So this is Christmas... I lift!

Hmmmm.... lifting...

Just a quick pop in here (mostly because I did my first at-home lifting workout just a little bit ago, and I have the feeling that I won't be able to move my arms to type later...).

Got this great surprise this morning for Christmas from my DH and DD. I went out of town with my best friend for the few days before Christmas, and while I was away my husband and daughter converted our basement into an at-home gym complete with some weights, a bench, a covered floor, an exercise ball, a medicine ball, some sort of squishy ball thing I don't yet know how to use, some rings that are yet to be hung, and other assorted surprises. How amazingly cool. I have access to the fitness center at school, but I have always wanted a space to do an at-home lifting workout, and now I've got it. 

Now, to use it.... workout one down. I used the Runner's World "Strength Training for Runners" workout today. It will be a while before I outgrow that one!

A One-Month Challenge: Run, Lift, Sleep, Eat, Teach, Mother, repeat....

Credit: www.goneforarun.com Facebook page

The PF Report and Long Runs

I've said it before; I don't know who I am when I'm not running. And yet I haven't been running. Because PF. And when I saw this image pop up on yesterday's Facebook feed, it spoke to me (even if ironically). 

Long runs matter. For me, long runs are therapy. Personal time. Think time. Work it out time. Time I've needed very much in the last two weeks. And had my left heel not hurt so stinking much, to mitigate the stress of the last two weeks at work, I would have needed fifty miles on the road. 

Coffee matters. No further explanation needed there.

So I did go long today. Six miles long. That's as long as I felt comfortable pushing my heel. They were six hard-fought miles, though. I'm not sure that I got any closer to accepting the things I cannot change, but I got a little closer to accepting that the conversations I have in my head while running long might be the best I can do with some of that work stress for now. 

A One-Month Personal Wellness Challenge

The injury has set me back quite a bit mentally in other ways. I wasn't prepared to run the 1/2 marathon this weekend that I usually run in Indianapolis with my best friend, so I didn't go. I've justified it by saying that I'm resting from the injury, but I also know I'm not doing enough to heal the heel; I need to be consistent in icing, taking anti-inflammatories, stretching, wearing a Strassborg sock to bed, and trying out this new essential oil that's been recommended by a friend. 

But I always do better when I've got a target, so I'm taking on a one-month personal wellness challenge. I chose a month because I've got one month until my Wellness Screening at school. Every year we get a weigh in with a BMI and a blood test and a flu shot and a whole host of other pieces of data about our health. Every year I tell myself I'll do something different. But a year seems like a bit too big of a bite (and it clearly is since I've only got a month left until this year's screening.) 

So one month. Targets: Run, bike, or lift every day. Record and manage nutrition for all 30 days. Consistently treat the PF.  

We'll see what a difference a month can make. Anyone else interested? 

AND... Plantar Fasciitis... Tips and tricks?

Oh, so pretty--From Wikipedia

I haven't been walking well for, oh, about 8 months now. My feet hurt. My left foot, in particular, hurts a lot. Right by the heel. Like in this really remote spot by the heel on the underside of my foot. See that "Most Frequent Area of Pain" spot in the super helpful picture from Wikipedia above? Yeah, that's the spot.

It's been going on for a while. I remember being at Disney for the Dopey Challenge and thinking I couldn't walk barefoot on the hotel room floor because my heels hurt so badly (I usually say that to my husband, "My HEEL hurts...", not "my foot.") And post-Dopey, it definitely didn't go away. It's just gotten worse, really. When I found myself not wanting to put on my shoes for work (I try to look professionally presentable and often wear flats to work) and shopping online for Danskos and trying to come up with ways to justify wearing my Oofos  to work. (Oofos don't feel right at work; they've asked us not to wear Crocs, and they are made of the same material.)

On a positive note, I finally have my red shoes. I'm sure that my early childhood obsession with the Wizard of Oz has led to a lifelong fascination with red shoes. I have a pair of red boots, but I've never had a pair of red shoes. And now I have a pair. I also have a pair of really cool brown Danskos. And an older paid of black Danskos. And all those are great (although somewhat limiting if you are a person who cares about what your feet look like with dresses and skirts). 

