Category Archives: running

RunDisney 2016: 19 Weeks to go!

So we’ve already completed the first 4 weeks of our new training programme; time is flying by and we’re creeping ever closer to the 100 day mark!

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Remember last week was a bit of a bust? Well this week was always going to be more of a success, and it was for the most part. We did three decent runs: a 45 minute one, and two 5ks, and I think what we’ve noticed most this week is how much we’ve managed to cut down on walking intervals during our runs.

I’m also really happy to be at the end of August now and heading into autumn – I’ve spent the last week getting erratically angry with the sun. Goodbye summer heat and hello brisk winds and running in the rain! My body sucks at regulating its own temperature and I’ve been finding summer running pretty horrendous, even doing it at 7am when its a little cooler.

Next week I’ll be running our first ‘mini rebel’ – 5k on Saturday and 7 miles on Sunday. Its essentially half the distances of the real Rebel Challenge races, designed to get us used to running big distances with no rest day. Unfortunately Dad’s away on Saturday so won’t be doing the 5k with me, but he’s not getting away without 7 miles on Sunday!

That’s all for now, folks!

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RunDisney 2016: 20 Weeks to go!

Despite my positive attitude to our new training schedule, I knew a week like this would happen at some point: the ‘disappointing’ week – the kind where running isn’t top priority.

In all fairness its my fault. I had two total burnout gym sessions this week which left me too tired and too achy for our early week runs, and it was the sensible decision to give them a miss in anticipation of a bigger distance on Saturday.

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So this week we ran 7.5 miles, in the fairly respectable time of 1 hour 30. Sure, we’ve been faster, but this week wasn’t about pushing ourselves, it was about keeping going. Plus, despite being a British summer, its still August and it was really warm, even at 8am, and I really struggle with heat.

So what else has happened this week? Well becoming an ever-increasing priority for Dad and me is improving our eating habits, and while its a bit of a challenge, we’re slowly getting there, and probably the greatest revelation on this subject is our lasagne transformation. Lasagne is my all-time favourite meal, we eat it every week, but we’ve made a few simple changes – swapping beef mince for Quorn mince, and adding spinach as well as using spinach lasagne sheets – and we’re definitely onto a winner, it tastes amazing! I’m also making an effort to prepare more meals in advance so I’m not tempted to grab a ready meal at work or give into my snacking temptations.

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With all this in mind, I’m pretty pumped for getting back into things properly next week with a few key mantras in mind:

– Always find time to stretch and cool down properly

– Eating healthy makes for happier people

– Just keep swimming!

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RunDisney 2016 – 21 Weeks to go!

 Time seems to be flying by at the moment, and we’ve completed another week of training!

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So once again, we’ve completed 3 runs this week: two 45 minute runs, and a 5k on Saturday. We’ve had great conditions this week; running really late on Tuesday (about 9-10pm), through cooling drizzle on Thursday, and early along the beach on Saturday.

Saturday’s run felt really good; we’d normally ParkRun on a Saturday morning, but my sister was doing her first triathlon at the beach, which started at 7am, so we decided to go down and support her, and run while she was on the cycle leg of her race. Dad and I do a lot of running at the beach, either running from home to the cliff and down to the beach and back, or just running up and down. Its a love/hate relationship: Bournemouth beach is beautiful, the sea breeze is cooling and its a nice stretch for longer distance runs, but at the same time it can be too windy, too crowded and there’s no real shade when its really sunny. Its also great because basically all of the races and fun runs that happen in Bournemouth take place at the beach, so its easy to gauge distances. For example, our local Race for Life is from Bournemouth to Boscombe pier, slightly further on and back, and knowing that, that’s what we did on Saturday. We didn’t set any PBs, but we did some good continuous running, and we weren’t slow!

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Another really exciting happening of the week was finally receiving our Rebel Challenge training tshirts. Training shirts for the races are released for pre-order for a limited time on the US Disney Store, and are for US delivery only, so I enlisted the help of a lovely friend from California who ordered them on our behalf, and shipped them over to us from there. She’s a star!

