Back when I made the decision to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon I didn’t really think it through all that well. I was just so excited to be signing up for not only my first runDisney race, but also my first half marathon, that I didn’t take the time to consider the training and more importantly, the time of year, I would be doing most of my training. The half marathon takes place on February 23th, which means the majority of my training has been during the cold winter months here in Maine. See, I was so excited about running in the sunshine of Florida in the month of February that I didn’t realize at the time that meant I’d have to run in the tundra of Maine in the months leading up to it. Needless to say, my training routine got way off track because, well, we’ve had a lot of snow, an ice storm, and wicked cold temperatures. And then reality hit me when I realized there are only 37 days left until I get on a plane for Orlando. I may have had a near-panic attack and hyperventilated a little while thinking to myself what the heck was I thinking, but then I calmed down and regained my focus. I checked in with my friend who is running the half marathon with me (her first, too) and we agreed to hold each other more accountable in the coming weeks. I highly recommend a “buddy” for anyone trying to achieve something that might be a little challenging because it’s nice to have at least one person you can really count on to either encourage you or kick you in the butt when you need it.
Once I got my focus back I decided to make Tuesdays my day to check in with myself about how my training is going and to keep myself on track in a public way, which is exactly why I’m writing this post tonight. This week has gone pretty well so far and I’ve been very thankful for little bits of sunshine combined with mild temperatures (if you can consider 38 mild), so I could get outside to run because spending more than three miles on my treadmill is pretty much torture. The big challenge will come later in the week when I attempt to hit a milestone and run further than I’ve ever run before while also hoping that the sun shines on the day I plan to do it.
More than anything, I’m excited to get to Walt Disney World next month and accomplish a personal goal that I set for myself back in June of 2013.
[…] few weeks ago I made a promise to myself that I would use Tuesdays to write updates about my training for the runDisney Princess Half Marathon and even though I had really good intentions I didn’t follow through. What’s worse is […]