So I haven't been walking well for about 8 months. And finally, on Thursday at one of my high school's soccer games, I walked (limped) up to a trainer friend and asked her to look at my feet. She thought something might be broken and recommended I go see a doctor to get it checked. (My hubby did a little bit of the "I told you so" thing, but he was relatively restrained). 

I figured that I'd have to go to the school's Clinic, they'd have to refer me to someone else, and then I'd have to wait to get in. I called the school's Clinic, and they told me that they'd just have to refer me to someone else anyway, so I might as well go somewhere where they could do x-rays. (It was rather efficient of them, and I appreciated it. I often feel like medical stuff is a lot of hurry up and wait.) 

And the cool thing? I didn't have to wait. There is an actual walk-in orthopedic clinic in South Bend. I had no idea such a thing existed until I went online and realized that I could go yesterday afternoon between noon and eight and be seen right away. Brilliant. 

I went. They x-rayed. It's not broken. It's PF. A friend, though, told me that given the choice between the two, he'd take a broken foot any day of the week. It took him two years to get over PF; a broken foot can be out of a cast in six weeks. The doctor sounded more optimistic than that. She gave me some stretches. Told me to take on the ole frozen water bottle/lacrosse ball foot rolling routine. Recommended I take an anti-inflammatory 24 hours a day for a while. And even gave me a physical therapy referral. (All in a walk-in clinic. It was amazing.) Also, my friend told me to try this essential oil because it worked for him. I ordered it this morning.

I'm pretty sure that if you told me that standing on my head, blindfolded, while mosquitos sting the bottoms of my feet would make me feel better, I would try it. So I'm all in on all the things here.

Oddly, I forgot to ask the doctor if I can run. I just said to a friend this week, "I don't know who I am when I'm not running." And I've been running through the pain (It doesn't actually hurt all that much when I'm running. It hurts when I stop running.). Going to have to do some research on this one. I feel like my high pain tolerance might actually be helpful here? 

For now, PF on, friends. 

How's your crow?

Skirt Sports Redemption Shorts First Run--Sweet! 

There's this great scene in the movie Hook where Robin Williams' character, Peter Pan, has grown up and forgotten how to crow. The Lost Boys spend an inordinate amount of time in the film trying to get him to remember how to crow, and when he finally does, he can not only crow but he can fight and fly. 

To extend the metaphor (but not to ally myself with a Disney villain or anything), there's a scene in Disney's new film Descendants where Ursula the sea witch's daughter, Uma, sings a song about her crow--"My crow's as real as it gets!"That line gets me every time. 

Both of these scenes popped into my head today as I was out running in the heat. Peter Pan grows up and forgets how to crow. Then he finds it again. I periodically lose my crow; I beat myself about not getting a run in, and I lose a bit of my swagger. I pay too much attention to my watch, and I beat myself up about running too slowly. I think back on races I ran and the shape I was in. I forget that my crow is the same. 

Lately, when I find myself alone on a run on a back road, and the road is curving up to challenge me, and the wind is nowhere to be found, and the asphalt is giving off heat, and I need a little bit of a push, I crow. Like out loud. Loudly. Sometimes multiple times. I imagine it's not all that unlike Serena Williams' yell at a serve or Robin Williams' crow when he finds it. Shouldn't we all have such a thing? 

Crow on, friends. 

A Lump, Some Lifting, and A BIT of Reflection--Summer Interruptus

Summer Mode--Lump and All

About a year ago, I went to see my doctor because I wasn't losing weight. It didn't make sense to me. I was running 120+ miles per month, eating well (I thought), and not taking any medications that would prevent me from losing weight. The doctor ordered up a thyroid blood test and did a physical exam. The thyroid blood test came back normal. The physical exam did not. I had a lump. 

