Goofy Challenge: What it Takes

With registration for Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend opening today at noon for Disney Vacation Club Members and Annual Pass holders I thought I'd talk a little bit about my experience with the Goofy Challenge from this year. Note: Registration for the general public opens April 28 at noon.

Training for my first marathon as part of the Goofy Challenge was draining both physically and emotionally. I started too feel burn out a few weeks before the race. In the end the Goofy Challenge was an incredible experience and I wouldn't have wanted to run my first marathon any other way.

Mile 25

Credit

Training Plan
I started training on June 30. That is over 6 months of training! I modified Jeff Galloway's training plan that's on the runDisney website. My plan included 6 weekends where you run Saturday and Sunday with the longest being 10 miles and 20 miles. If I had to do it again I would not train for that length of time because I think I could get into marathon shape in a shorter period of time which would have then helped with some of the burnout I felt towards the end.

It's Going to Hurt
There's a certain pain that comes with training for a marathon. It's a different kind of pain than the pain that comes with injury. There's a burn in your muscles and bones as you push your body to run distances that you never thought was possible. Prepare yourself to be mentally tough to push past this feeling.

Dedication is Extremely Important
Logging the miles is the most important part of marathon training. The key to Goofy Challenge training is the back-to-back runs on the weekends. Those runs prepare your mind and body for race weekend. I never worried about pace for the long runs, just completing them.

Vision is Helpful
During my last few long runs I have envisioned running at Disney World and crossing that marathon finish line. It gave me just a little extra boost throughout my runs. At one point I told Em while running, "I keep forgetting we get to run at Disney for the races and it's not going to be this boring."

Any other tips for the Goofy or Dopey Challenge?

I'm still on the fence about what races I'm going to sign up for today (I've got 2 1/2 hours to decide)! The Goofy Challenge is definitely a strong contender.

That's all for now?

The Running Goober Recap: February/March

So it's been about a month and a half since I last blogged, which is crazy! I even got behind on reading the blogs I follow (I am finally caught up on that). I thought I'd give you a rundown of what's been going on here recently.

1. Marine Corps Marathon Lottery- On March 13 I entered the Marine Corps Marathon Lottery. I'll find out on Wednesday if I got in or not. The anticipation is killing me! My cousin also applied and it would be his first marathon. It would be so awesome if we both got in!

2. Training- I began adding speed work into my training once a week for the past month in preparation for some time based goals I have on my agenda for the spring. This past Saturday I ran my 10K PR race and it was incredible. More on that in tomorrow's race recap. My ultimate goal for the spring is to run under 2 hours at my spring half marathon in May. I realized that the race is less than 6 weeks away! I'll be increasing my long run mileage between now and then to properly prepare.

3. Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend 2016!!- Back in February my in-laws booked our DVC rooms for Marathon Weekend. There are going to be at least 8 of my husband's family members there with a possibility of as many as 12 depending on people's work schedules. It should be a lot of fun to have everyone running in all of the different races that the weekend offers. I am so incredibly excited to go to Marathon weekend for a third year in a row. I'm not sure what race/races I'm going to run, but I definitely want to run the marathon again.

What's new with you?

That's all for now!