We’re coming for you, Rebel Challenge!

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#fitfordisney – What’s in my gym bag?

I love reading ‘What’s in my bag’ posts on other people’s blogs, so I thought it would be fun for a #fitfordisney post to do a ‘What’s in my gym bag’ post!

I’ve written before all about my gym bag itself, and how much I love it – its the Fabletics Sophia Satchel, and you can read all about it here – but today I’m emptying it to share the essential items of my gym kit that I love.

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For starters, I have a LOT of hairbands; everything from scrunchies to headbands. Because I have such long hair, keeping it all out of the way when I’m at the gym or out running is damn near impossible with just a simple hair tie, so I generally keep a skinny headband on me at all times, either to wrap my ponytail up into a bun, or to control the wispy hairs around my face which drive me mad! The wider headbands I tend to wear more around the house, or when I’m doing yoga.

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I generally walk to and from the gym, so don’t use the shower and changing facilities there, which means I don’t carry a massive amount of toiletries, but I cannot be without lip balm so I keep one of my many Eos balls in with my kit, as well as Vaseline hand cream in a vague attempt to keep my hands soft after doing weights! I also always have my combination lock, because you have to provide your own at my gym, and the nifty tool that opens my Fitbit when I need to change the battery, just in case!

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While hygiene is important in most aspects, I feel that foot hygiene is pretty high up there on the list of most important places to keep clean, and generally fairly forgotten about. As a runner, my feet are the most used body part in my workouts, so I always keep a can of shoe deodorant in my bag to spray my trainers after use, as well as a spare pair of socks. On the topic of feet, I also keep my pair of yoga socks in my gym bag, should I need them. They might look weird, but they’re crazy comfy, super grippy and I love them.

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Then there’s the gym essentials: a water bottle and a sweat towel. We all sweat, its entirely natural and you can’t do anything about it, but you can be considerate to other gym users by wiping down your equipment after use, whether you’re super sweaty or not, and for your own good, keeping hydrated is vital for replacing the water you lose while you’re working at your hardest. I have an Aladdin water bottle which is 600ml, and I generally will end up refilling it halfway through my gym sessions because I try to drink as much as possible.

So that’s me and my gym bag, what’s in yours?

#fitfordisney
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RunDisney 2016: 22 weeks to go!

So after the blip of the last month, we’re finally back into our rhythm, completing the first week of our new schedule without a hitch, yay!

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The first major difference of the programme is the increase in length of our midweek runs, from 30 to 45 minutes, which really wasn’t too much of a problem, and taking it in our stride (pardon the pun) was quite reassuring as it meant we weren’t as far setback as I’d worried I might be after the time away.

I also threw us back in at the deep end this week with a 6 mile weekender, primarily because I knew we could do the distance, and also because in our 45 minute runs we can go 4-5 miles, so all of our weekend distances are 6+. Ok, so we weren’t up to our usual pace for that distance, but our PB is 1 hour 3 minutes, and we did it in 1 hour 15; a month off, and only 12 minutes difference really doesn’t seem to bad if you ask me!

Another change you might have noticed if you’ve kept up with my training posts, is that I’m starting to count down the weeks, rather than up as I did before, mainly for my own sanity, but also because it seems far more positive watching the numbers tick down!

Today we also FINALLY managed to book our places on the Keys to the Kingdom Tour for the first day of our trip! We’ve been trying to book it since the 180 day mark, but Disney have been undergoing some ‘Magical Enhancements’ to their tour booking system, and when we tried again today, they were ready for us! 8th try lucky..

This time in 22 weeks time we’ll have completed both of our Disney World runs, crazy right?!

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RunDisney 2016: A New Schedule

Let’s not even talk about this week.

Yes, we did start running again this week, but I’m not even sure you can call what we did ‘running’, so moving swiftly onwards..