At the time, I had already signed up to run the Dopey Challenge. I'll spare anyone reading this the details, but it took a full four months before I got in front of a doctor who could tell me, "Yep, that lump should come out, but you can also run Dopey." (There was also crazy angst over all the other important things in my life--lumps are freaking frightening; for the purposes of this blog, though, we'll focus on the Dopey angst.)  I admit I cried a bit in the doctor's office (as he looked on in mild amusement) in relief that I could still run Dopey. 

Fast forward another six months. Dopey done. School year done. And yep, it's been quiet since mid-February in my running world. I scheduled the surgery (June 20), and I needed some downtime from running. 

I DID do some lifting, though. Six full weeks of it before the surgery. I went and met with a trainer at our school, and she gave me a program. It's only five exercises, but they are five good ones. And I got into a rhythm of three times a week. Post-surgery, though, I can't lift until I get back together with my doctor. But hey, I lift now. I do. It's what I do. 

Also, summer is here! And we are headed out for Maine. Looking forward to running in 9 different states in 21 days. (Or at least dreaming of running... but right now I'm planning to run...).

So just coming out of the shadows a bit with a "why I've been quiet" post. Hope folks are off enjoying the heat. 

It's been a quiet month in Lake Maxinkuckee... so I #NEVERDID some stuff

Who has two thumbs and hates the snow? This gal. 

It's been a quiet month here. After fifteen months of training using consecutive training programs (half marathon followed by full marathon followed by Dopey Challenge), I took an easy month. I ran a couple of times in the cold, but not in the snow. And it took me a couple of weeks to unpack my bags from Dopey. But it was a quiet month. No pressure. I also was looking for some inspiration. I crossed off something from my bucket list at the beginning of January. I really didn't have any "what's next?" inspiration. Not all who wander are lost, though! 

And then I received the exciting news that I have been named an ambassador for Skirt Sports. I'm a huge fan (although some of my new Skirt Sisters are showing me through their posts that I have to up my Skirt game!) 

Who doesn't love this? 

 One of the best parts of the Skirt Sports mission is that they are a group of strong frickin' women who support one another. It's about the skirts, but it's not about the skirts. So while I was looking for a challenge, I found one at Skirt Sports; I was inspired by a challenge they put out to the ambassadors. 

The #NEVERDO challenge asks that we choose something that we never do and do it. Simple enough? I interpreted it a little differently from perhaps the original intent of the challenge. I kept thinking of how I often remind my students that "sometimes they must do the thing that they don't want to do so that they can do the thing that they want to do." So I picked out a thing I don't ever want to do, and I did it. I ran outside in a snowstorm. Well, on snowy roads after a snowstorm. I have seldom run outside in the last two years if there was snow on the roads because I didn't want to risk injury in my pursuit of Dopey. So off I went! And I didn't hate it. 

And then I did another #NEVERDO. See the picture below: 

Bike on Trainer--My butt never likes this. My brain also never likes this. 

In the last two years, I haven't had my bike on the trainer. And in the summer months, I've mostly been running. I think I may have ridden my bike three or four times total all summer. I was running. So I headed to the basement, and I threw my bike on the trainer, and I watched an episode of The West Wing. And then I did planks! And crunches! And then a pig flew past the window...
not really. But it is a rare, rare thing for me to do anything but run. So maybe I'm turning a corner on this thing...

Because today, I rode again.

What's your #NEVERDO? Gonna do it?

On recovery, endorphins, and a stupidly brief stab at lifting weights.

I've been a jerk for the last week. I've been home from Disney for two. I had a week of post-Dopey, pseudo-endorphin fueled euphoria! I ate a lot of food. I slept a lot. I wore my Oofos around the house. I updated my blog to try to grab those memories from Dopey. I didn't unpack my suitcase (although I did make a half-hearted effort at it). I didn't run.

And then I had this week. And this week, it felt like there wasn't anything that didn't trigger a reaction in me--either internally or externally. I was spending the week just below boil. I don't think that's my normal mental temperature; it didn't feel "normal" to me, and I was aware that my reactions to just about everything felt larger than they needed to be. I still didn't run. 

