So, last night while I was out doing leg 1 of the Hal Higdon Mini-Dopey weekend (2.5 miles), I realized that in THREE WEEKS I will be in the midst of the real thing.
And…man oh man… let me tell you!
Over Thanksgiving, I – as well as many other people across the country – did a Turkey Trot. 10K of holiday goodness, for a good cause (short recap coming! really!!). Around mile 4 my left calf tightened up. Like, painful, felt like if I kept running I’d rip my hamstring right out of my leg, tight. But I found that if I adjusted my ‘style’ a bit, I could run on it and finished. But the next day (and a few of the next ones) my leg would not loosen up. And at this point in the process, I’m more concerned with staying relatively injury-free than anything else.
Which leads me to this: I haven’t done a whole lot of running since Thanksgiving. Or, really, a whole lot of anything…
Then the corrals came out. I had figured, based on calculators all over the internet, with my 3:04 half marathon POT, that they’d put me in with the 6-6:30 finishers. Um…no. I’m in the next to the last corral. Apparently there is a “Special”, one might even say “Magical” formula used by the runDisney placers …I have learned that it’s also very “SECRET”.
But back to my lack of training in the last month….yeah….this was not terribly encouraging news given that I’ve trained more for this event than anything I’ve ever done and now I’m gonna have to fight past walkers and, from what I’ve read, a lot of other people who have been mis-corralled. (Be advised: I have *nothing* against walkers! I am, myself, at times, a walker!)
I need(ed) to make a decision – just give up and figure I’d raise the biggest stink EVER if they tried to deny me my #DopeyChallenge medal or keep going and hope for the best.
Well, I need to keep going and hope for the best! Yeah, I’m at the back of the pack – not unusual for me. I do just hope I have time for a few very important photo stops – I need to get the Genie, Buzz and Woody and hopefully Jessie, and Sully and Mike W. Anything else I will consider gravy.
If you’ve followed to this point now you know 🙂 1. Not a lot of training 2. Bad corral placement 3. Less than three weeks to wrap up training 4. More determined than ever
The training plan for this weekend is:
Thursday: 2.5 miles (done!)
Friday: 5 miles (currently finishing coffee and hoping the rain dies down)
Saturday: 10 miles (supposed to be a bright sunny day – had to go buy a short sleeved shirt to run in!)
Sunday: 20 miles (another bright sunny day – bribing myself with a Shipley donut and Mexican food)
And my Dopey plan is to print out some of the online calculators along with my POT and talk to runners relations at the Expo and hopefully get a little more photo op cushion (even one corral would be nice!).
No matter what though, I plan to have an absolutely AMAZINGLY fun time!!!
outrunningthefork 