When we first started training back in January/February, we stuck to the recommended training plan provided by Run Disney and Jeff Galloway, and we worked our way through most of that leading up to our Japan trip last month, but with our trip looming ever closer, now we’re back into things, we need to modify and increase our training to prepare us for the grand finale of our holiday: Rebel Challenge. On their own, a 10k and a half marathon wouldn’t faze us too much; we’ve run plenty of 10Ks, and our training so far puts us in good stead for a half marathon, which we’ll of course be completing the week before in WDW. Rebel Challenge, however, is both these distances one day after the other.. Yikes, right?

All our previous training has left a recovery day between runs, so now we need to learn to push through and run on consecutive days, and with this in mind, I’ve written us our new training schedule:

Its fairly similar to the Jeff Galloway plan, alternating shorter distances with longer distances, but I’ve added in what I like to call ‘Mini Rebels’. As the name suggests, they’re basically two consecutive runs, just smaller distances that the main event – 3 miles and 7 miles, 4 miles and 8 miles etc – and we’ll be doing one of these every month or so in addition to our regular training, and we’ll also be increasing the length of our midweek runs to at least 45 minutes.

This coming week marks 22 weeks until we leave for Florida, so we’ve got 22 weeks of training (including over Christmas..), 5 mini Rebels and a whole lot of powering through to do!

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RunDisney 2016: A Training Update

It has been a long time since I’ve written about our RunDisney training, for a few reasons:

1. I was finding it a little repetitive each week; ‘woo, we ran three times, woo, we were a little faster this week’

2. Due to injury/our recent Tokyo trip/various other excuses like the weather, we’ve really not been as into training as we were when we were at our peak

3. We haven’t run since pre-Japan

Everyone takes breaks, and knowing that that is ok is important; a work, work, work mentality doesn’t do anyone any good. Sure, we’ve enjoyed a little break, but we know we have to get back into our proper training schedule this week as tomorrow marks 23 WEEKS UNTIL WE LEAVE FOR DISNEY WORLD. No biggie or anything.

So we are now totally 100% officially confirmed for all our races – Disney World 5K, Disney World half, and Star Wars Rebel Challenge (10k and half). While we’ve been confirmed for all our races since June, because we’re booking the California leg of our trip through a RunDisney sponsored travel agent, we only officially entered Rebel last week. We’ve also entered all of our Proof of Times, due to our estimated finish time for the halfs being under 3hrs 15; we’re aiming for around 2.5 hours.

All of our accommodation is sorted! In Disney World we’ll be staying at Port Orleans – French Quarter, which includes a quick service dining plan, but we’ve also made a few Advanced Dining Reservations which I’m really excited about. Its still too early to book Fastpasses, and we’re having some problems with booking the Keys to the Kingdom tour, but we’ll cross all those bridges when we get to them! In Disneyland California we’ll be staying at the Paradise Pier hotel, booked through the travel agent, which means we won’t get our confirmation details til November, but we know that’s where we’ll be and that’s good enough for us!

So now its just a case of buckling back down into a training routine. Next week will just be a case of easing ourselves back into it, and then after that we’ll begin ramping it up to hit the bigger distances, and also do a little challenge training to get ourselves used to the idea of running long distances without a rest day in between.

23 weeks, lets do this!

°o°

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 16

This post is coming out a day late, but the weekend drained me so much that I decided to take a quick power nap at about 6pm yesterday before writing my weekend posts, and I ended up sleeping through til 10pm, at which point I decided I should probably just get some sleep and start fresh today!

Yesterday Dad and I ran in the Poole 10k, our first competitive 10k since last October, which was our first. Now I’m not one to brag or anything, but we smashed it! We shaved 4 minutes off our time from October, finishing in 1 hour 3 minutes, and we actually did the first 5k in a record pace of 31 minutes! Safe to say we’re feeling pretty happy with ourselves!

Now we made a couple of changes to our plans this week..

With sign up for the Star Wars half marathon weekend opening early to APs, DVCs and travel companies, we got in touch with the travel company we thought about booking Disney World with (but didn’t in the end), and when they came back to us with prices, we had to think a lot about comparing prices from all our options, and we made a rather spur of the moment decision.. to do the Rebel Challenge!