In the last year and a half, I have not gone more than four days without running. For the second half of 2016, I was on a streak. I ran 180+ days straight. And at the end of that running streak at the start of 2017, I started marathon training for the Illinois marathon. And at the end of that training cycle, I started training for the Dopey Challenge. By the end of the year, I had run 1281.38 miles. 

So when I got back from Dopey, I decided to take PLENTY of time off. Two whole weeks. I should have recognized the signs of withdrawal: depression, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, muscle aches and pains, insomnia. Sorry, friends and co-workers. 

And then today I ran. How on earth do people live without the endorphins from running? I even stopped at the Fitness Center to lift after my run (rare!). For a full three hours after my run (of just four miles), I was planning to take on the world. I started by rather unsuccessfully cleaning the house, followed that by taking my daughter to lunch in town and some grocery shopping, came home and finally unpacked my Dopey suitcase. My brain was working in overdrive, too. Wild. 

The timing of Dopey is tricky. It hits right at the beginning of January--the time of year when most of the country is making New Year's resolutions and setting goals for the coming year. Meanwhile, I kicked off the year by nailing a goal from the previous year. And in the two weeks after completing the challenge, I haven't been able to even think about what's next. Feels like just about everyone is thinking only about "What's next?" in their own lives (understandably.) And while I'm not a new year's resolution sort of a gal, I am a goal-oriented gal, but I've had to give myself permission to not think that way. 

Which brings me to today. I lifted when I finished my run. Not sure what that was about. I even considered going online and posting a request for someone to help me learn more about lifting... the horror. I'll have to revisit this one again later in the week. Post-run today, I felt ready to do anything. I'm off that. But I do have to figure out what's next. So maybe what's next is to figure out what's next. 

Dopey Finale--The bling

You might think that the point of running the Dopey challenge is the bling. Especially when the bling is as sweet as this. The picture above is my favorite photo of all those that I took during the races. 

And if the Dopey Challenge is about the bling, there is plenty of it. If you finish all four races, you get three medals on marathon day--the marathon medal, the Goofy Challenge medal (because the Goofy challenge is completing the half and the full), and the Dopey Challenge medal. 

So if you are keeping track, that's a total of six medals for completing four races. And this year the medals were pretty darn sweet. 

A fellow Dopey Challenge participant captured this picture in the park the day after. Because it was the 25th year for the marathon, we were all given a special set of ears as a surprise. Pretty sweet. 

And finally getting to have a beer at Disney Springs and celebrate with my mom after all was said and done was pretty sweet. But none of these pictures really capture the point of running Dopey. 

On any given day if you ask me "Why?", I'll give you one of a hundred answers. Sometimes platitudes: There will come a day when I cannot run. But today is not that day. So I run. 

And we must do the things we think we cannot do. (So said Eleanor Roosevelt.) 

I put 15+ months of work into preparing for this race series, and I'm actually convinced that THAT was what it was about. It was about the prep. And grinding out the miles even when I didn't want to. And I often didn't want to. In order to run 48.6, I ran 1300+ miles of preparation. Today, that's what it's about. Ask me again tomorrow, though. Tomorrow, I do my first run post-Dopey challenge. 

Dopey Challenge--Mickey's Full Mary--26.2 miles, day 4

Mickey Madness through all 4 parks + ESPN Wide World of Sports

We finally all got the message on race morning, and we all wore our mylar blankets from the day before in addition to any other number of layers. This was the view in the corral on race morning:

So much mylar...and so much time!

The strangest thing for me on race morning was that I had no idea how to think about the day ahead. I had spent so much time trying to figure out how I'd get to that start line, that I really had no idea what to think about what should happen when I crossed it. I've run several marathons, and I usually spend a lot of time working on my thinking heading into race day, but at the start of my fourth race in four days, I remember just thinking that I would figure it out as I went along.

They announced several times that we should not cross the start line wearing our mylar blankets because it would screw up the timing system, so I shed my two mylars (one on top and one on the bottom) before I crossed the start line. Other people were tossing off jackets, blankets, and sweatshirts, as well, and I saw a man walking next to me who grabbed someone else's discarded fleece blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking, and I knew from the previous three days that it would take me a couple of miles to warm up, so I snagged the first fleece blanket I saw hanging on the railing, and I wrapped it around my shoulders. Great decision  #1 of the day! 

