I have a love-hate relationship with RunDisney. I love the races, and the medals, and the characters. I hate getting up so early, I’m bad at training, and my body hates me the next day because I’m bad at training. Plus, it’s expensive, but not because of the price of the race. I usually end up with a four-day weekend, and my workaholic side has a problem with that.
Once upon a time, I had this plan called 30 by 30, in which the Disneyland Half Marathon should have fallen on my thirtieth birthday and would have been my thirtieth race. However, RunDisney canceled all of the west coast races for the foreseeable future. (We are hoping they’ll return but there is no guarantee.) So, after my fourth time running the Princess Half Marathon, I decided to put my running on pause for the time being since I had no means of completing my goal.
Well, that lasted for all of six months because in August I signed up for the 2019 Princess Half Marathon, and I spent early November being mad at myself I wasn’t running the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.
I was at least going to go to the RunDisney Expo this weekend at the Walt Disney World Marathon, but like my favorite Oliver Queen quote, “I had a plan. Life had a different one.”
Well, now I have a new plan, so we’ll see how this goes. I am running the Princess Half Marathon next month in my usual under-prepared fashion, and then in November Jay and I will both be taking on the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I’ve run the Wine and Dine twice before when I did the Two Course Challenge, and in 2017 we signed Jay up for the Half Marathon with about 72 hours’ notice, and I proceeded to drag him through the course.
This time we will be prepared. (At least more prepared.) This time we will train, and this time our goal is to finish in under three hours. My PR (personal record) for a half is 3:01:57, and that was set on the only race I’ve ever kept a training schedule for. I’ve tried with other races, but I never manage to stick on my schedule. My goal is by having a goal for two of us to meet, it will help both Jay and myself stay on schedule. I’m also going to do regular training updates on social media, so if I haven’t posted about running in a while, I need you guys to bug me!
Assuming I don’t pick up any other races along the way, this will put me at twenty races at the end of 2019. This will include nine Half Marathons, one full Marathon, five 10Ks, and five 5Ks. If I still want to hit thirty races by the time I turn thirty, I’ll have to pick up ten races between 2020 and August 2021. Not impossible. I would still love to do the Castle to Chateau Challenge in 2021, but I’m not excited enough about Disneyland Paris to commit to that plan. While I desperately want to visit every Disney Park worldwide, Paris is actually at the bottom of the list and would likely be the last park we visit, unless I go for the race.
Of course, if I run the Dopey Challenge in 2021 like I was considering, that’ll knock four off the list right there.
So, what do you guys think? Is this a good plan?