So originally we were going to do the 5k, which will be on the Friday, and the half marathon on the Sunday, but Rebel Challenge is completing the 10k on Saturday and half marathon on Sunday, essentially running two longer distance races with no rest day in between, eek!

Either way, we decided to book through the company, which means we’ve officially been accepted for early registration! We decided we won’t be staying on property in California; the local hotels are literally only minutes from the parks anyway, and are about a quarter of the price, so for only a few days, which we’ll spend entirely in the parks, it wasn’t worth the extra spend.

So this has been a pretty great week! We’re going to dial down training a little in the run up to Japan, then kick it back up to full notch once we’re back!

°o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 15

Another week, and a new PB, yay!

Jeff’s training schedule implements something called ‘Magic Miles’, which is where every other week you time yourself for one mile, and then watch how this time improves with your training. Dad and I, however are sort-of bypassing this, and instead taking part in our local ParkRun 5k every other week instead, and tracking our improvement based on our times for that. Last time we did a ParkRun, we set a PB for the distance, and this week we managed to beat it; granted only by maybe 20-30 seconds, but an improvement all the same!

The great thing about our local course is that its mixed terrains and levels, from grass to dirt tracks to concrete paths, with uphills and downhills, so it really covers everything, and although most races tend to be fairly flat, it prepares us for all eventualities and works different muscles for all round effectiveness!

We’ve (rather spontaneously) entered a 10k next Sunday, and we’re hoping to beat our previous record for a race, which is 1 hr 7 mins, but its looking like its gonna be hot, hot, hot, and its mid-afternoon, eurgh!

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 14

This week an important lesson was learnt.

Never EVER wear new/different shoes on the day of a race.

I mean it.

If you’ve been following our training, you’ll know that this week was going to be the week we hit the big distance. We decided to forgo the 12.5 mile target and hit the big 13.1, set our first PB and feel super about doing it..

We didn’t. And I’m not going to lie, it was entirely my fault, which I hate.

I have two pairs of trainers that I run in: a pair of Nikes, which I’ve done the majority of my running over the last year or so in, and a pair of Karrimor running shoes which I use on and off, but not very often, so I’ve been trying to use them more recently to wear them in a little more and check their suitability. I wore them for all our runs last week and they were totally fine; a lot more lightweight than my Nikes and slightly more supportive of my feet.

So I figured why not wear them this weekend? We set off bright and early yesterday morning, and totally opposite to our last big distance, the weather was sunny, not much wind and for 7.30/8am, it was super warm, and by super warm I mean sweaty hot. But we continued to run into the heat of the morning sun, keeping a good pace, and hit the 5 mile mark in a record time (for us, obviously) of 57 minutes, which was a great feeling and could only mean good things for the rest of the run..

And then we hit 6 miles, and the blisters formed.. A runner’s nightmare, and all because I wore the wrong shoes. I’d never run more than 4-5 miles in my Karrimors, and the result of going past that point meant I quite literally have blisters upon blisters, in the same place on both feet. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the shoes are bad, I’m just stressing the importance of proper testing of shoes before a big race because I’d hate anyone else to have to give up mid-run, or do any serious damage to their feet.

I’m totally gutted we weren’t able to do it this week, but with plenty of training time to go, its not the end of the world!

°o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 13

A quick one for a quick week..

We only ran twice this week, mainly due to recovering from last week’s trek of a distance. Wednesday was a free run; we did about 45 minutes, making up the route as we went along, but that works pretty well for us!

Yesterday we did something a little different, and took part in our local ParkRun. ParkRun is a worldwide scheme that organises free local running events, and our local one is just 5 minutes from our house so we figured we’d give it a go. Its completely free to take part; you just need to register online beforehand to receive your barcode, which is how your times are logged, and then just show up at the right place at the right time. Our local course is a 5k that takes place every Saturday morning.

