglecting early training before realizing that I really had to get in gear. Consequently, I had to skip the easy, shorter runs on the weekends in order to get the longer distances in. I was also very much in doubt of my training before that race. This resulted in a finish, like I wanted, but was not the fun experience I have come to enjoy in almost every other subsequent race.
So what is your motivation? Why do you want this? This needs to come from inside yourself. All the friendly pressure in the world from well meaning family members, friends, but especially other runners may not prove to be sufficient for you to enjoy your race. It does not matter what your reasons are. They just need to be your reasons. Reasons can be as vitally important as better health or running in honor of a friend to as personal as I really like the medal and/or character.
I once believed I was physically incapable of handling a 5K and Half Marathon on back to back days. The lure of Star Wars medals caused me to train for a 10K and Half Marathon on consecutive days. I once believed that the demands on my time during the busiest time of year professionally meant that I should never train for a half marathon during that time of year. The allure of a Millennium Falcon medal caused me to do it anyways.
6. Find a training plan that works for you. It certainly needs to include enough volume to build up the endurance necessary. It will require diligence on your part. It will mean that there are days when you simply don't feel like running, but need to get out there and do it anyways. I often like to pretend like those days are really mile x of the chosen distance. Meaning during marathon training, I told myself that when I really did not want to go for a 4 mile run after work, I would do so anyways because I was preparing for mile 22. Well when the real mile 22 hit on race day, I reminded myself that I had spent months preparing for this very run. I knew I could do it because I had already practiced running 4 miles when I did not want to run 4 miles. On an almost daily basis, week after week for months. Yes, the end of the marathon was different than all those 4 miles runs when I was fresh, but the point remained. I could do this. I had prepared for this. Whatever your chosen distance is, the same principle applies.