On December 9 I tackled my 10 miler. During the workout I realized that I wasn't sure if I ever even said what I'm training for here on the blog. Oops. I'll be heading back to Disney World in a couple weeks for my 9th year involved with Disney's Marathon weekend. I'll be doing the 1/2 marathon this time around. It's pretty amazing to me that this Gym Class Dropout has been involved with racing that long already. How did that happen??
Anyways. I met up with my fellow Disney fans, Lisa and Mary. Those crazy girls are doing the Goofy Challenge, despite my warnings. :) While they are faster than me and typically going longer distances, we meet up together and I run a couple miles with them and then drop off. When they circle back by me, I'll run a little more and then drop off again. Rinse and repeat. It's nice to have something to look forward to. And an added bonus of running with people who are faster than me....I'm running faster. I've been doing a run/walk combo and my run "breaks" are at a faster pace than I was a year ago at this time. Unexpected but awesome!
It's doing wonders for my average pace. My 1/2 marathon PR pace (running, not race walking) is about 12:45. My average for this workout was 13:07. Considering I was doing walking in there too, I'm pretty pleased.
I felt really great through the entire workout. I never really hit a wall and could have easily kept going. That's always reassuring to know that, especially with a 13.1 mile race fast approaching.
I ended up with that little extra .36 onto my 10 miler mostly because I cannot do math mid-run. Hell, I can't do math when sitting with a pen and paper. That's another story though. I considered going onto 11 miles just to make it even but decided against it. Besides, The Pilot was home work the weekend and was waiting on me.
Last year I was on Mission: Epic PR Attempt at the Disney 1/2 marathon. This year, I'm going into it without a real plan other than to just enjoy myself and have a fun, safe race. No real time goals or anything. Of course the faster I go, the quicker I can get onto having a magical visit at Disney World but also, the faster I race, the more likely I am to be waddling around later. So maybe my goal is more along the lines of, go just fast enough to maximize the weekend getaway but not so fast that I'm sore and miserable. I'll let you know how that works out. Ah the life of a slow moving endurance athlete. I know my priorities. :)
No real goal, eh? You're going have a big PR. That's that way it usually works :) Nice job on the workout! It's good to shake things up.
ReplyDeleteHave fun at Disney! I'm doing the Tinkerbell in Disneyland in Jan and the Princess at Disney World in Feb!
ReplyDeleteMan, I'd love to be going back to Disney. It still has such great memories!
ReplyDeleteNice job on the run!