It was great! Firstly, we couldn’t believe how many took part, almost 400 people! Secondly, the range of people was pretty astonishing; serious runners, fun-runners, parents with kids, people with dogs etc.. There was even a women who ran the whole thing pushing two kids in a double-pushchair! But the most amazing thing was our time: we did it in 31 minutes, which is a pace of almost 10km/h, and definitely a personal best (last year I did the Race for Life 5k in 37 minutes).

Next week the programme says to finish the week with 12.5 miles, but because of how easily we did our 11 miles last week, we’re just gonna go ahead and complete the extra 0.6 miles to make it the full distance, just to say we’ve done it, set our first time and then we know where we stand. Super exciting!

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 12

Another week of running, another week closer to the main event!

Yesterday was another big run – 11 miles! And d’you know what? It was easy. Well, that’s not entirely true; we ran the first half into what I like to call ‘brick wall wind’ (because it literally feels like you’re running into a brick wall), and there was a sand-in-the-eye incident, as well as a little bit of rain on the way back.. But running wise, we really got into our stride, if you pardon the pun.

Because both Dad and I had a little bit of calf pain in the week, we thought we’d be better off doing regular run-walk-run intervals, which once we hit the wind, we were eternally grateful for! So the first half (into the brick wall wind) we ran for 0.4 miles, then walked 0.1, and then on the way back we did 0.9 and walked 0.1, and we averaged a steady 5 miles an hour the whole way through, finishing the total distance in 2hrs 13mins. That in itself was an incredible accomplishment, but even better was knowing that we could have easily kept going for another two miles!

We nailed everything, from the time of day for good (by which I mean not too warm) weather, to eating a good breakfast that had us energised, but not feeling stodgy, and even having on-course snacks of a wine gum every few miles. For the first time I think we know that not only can we do it, but we’re easily going to do it in a great time: sub 2hrs 30!

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 11

We’re over the halfway point of our training programme, which seems beyond crazy – I swear we’ve only just started?!

I’m gonna keep it relatively short this week as I updated you guys on quite a lot earlier this week. The key point this week is that we’ve registered for both of our Disney World races (5k and half marathon), so everything just got totally real, although registration for the Star Wars weekend at Disneyland California doesn’t open until June, but even that’s only 5 weeks away now!

Running wise it’s been a fairly boring week; we only ran twice because we couldn’t find the time until towards the end of the week, and we really didn’t push ourselves much at all. Personally I’ve had a week of ups and downs, the ups being all the excitement of registration and planning, and the downs being fitness-wise; with all the running, plus all the time I’m spending at the gym at the moment, I think my body’s been a bit overwhelmed and needs recovery time, so I’m going to take it easy this coming week. I’ve also been getting a lot of headaches, especially in the last few days which I’m putting down to dehydration, so I just need to keep an eye on things.

Rest is just as important as training!

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RunDisney 2016 Update – we’re in!

Today I am happy happy happy!

If you’re up to date with me and my Disney life, you’ll know that today was registration for the Walt Disney World Marathon weekend, which is our first event of our RunDisney January tour, and we got our places in both races! Aahhh! So we’ll be running the 5k on Thursday 7th as a sort of warm up, before we do the half marathon on Saturday 9th!

This was really the feather in my cap of a great last week or so. Last week not only did we book our flights for this trip, but we also scored a room at the main Tokyo Disneyland hotel for our July holiday, even though the website said they were fully booked, so that’s all super exciting, and meant the only thing that was really left to do was book our resort and park tickets for January, and securing our race places.

Well yesterday I finally made my mind up and paid the deposit on our Disney World resort/park tickets/dining plan etc. We’ll be staying at Port Orlean’s French Quarter, which I chose because it looks beautiful, and is really well positioned for us; our races all start in Epcot, which is just across the road basically! We knew we wanted to stay at a Moderate Resort because of the great deals they have for 2016 – free quick-service dining plan, $200 gift card and free Memory Maker – and given that we stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort last year, which is the cheapest moderate, and didn’t want to spend too much more, POFQ seemed ideal!

