I learned on here to carry a plastic grocery bag with me. It’s weighs nothing and folds up small. I had several people comment what a great idea it was and how prepared I was. But yeah, giving everyone a reusable bag at the end would be nice.
I often run races with a runDisney AP drawstring backpack for that very reason. I barely feel it during the race and it makes carrying the post race stuff so much easier.
Jeez, really? I can only hope that the people buying them finished the race and just want an extra set.
I was looking for an extra set of Dopey 2019 medals and when I saw the ebay price, I decided to just buy a shadowbox with extra medals. May as well get something useful out of that price. I opted to get the WDW Marathon Weekend framed medals with Mickey sketch so I had to leave my medals with Disney at Epcot in The Art of Disney.
lso, I’ll jump in and do the Friday Fun QOTD: with the talk here recently about medals, I’m wondering what is your favorite medal? It can be one that you actually have or just you that you’ve seen and thought looked awesome.
I'll list a top 5 and brief reasons why.
1. 2017 Kessel Run Medal. This marked my dream medal if you will and also marked the finale of 18+ months worth of training including twice in the worst time of year professionally.
2. 2019 Walt Disney World Marathon. My first marathon, my first Mickey medal, and the realization of the dream I once thought impossible.
3. 2015 Star Wars Half Marathon. Another dream medal and patterned after the medal given to Luke and Han at the end of the original movie. This medal has a Chewbacca ribbon too!
4. 2017 Coast to Coast. While it's my second Coast to Coast medal, it gets the nod over 2012 because it has both U.S. Disney castles.
5. 2011
Disneyland Half Marathon. My first race medal ever so it has sentimental value, but I also truly love it.
Honorable mentions: BB-8 2017 Light Side 10K, 2015, 2016 Rebel Challenge medals, 2017 Dark Side Challenge medal, 2017 Avengers Half for firmly planting the marathon dream.
She was trying to get C2C and would get swept.
As much as I wish runDisney would make all the medals finishers medals, I'm glad they at least award any challenge medal to finishers only. Honestly, if I had known that just starting the race would have gotten me that darn medal during my very first half marathon, I fear I would have stopped right then and there, half a mile into the course, been handed that medal, and decided that I'm never going to be a runner. Since that moment where I wanted to quit less than half a mile into my very first half marathon, I have learned so much about myself and done things I never even believed were possible. And none of it would have happened if I had pulled to the side. And I can guarantee that when Star Wars races were announced, I would have told myself "too bad I'm not a runner because I can never do that. I even failed at attempting it." Instead that announcement spurred me to greater challenges and in time resulted in me attempting the one distance I never thought I would.
So even though this medal isn't anything special as far as the design, it means a lot to me.
To me, each race medal also reflects the challenge of what it took to cross the finish line. And each race presented very different challenges along the way.
QOTD: How often do you run races just for fun?
So far all of my races have been just for fun. Running only at Disneyland, Disney World, or in a major league baseball stadium guarantee fun. I am however thinking more about goals beyond finishing.
I guess the question is how did you determine what your starting comfortable pace is?
Initially I defined starting pace as race required minimum. As I've gained more experience, confidence, and knowledge, I've learned that that the answer is far more complicated than that. Now I'm not afraid to really slow down a pace if I need to because I finally understand that slower runs do not ruin goals.
It's what I call, "Don't Survive the Training, Thrive because of it". Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
This is so true. For years I trained at race minimum or slightly higher every single time. I feared that slower than required minimum would ruin goals of finishing. And for years, I finished every single long run exhausted, tired, sore, and really, really sick of running. In the early short mileage runs, I would think I can run a marathon. And then in the 10+ mile runs, I would realize that I hated running and had no desire whatsoever to continue doing it beyond 13.1 miles. Training became an almost necessary evil in order to have fun on race day at Disneyland or World. But then I finally learned what pacing really means. Suddenly long runs became far more enjoyable, a whole lot less sore, and suddenly the marathon really started to appeal to me.
On the opposite end, you can see that little harm will be done if you train just slightly too slow. So I always try to impress upon my runners, train where you are and not necessarily where you want to be. With consistent training, you'll get where you want to be. A runner who can put in lots of good efforts without getting injured can become consistent and make consistent gains. But a runner who is striving beyond their current fitness and consistently ends up injured is likely to stunt their improvement over time.
About a year ago, I was experimenting with running faster too much, too soon and trained myself into a case of runners knee and feared that all sorts of running dreams were now over. But that wound up changing everything and now a year later, those running dreams I feared were over have become the running dreams I actually accomplished. Including finishing the marathon. I still have yet to run a sub 3 half marathon. But that clearly was not the barrier to finishing the marathon I once believed it to be. And I can continue to enjoy running even at my much slower paces.
There was no way I could maintain that pace, and thus I always failed and thought I simply was not designed to be a runner.
There's a lot of truth in this. Many times after runDisney races, I meet people who sound like they'd love to participate in a runDisney event, but fear they never can because they're not a runner. I try to encourage them as best I can, but in the end, each person has to give it a go for themselves and learn that being a runner means many different things.
No matter where you start, your comfortable pace ought to be one where you can easily carry on a conversation for an extended period of time. If you feel like you're dying, that doesn't sound very comfortable and you need to slow down to one that is. As your fitness increases and you become a better runner, your comfortable pace will naturally increase as well, though as
@DopeyBadger explains above, you can't run at one pace all the time and expect this to happen.
This is so true. I've found over the years that I enjoy running a lot more when I'm maintaining a comfortable pace because I'm not too tired and I'm also allowing my legs to recover more quickly so getting out there the next day does not feel painful at the mere thought.
I probably do 1 or 2 a year where I have a specific goal in mind - which I often fail to reach- and then I pretend that was just a fun run.
I really love this. We do this for enjoyment. We do this to hopefully improve our quality of life. So if we have to find ways to cope with missed goals that still ended in success, we continue to go out there.
