Race Recap: Walt Disney World Half Marathon 2016


Saturday marked the Walt Disney World Half Marathon and for me, personally, it marked my 12th half marathon.  Considering that just a few years ago, I thought I would never get through a 5K, I'm still pretty astounded to say that I've run 12 of these bad boys.

That being said, my 12th half marathon goes in the books as my slowest half marathon to date.  I finished in about 3:20, which if super duper slow, even for me.  At first, I will admit that I was a little disappointed in my time.  But the truth is, I'm not in great shape right now, I'm significantly heavier than I was when I ran my fastest half marathon, and I spent much of the event cheering on Jamie, who was struggling with a knee injury and cramps in his quads.  Had I been a real jerk and left him behind at mile 6 when he started hurting, I probably could've gotten myself a better time.  But you know... love conquers all and all that.


Regardless of my finish time, though, I had a pretty great time.  The weather was ideal for running - it was cool and foggy out for the entire race and the mean Florida sun really didn't make an appearance.  I never really hit the dreaded wall for this one, which is a first for me.  No matter how trained I am for the event, I usually start to struggle somewhere around mile 7 or 8.  But I felt pretty strong the whole way through, probably because I took it so slow.  In fact, I was able to push through the last mile of the race and finish strong.  It was a good lesson in pacing.  While I never want to run another half that slowly (mostly because it just felt like I would be running forever), it's good for me to remember that starting off slow and finishing strong is better than trying to push it the whole time.

I also got some serious love from people along the route.  Several of my friends and coworkers were out and I got some great sweaty hugs that pumped me up.  Two of my Leaders actually came out with a great snarky sign telling me they had changed my start time for work the next day.  They even went so far as to have one of my coworkers hold up a similar sign just a little later on.  Funny... except that when I took a nap after the half, I had a dream that they really had changed my start time and I'd slept through my shift.  Oops!



All in all, I'm glad I signed up for and ran this one, even if I was a bit grumpy about it leading up to the actual weekend.  And my finish time just gives me somewhere to go this year, right?



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Great run and fresh start.

Yesterday's run:
7.13 miles in 1:40:00
Today's workout:
Yoga Camp Day One

New year, new beginnings, new lease on life.

I set out to run 5 or 6 miles yesterday.  Honestly, I just wanted to be sure that I could get in some distance because hey, guess what?!  I run a half marathon next weekend and I haven't trained at all!  But I digress.  It was about 55 degrees outside (PRAISE THE LORD ON HIGH) so it was actually pleasant to run outside.  My hamstrings have been sore for days, but for some reason when I started running today, there was no pain.  I felt like I could just keep going and going, so I did just that.  Ended up running just over 7 wonderful miles.  Then I took a super hot shower, went to Pei Wei with Jamie, and then had my very first white chocolate mocha from Starbucks.  It was essentially perfect.


I went to work after that until 1:30 in the morning, but we're just going to forget about that and focus on the good stuff.  Like that white chocolate mocha.  You guys.  Have you ever had a white chocolate mocha?  I'm assuming it has 5000 calories and 5000 grams of sugar and I don't even care.  That thing was delightful.

Today was more good stuff.  I mean, my day started with going to the dentist and finding out that I need a root canal.  So obviously that sucked.  But after that, it got better.  Lunch with Jamie, shopping trip to BJ's where I considered buying huge bags of trail mix and then remembered that those are single serving bags to me, a little bit of yoga, and a nice quiet dinner at home.  With the Sherlock special, of course.

Yes please.

The yoga really was one of the best parts of the day.  I've been hearing about Yoga with Adriene for a long time now from a lot of people, and I honestly didn't think much of it.  But with a new year comes new resolutions and one of mine was to get back into the practice of yoga.  I've been struggling a lot with balance - I run too much and stretch too little, I work too much and sleep too little, I think too much and relax too little.  Not perfect.  And I know that yoga can't fix it all, but I feel like I'm a much more grounded and balanced person when I practice regularly.  So today I started the 30 day Yoga Camp and I'm really excited to see where it takes me.


So that's where I'm at.  What's in store for your 2016?

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