So yeah.. Its still a while before we can really finalise specific plans for January (ADRs, Fastpasses and such), but everything now is really complete for the Florida side of our trip, and we don’t need to worry about California until June, so we’ll just keep running, and see where we get!

Anyone else running in January? °o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 10

Just a quick update tonight because I’m exhausted, and because I’ve just got in pretty late from seeing the new Avengers film! (its awesome guys, go see it)

I’m exhausted because today we ran 9.5 miles! Mega distance right?! Well its not our goal but it is, once again, the furthest distance we’ve run to date. Last week I wrote about how excited I was that our training really seems to be paying off as we’re improving massively, and I’m pleased to report that wasn’t a fluke week! We skipped our first run of the week because my ankle was feeling a little fragile and I didn’t want to do any damage, but we made up for it with an awesome mid-week run (we kept going way further than we needed to), and absolutely smashing previous records today: we hit 5 miles in our fastest time yet, and completed the whole 9.5 miles in 1 hr 56, when we were expecting a time of just over 2 hours.

Tuesday is sign up day, so wish us luck! We’ll be applying for the half marathon, and with any luck we’ll also manage to get spots on the 5k, but its not the end of the world if we don’t.

Eeek!

°o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 9

Almost halfway through our programme, whaaa!?

So after my spending my last update moaning, and despite having last week off training, we absolutely smashed it this week. Mmhm, that’s how we do.

Something just clicked into gear. For starters, we’ve stopped pre-planning our routes, running three new, different courses. The beauty of this really was not knowing how far we were from home, where was halfway etc, meaning we pushed ourselves further, without knowing comfortable places to stop for a quick walk. It also meant we ran a few different terrains; uphill, downhill, parks, gravel paths etc, instead of smooth, flat routes.

Another improvement was, despite the week off, we hit the ground running (literally!) and while previously taking breaks has left us a little lethargic and made getting back into it a bit trickier, I felt great from run 1. It may be from spending more time at the gym, cleaning up my eating habits a bit, or just improving my training mentality a bit, but this week has just felt so much easier than previous weeks. I was running further, faster and feeling less of an aftermath.

Basically, I’m pretty happy this week! Sign up for our first race is a week Tuesday, and at the moment we’re on track for a time of about 2.5 hours, which is great!

Keep running folks °o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 8

Well I am pooped.

Today we ran 8 miles, once again setting our furthest distance run to date, and we did it in 1 hour 41 minutes. Looking at previous run paces, its a little down on where we should be, but given that Dad missed the 6.5 miler two weeks ago, skipping up to 8 miles was always going to be a bit of a shock to his body and we were never going to beat our best pace, but we weren’t actually too far off: we hit 5 miles in 59 mins, which was just two minutes slower than I’ve done before, and bearing in mind a section of the route we did was very steep uphill, I’m pretty happy with today’s effort.

We’ve had a few problems this week, mainly due to becoming far too relaxed in our training, bordering on lazy. Once we find a route, we tend to run the same one for every midweek training run, and because of this we’ve been getting into the habit of stopping for walking breaks more frequently than we should, and also not pushing ourselves to the full distance we should be running; our midweek runs should be based on running for 30 minutes, rather than a specific distance, but instead we’ve just been doing 2/3 miles and calling it a day, which sometimes is only 20 minutes run time.

We’re also resting too heavily on our walk/run/walk training programme, recommended by RunDisney coach Jeff Galloway, the idea of which being that its ok to walk when you’re tired, because it prevents injury and actually keeps you running at a faster pace than if you try and push through the pain. That said, however, in an ideal world we should be running at least 2/3 miles before needing to take walk breaks, whereas at the moment our lazy habits mean we’re walking 2/3 times in a 2/3 mile run. I know that we’re still not at our fittest, so mistakes are allowed, and we’ve still got ages to go til the races, but I feel like we really should be pushing ourselves more, instead of slacking off.

Ok, rant over..

Next week we’re going to have another week off official training as Mum and Dad are going to be away Monday-Thursday, but I’m going to do a bit of solo training so as not to lose momentum. Until next time!

