Officially Crazy: Walt Disney World Half Marathon

Well, it is now confirmed. I am officially crazy. I have officially registered for the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. I decided to take the leap. Registering will force me to have a set in stone date that I cannot change, cannot sidestep, cannot avoid. Training for a half marathon, even just to finish, will have the very positive side effect of losing weight and getting in shape, that I want to achieve. Choosing the particular half marathon I have also has the very positive side effect of going to Disney World. We're Disney fans in this family, so that is very very positive.

The Race

The Walt Disney World Half Marathon takes place every January. This upcoming year, the marathon weekend will be January 8 - 12, 2014. There are 4 main races, a 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon. (there are also some kids races as part of the festivities). The races are run in that order; Thursday has the 5K, Friday the 10K, the half marathon is on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday. Each race gives you a finisher medal. In addition, they have the Goofy Challenge for running the half marathon and full marathon back-to-back. With the addition of the 10K this year, they also added the Dopey Challenge, for if you're dopey enough to do all four. My running partner for the half marathon, Dave is going to be dopey. In addition to the half marathon, I plan on running the 5K, since my training calls for a half hour run on the Thursday before anyway, so I might as well get a medal for it.

The Training

I'll be training for the race, as I alluded to, using Jeff Galloway's 19 week plan for the Walt Disney World Half Marathon. The main points of the plan include 2 maintenance runs during the week and one longer run on the weekend. For the runs, he also suggests a run-walk-run strategy where you run 15 seconds, walk 45 seconds (or variations of this 10 / 50, 20 / 40, etc). There's a lot more to it than that. I'm still working on wrapping my head around it and planning it out so I can use it. I suggest you go download the PDF and read it if you're interested in more information.

So, be sure to follow along in my journey to the half marathon. I'm excited and apprehensive at the same time. I'll be really excited when I know I'm ready to complete it.