From park to park on the half day was exciting. But from park to park to park to park on marathon day was amazing. Knowing that I was going to see so many new sights and to cover so much new ground made it easy to get excited about the distance. (And if you read the earlier post about porta johns, you'll know that I was also excited about having access to real bathrooms in each of those parks!). 

While we entered the Magic Kingdom in the dark, the sun came up while I was making my way through the park. 

Notice I remembered both a hat and sunglasses for the daytime run. We came up on the back of the castle, and it was an incredible rush. Then we were off for some uncharted territory for me--the other parks. 

There were a lot of miles between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and not all of them were pleasant. There are about 30,000 runners in the marathon, and at times the course was restricted to a single lane of a road. That made for some incredibly crowded (and sometimes frustrating) conditions. I only heard one nasty exchange between two women--one who was mad because the other started walking and didn't move over before doing so, and the other who pretty much told her where to eff off. The reality, though, was that the course was so narrow in places that it was really difficult to run comfortably. And it was really difficult to walk comfortably. And if you were run-walking, heaven help us all. The only possible solution was to have a lot of patience. 

At the halfway point, we got to run through Animal Kingdom. The park was already open, and Disney managed the crowds incredibly well. And some of the rides were open to runners. Some of my braver running pals jumped on to Expedition Everest. I was afraid that if I even tried to sit down on a ride, I would never get up again. (Plus, Everest kind of terrified me when I rode it on our Spring Break trip down.) 

Everest is really THAT tall. And THAT terrifying.

We left Animal Planet and ran into the misery that is ESPN Wide World of Sports. Narrow paths (think 10 feet wide) running between sports fields. When we first entered the complex, they were blaring "Hail to the Victors" over the speakers, and that was definitely the only highlight. 

Notice that I'm smiling as I run in. 

I hit mile 20 in the baseball stadium at WWOS, and I took my first picture of a mile marker. Because, well, mile 20.

I've yet to see anyone say that they enjoy the run through WWOS, and I'll jump on that bandwagon. I'll also add that somewhere in there, Disney put a guy next to a car with a speaker and a microphone, and I think he was supposed to be encouraging us, but he was the worst motivational speaker ever. If I were going to give Disney any feedback on the entire experience, I'd holler at them about the expo, and I'd holler at them about that guy. He was just truly awful. 

BUT, then we moved on to the next park!

The run through Hollywood Studios isn't long. When we entered the park, I had to stop and capture this moment.. the Tower of Terror. Any Culver friends reading this post will understand why this picture had to be taken. 

And just like that, I was running into Epcot again to finish the race and the Dopey Challenge. The last mile around the World Showcase at Epcot is pretty incredible. Again, the parks are open, and there are people everywhere, but the path for runners is clear. 

I made this face often on marathon day. But this version was my "I did it!" face. 

And here's the marathon medal.

One really cool moment on marathon day was when I was finally coming into the finish line, and a man was standing off to the side of the race chute high-fiving incoming runners. It was only after I had finished that I realized that I had been congratulated on my finish by Jeff Galloway. What a great treat. Jeff's run/walk training was a large part of why I was at the finish line, so it was incredibly apropos that he was there. I am grateful to have gotten to thank him. 

That's it for a marathon report... Dopey wrap-up coming in my final Dopey post. 

Dopey Challenge--13.1 magical miles--The half

Controlling the controllables--Managing the cold

I finally figured out the cold by the time I got to the half marathon. Dialed it in! In addition to all the other layers, I used mylar blankets that I picked up at the end of the previous day's race to wrap around my lower half. Then I had a trash bag on my top half over my other layers. And I started to feel like, "I've got this!"

I met a woman on the bus from the hotel to the race start who was running her first half marathon, and she was so nervous and excited that her energy was infectious. She had no clue what to expect, so she decided to follow me and let me guide her to the start. I loved it. 