°o°

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RunDisney 2016: Training Week 7

Yeah we might have skipped last week.. Dad was still recovering from his shin splints and I thought my body could do with a rest, so we had a break and continued this week..

Which wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, yay! If anything was difficult it was probably the mental side of getting back into the swing of things, but we managed all three runs with no real difficulty, although we did take it slowly to start with, just to test the water. The weather in Bournemouth has been a bit up and down this week, not that we let it stop us, but running in sunshine is certainly a lot nicer than rain!

In my week off I spent time working a little on my core as I’ve read in a few places that a strong core helps prevent the dreaded stitches that I suffer from quite regularly. I’ve only really done a couple of different exercises, but I am starting to notice a difference which is promising!

Next week we take on 8 miles, which for me is only 1.5 miles more than last week, but Dad missed the 6.5 mile distance so we’ll probably take it a little slower. This coming week marks the start of April, which means we’re less than one month from our first sign up, and we’re going to be looking at booking our flights, so there’s much to look forward too, eek!

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 6

So Dad has shin splints..

We did our first run of the week just fine, but now he’s out for the count for the next week or so, so I did the second short run by myself. I think I probably ran a little bit faster, but it meant I pushed a little too hard and had to talk an extra walk break.

This week’s big distance run was 6.5 miles, or 10.46km, making it the furthest distance I’ve run yet. Dad joined me for this one on his bike, which meant I could run at my own pace and push harder when I wanted to. I ran it quite comfortably, although my stitches got pretty bad at times, so I definitely think that I need to work out ways to keep them away while running.

So two weeks ago when we ran 5 miles we did it in about 1hr 5, and when I hit the 5 mile point yesterday I did it in 57 minutes, so that was a definite improvement. The total run time was 1hr 15, which is 8 minutes slower than our 10km record, so there’s room for improvement, but it was still a good solid time. I felt alright this morning, and even after a 9 hour shift at work, but I was stupid enough to risk going to the gym after work, and now my legs are killing and I’m not sure I’ll be able to walk tomorrow!

Fortunately this week I’ve only got 3 miles to do, so I need to start concentrating on getting my time down on those shorter runs.

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 5

Last week I couldn’t believe we’d be going as long as we had, this week it feels like its been longer than 5 weeks, but then I guess that’s because Dad and I started our running for the year a week or two before we actually started this programme.

Work got in the way of training a little this week. After last Saturday’s 5 miler, we didn’t manage to get out until Thursday, and the break really made a difference as we struggled a little more than we’d have liked. It also didn’t help that that meant we then had to run Friday in order to squeeze all our runs in this week, which probably wasn’t a great idea.

On our Friday run we headed across to a local park with large sports fields and wildlife areas. The last time I ran there was in 2007 when I ran in a school cross country competition; I was 12 at the time, not as fit as I thought I was, and I really struggled. Eight years on, it was a very different story as I my memories spurred me up and down the hills on the dirt tracks.

My sister joined us on our run today, just a baby 3 mile round trip, although I think it was about 3.5 in the end. I’m really starting to find my stride more now, the muscles in my legs must be kicking in because I’m finding the ability to push myself further than I could before, and I only slowed down today to let the others catch up – not that I’m bragging! I’m also understanding the mental side of distance training; I’ve been trying to concentrate on enjoying myself and how good it feels to keep going, and it seems to be working for me!

Next week we take on 6.5 miles, which will be the longest distance we’ve ever run as its about 10.5k; about half of our final distance!

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 4

4/20 = a fifth of the way through our training!

Following last week, we’ve noticed a significant increase in our pace, which is great news! We did a 5 miler to finish the week in just over an hour, which included a few quick walking breaks, but if you extrapolate that pace out, it looks good for our aim of completing a half marathon in under 3 hours and Dad’s looking into races we can do this year for practice.

Another thing I spotted earlier today is some noticeable definition in my legs where muscles are starting to fight through, which is doing wonders for my self esteem as its proof I must be losing some fat around my body!

