Making plans

After writing my first entry, my friend Sarah corrected me. Apparently the Disney Princess race is a half marathon, not a marathon after all. I was actually a little disappointed when I heard this. As impossible as it sounds for me to complete a marathon, I kind of want to now! I have been thinking about it so much and assessing where I am and where I need to be and making plans about how to get there that now, I just want to do it!!

I voiced my disappointment to Sarah and she has come up with a great back up plan. We are now going to do the Glass Slipper challenge. That means doing the Enchanted 10K on Saturday and then the Princess Half Marathon on Sunday bringing us to a 19.3 mile total by the end of the weekend. I am totally up for the challenge. Still not quite a marathon, but I may have a solution to that as well.

I need some proof of pace time for these races which means I am going to need to do some races while I train. My husband is originally from Indiana and one of his friends has been asking us to join him in the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon for the last few years. I think 2017 may be my year! That means, I have till November to get myself in shape and up to pace time and I could do my first marathon!!

The last few days have been spent doing a lot of walking. No formal training yet. Just a lot of walking and assessing. I found out I can keep up a pretty steady 3.25 mph pace for about half an hour which is how long it takes me to get to work. I have been feeling pretty please with myself. I already increased my pace time, now I just need distance. So today, I went for a four mile walk feeling sure I could be done in at most an hour and a half.

I started out at a pretty fast clip and I was done in about an hour and a half... but it kicked my butt. I was practically dragging myself home the last half mile. I could still move the rest of the day and even went swimming with the family, but if it had been any longer, I don't think I would have been able to move.

So, I'm starting to think about interval training again. Not running intervals, but mixing intervals of speed walking and regular walking to build up my endurance for long races. The Disney Princess weekend is in February, so that gives me about a year and a half-ish to prepare. Happily, the Disney website has possible training programs. I think I am going to start out with the 6 month Marathon training program for beginners. (You can find a link to it here.)

I'm going to be doing a LOT of walking.

Today's motivation:

I have been listening to The Martian while I walk and I am loving this book. I love it so much that I have already heard it once and immediately started it again because I didn't want to stop listening to it. Seriously, all I want to do right now is listen to this book. This is TOTALLY my motivation to get out and walk because that means I get to listen to this book! *sigh* I actually kind of wish I were walking right now.