But then we got to the starting area, and I discovered that they had moved the start line. A long ways away. So a lot of what I had learned about race logistics from the previous two days was moot. I no longer knew where the best porta john stop was. On 10K morning, I found the perfect place to sit outside of the corrals to hide from the wind AND be comfortable on a sand bag, and that wouldn't work. Ahhhh, well. 

I read a lot about the races ahead of time, and many people wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses. A half a mile! (some people said). On the 5k and 10k days, there was a little bit of a walk from the buses to the corrals, but it certainly wasn't a half mile. It never occurred to me (dope!) that they would move the start line. So all those people who wrote about the long walk to the race start from the buses? They weren't kidding. After getting to the 5k/10k start area and realizing that we weren't starting there again, I had to start to come up with a new game plan. When to hit the porta-potties again? (The layers and layers I had on made any port-potty stop an adventure.) Walk to the start line and get into the corrals early? I'm realizing as I write this just how much of my morning race plan centers around timing porta-potty stops. 

Seen Toy Story? One of the plastic soldiers is there to taunt you at the start line.

Found the new start line--that's not it under my head, though.

I walked to the start. I wished my new friend well when we got there a half mile later--she was headed to one of the "party corrals"--corral G, and I was headed to corral E. Corral G is the last (or second-to-last) corral to be released on race morning, and it's for the people who don't enter a race time to get seeded in the early corrals. That means that there is a mix of runners there--fast and slow, partiers and... well, I don't know what the other word is. But it's a fun spot to start (except it means that they have to wait even longer to start running, and that's rough on a cold morning!)

By day 3 of Dopey, I was finally dressed warmly enough to not have to dance around through the wait in the corrals to stay comfortable, so I decided to relax. And that's how I ended up with that picture of me laying on the road waiting for a half marathon to start.

The half heads out to the MK and back

The route of the half puts Dopey runners in new territory. While we do start at Epcot, the run is primarily about getting to the Magic Kingdom and back. That was exciting. Race plan for the half was the same as the others--run slowly and save my legs for the full marathon on Sunday morning. 

The road to the Magic Kingdom was dark, and I am not speaking metaphorically. It was actually dark. And there wasn't much entertainment. But it was easy to get into "easy run" mode and just go with the crowd. If I were to do the races again, I might think about having some sort of light on my shoes for those back roads, though. There were a number of uneven surfaces, and I saw more than one person who was tripped up out there by something on the road. 

I knew we were getting closer to MK when I came up on Mickey in the form of a hot air balloon in the middle of the road. Surreal. 

And then I teared up a little bit and had to stop for a selfie at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. The iconic gateway is even more special when you run through it in the early morning hours. 

And a closer view of the gate without the selfie...

Trying to capture the gateway without tripping or slowing down too much. 

And there is really nothing like running up Main Street USA towards the castle while cheering crowds high-five you. Serious happiness!

Heading towards the castle

Coming back around and through the castle.

The finish of the half is at Epcot again, but we only run up and around the fountain and Spaceship Earth and then head back out to the finish line. 

Not my best pictures, but hey... I finished, and I apparently wanted to document that each and every time. 

Each day you run at Disney, you learn something new for the next day. That was certainly true during the half. So lessons from the half:

1. Bring your sunglasses. The 5k and 10k happened almost entirely in the dark, so I didn't think to pack my sunglasses for the half. And because it was so cold and dark in the morning, I had a beanie on in the morning instead of a ball cap. So once that sun came out, I had nothing to protect my eyes. Squinting=extra layer of fatigue. 

2. Make a nutrition plan, and don't rely on Disney nutrition. 1)You can't eat at 3:00 when you wake up and expect that to hold you through a 5:30 start time. 2) A peanut butter sandwich in the corrals at 4:30 is a great start, but it still won't be enough. 3) Whatever your plan is for nutrition, add more calories to it because your metabolism from the two previous days will be in high gear, and you will be hungry. 4) Oreos at mile 9 of the half marathon will work in a pinch. 

