Race Recap - Disney Princess Half Marathon 2013 (Part 1 - Training)

This is Part 1 of Sara's DPHM recap. Check out Parts 2 and 3!

Last October, basking in the (mildly alcoholic) aftermath of our biggest work event of the year, Rachel asked me if I wanted to run a race at Disney World. Of course, I responded! That sounds awesome! Excellent, said she. Oh, by the way, it's a half marathon.

UMMM, excuse me!? 13.1 miles?! That's crazy.

But, apparently, I was crazy enough to say yes. So we registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon, and embarked on a 4-month training program that started with struggling through 2-mile runs after work, and culminated in running 13 miles in the happiest place on earth. But we'll get there.

The Training

We researched a few plans, and finally landed on one that would have us running increasingly long runs on the weekend, but more running during the week. We decided our goal wasn’t to hit a certain time – just to make it on our own two feet across the finish line.

Our biggest challenge, although we didn't realize it at the time, was going to be the weather. We started training in October, in DC. It was only going to get colder and snowier before the climate shock of getting to central Florida in February. But we bundled and layered and trudged through, week-by-week and mile-by-mile.

We discovered for our longer runs, it was convenient to meet at Rachel’s apartment, and take some well-paved footpaths that led us across the Potomac and downtown to the memorials. We’d get to the Mall, hit up one of the little refreshment huts for some much-needed nourishment, stretch it out a bit, and Metro back to Arlington. Inauguration weekend, we found ourselves ending our run in front of the CNN booth – we made sure to say hello to Anderson Cooper.

This plan worked perfectly, until we hit our last long run before heading down to Disney. This particular Saturday, we decided to skip the Metro part, and just run out 5.5 miles and turn around to head back. As soon as we had the first two miles under our belts, we realized the next 9 were not going to be pleasant. It was our first running wall, and couldn’t have come at a worse time. We pushed through it, though. Groaning and bitching to each other the whole time, but we pushed through and finished all 11 miles.

Looking back later, we were glad we hit that wall two weeks before, rather than the weekend of the Princess Half. We struggled through that long run, but we knew if we could finish that, we could finish anything.