From here in out, our end of week runs alternate 3 miles with increasing distances of 1.5 miles each fortnight; we’ve just done 5, so its 3, 6.5, 3, 8, 3, 9.5 etc.. The plan is to be smashing the 3 miles out every other week, getting quicker and quicker each time. This is great as well for my 5k practice, as I want to complete Race for Life in under 30 minutes this June.

Just keep running, just keep running..

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 3

I can’t believe we’ve been at this for 3 weeks already!

Today was a first for us: the first time we’ve ever run in rain. Normally we would use the weather as a reason to put off a run, but today that wasn’t an option; we’re half marathon running wannabes, and the weather is no longer an excuse for us. And the best part?

Today was the fastest pace we’ve maintained. Ever.

Our distance was 2 miles today, which we completed in 20 minutes, which means we kept a steady pace of 6mph (just under 10km/h). I don’t know if it was the weather keeping me going, or the fact I was managing to keep going that was keeping me going, but whatever it was it worked for me because that felt like the easiest run we’ve done both physically and mentally; my muscles weren’t screaming for me to stop and my stitches weren’t unbearable, and I didn’t have that little voice in my head telling me to stop and walk for a bit.

This week I bought a Joni Vest from Fabletics to add to my warm running attire. I’ve been looking at getting one for a little while, but hesitated because I was a little concerned that it would be too bulky to run in, but I figured I could always return it if it wasn’t to my liking, so I went out on a whim and ordered one. When it arrived, I was then a little concerned that it was so lightweight I wouldn’t actually be kept warm, but it was just right! My fitness wardrobe is generally blacks, blues and purples, so the colour fits right in, and the pockets are surprisingly deep.

With any luck its going to start getting a little warmer soon, but this is England so there’s no knowing really!

Next stop, week 4!

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 2

We’ve survived another week of running, yay!

So this week saw the Disneyland half marathon weekend registration open, and Dad and I used this as a sort of test run for the application process. Race registration opens at 12pm EST, which is 5pm in the UK, so we sat online and waited for the clock to tick over and the page to update, before having a sneaky peak at the application forms and watching the race fill up over the rest of the evening. To our surprise, the shorter races filled up much quicker than the half marathon, so we’re pretty confident in getting our places sorted as long as we’re online at the right time!

On top of running with Dad, I’ve been doing some different run training on the treadmill at the gym. Despite the fact the race will be almost entirely flat, I’ve been doing a little bit of incline training, and also building up my speed; short bursts for now, but with the hope of being able to hold out to complete a 5k in 30 minutes for when I do Race for Life in June. I’m also trying to practice running without my dad; at the moment we pace each other nicely, but I don’t want to become to reliant on his pacing as he won’t be running with me during Race for Life.

Its getting a little warmer in Bournemouth, although its still very nippy in the early mornings. I suppose the challenge this week for us has been route planning, as we’re tending to do very similar routes day in, day out. We did 4 miles this week, so just under 1/3 of our final distance, and we’re keeping good time and I think we’ll comfortably finish on the day in under 3 hours as long as we keep up at this rate!

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RunDisney 2016 – Training Week 1

As I announced last week, me and my dad are hoping to be lucky enough to take part in not 1, but 2 RunDisney events at the beginning of next year; running a half marathon at each. We started running together last year, going from total inexperience to finishing the year with a 10k, so a half marathon is a total step up for us.

For us, the most sensible way to train was to use the training schedule designed by Jeff Galloway, the esteemed US athlete and trainer used by the RunDisney gang. Its a 20 week programme consisting of 3 runs a week: 2 x 30 minute runs, followed by a run of a set distance.

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So the running this week hasn’t been too difficult; just a case of building up the muscles and getting back into it. The real challenge has been running in the chilly temperatures of an English January, and dressing suitably for it; we did all our running last year in slightly warmer temperatures! I’ve been wearing full length running leggings, and a vest top underneath a fleece jumper, which is working quite well for me, but as I only have the one fleece I’ve got to look into a bigger range of options to avoid smelliness!

Just 19 weeks to go..

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