           All that being said, the folks I talked to before the race told me that there would be plenty of food on the course. People told me that there would be food out there that wasn't even on the race guide: gu, sports beans, power-aide, bananas, candy. I thought long and hard about whether or not I wanted to carry my own nutrition--one of the benefits of doing a race series like this is that it's a catered long run! The reality of race day was different from what I had heard, though, and I was glad I had my own nutrition with me.

          Each morning, I packed a ziploc baggie with a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water. For the half marathon, I also threw in some peanut butter crackers. And at 4:30, I ate that breakfast in the corrals. For the half marathon, I also decided to wear my Nathan Intensity Race Vest and load it up with water even though there ARE plenty of water stops on Disney's courses. I wanted to be able to drink whenever it fit into my plan, so I decided to carry my own. I also had a couple of these Nathan bottles  filled with my favorite nutrition for long distances--UCAN in Cocoa Delite. I usually plan on one bottle of UCAN for about five miles of running, so I planned to drink two for the half marathon and then supplement with either stuff from the course or salted caramel Gu that I had with me. 

          There was NOT any Gu out on the course (unless I ran past it and didn't see it). And there were Sports Beans on the course, but I won't take those during a race. I used them during both Ironman-distance races and I ended up with horrible stomach cramps. The Sports Beans may not have been at fault, but I wasn't going to take any chances. 

          I drank all my UCAN by mile 8. I supplemented with a Gu packet. But I hit mile marker 9, and my stomach was growling. GROWLING. I reached in my pack to find something else to eat, and I found only Oreos from the RunDisney box I had been given the day before. All good! I'd eat anything. I did get a couple of looks from other runners on the course as I was munching on some cookies, but they may have been looks of envy. That pile of sugar hit the spot. And I knew then that I'd need to come up with a better plan for the marathon. 

Oh, and I almost forgot! Each day at the end of the races, Mickey, Minnie, Dopey, and Goofy were there for pictures. I decided to get my picture taken with Dopey after the half. (I wasn't sure I would get there in time to see him after the full or that I would feel like doing it.) I kept thinking, "I'm coming for you, Dopey!" It didn't seem right to act like I was going to punch him, though...

Dopey Challenge--The forgotten 10K

Crazy eyes at the finish line

The 10K finish chute

I should have taken notes on the 10k! It's a blur. The course for the 10K is pretty similar to the course of the 5K--we started in the same place, and then we ran out onto a road before running back into Epcot. They also added on a run around the Boardwalk hotels. For me, that was cool; I've been to Epcot a number of times, and I had no idea that whole resort area was back there. Here's the map:


I really enjoyed running with someone on the 5K day, but I also came away from the 5K day knowing that I hadn't run my own pace or race. And that worried me. I went in to 10k race morning knowing I needed to save my legs for the 1/2 and full. And I went into 10k race morning resolved to run my own race and to run it slowly. To that end, I also made the decision to not seek out a lot of conversation in the morning corrals with other runners. Frankly, I was worried that if I didn't resolve to hang by myself, I'd end up back in someone else's race plan again.

I managed to feel warmer on 10K morning. Best piece of running gear that morning: A large lawn waste trash bag. I remember discovering when I got to the race start that I had accidentally grabbed two trash bags that morning. And I knew that I had only packed enough for the four races, so the 10k morning's bit of gear nonsense was me deciding to carry a folded up trash bag through the whole run so that I would have enough to use one for the half and the full. (This reminded me of the time that I ran a 10k in Louisville while carrying a race shirt rolled up in each of the pockets of the jacket I had tied around my waist because we arrived late to the race start. I had to decide to ditch the shirts or run six miles carrying them. I carried them.)

The only other thing I remember now about 10k morning was that I was okay thinking I just needed to get it over with. My mind was on the longer runs, and I knew this was one step on the way to those longer runs. I didn't stop to take pictures until the finish. Medal from the 10K is cool, though!

Minnie hosts the 10k, so this is the Minnie medal. 

Oh, and that trash bag I carried with me in my pocket for 6.2 miles? I lost it somewhere between the finisher chute and the bus back to the hotel. Had to come up with plan C (or D...I don't know which plan I was up to at that point!)