Now that i have a few moments I can begin talking about my recent journey. Where did this begin? I started thinking about doing the Goofy last march so i guess I will start there.
After I completed my first marathon I figured that was fun now I will move on to other things, but then a strange thing happened my family all kept talking about how much fun they had and how they wanted to do it again. This time though they will know how to plan maneuvering around WDW better. So here i am fresh off my first marathon, bummed by my performance and there all talking about going back again next year. Once I realized that I was going back I decided that I might as well go all the way and sign up for the Goofy.
I officially signed up through the Run For Our Sons charity and I was off. I decided right away to dedicate 2011 to completing the Goofy, you see the 2011 WDW marathon was my first marathon and before that the Staten Island Half of 2010 was my first half race until then every race I did was under 10 miles and when I hit mile 18 at WDW I crashed hard, really hard. I was gallowaying it and i thought i was doing great but lack of training and preparation, not eating correctly the morning of the race etc etc led to a horribly painful finish and i was not interested in doing that again.
Instead of 12 weeks of trail and error training I had 10 months to get ready. I kept myself in god running form all spring having fun at local races and once June hit I began in earnest on my Goofy training. Weekends began my back to back training, whatever i did on sat i would double on sunday. i started pretty simply 5k/10k slowly increasing my runs every other weekend and using the middle of the week for tempo, intervals etc...
The most important thing I did was joining group runs. The Greenbelt started having friday night trail runs and once fall arrived they swithed to sat. and or sun. morning. This led me to officially joining the Staten Island Athletic Club a local running club filled with amazing runners with way more experience than I and they welcomed me with open arms.
November was by biggest month as far as mileage wise. Every week was at least 50 miles of running with just about every weekend averaging 30 miles on just those two days. I knew once December rolled in with the holidays and all the other distractions i was going to have a hard time getting the runs in besides it was taper time!!!
December 10th the day I almost threw it all away. Dec. 10th was the inaugural Staten Island Trail Festival. A 5k, 10k, 25k, and 50k were available to run that day. I signed up for the 25k. I was ready for this race, I train on the trails for the majority of my training so i knew this course inside out. We start off at 8:00am and on this beautiful day I feel fantastic that is until at the 1/4 mile mark I step into a hole and twist my right ankle. This is not a great start but it wasn't that bad so I pressed on and by mile 4 I felt pretty good by mile 9 I had no pain what so ever. The problem occurred at the 11 mile mark when i stepped in a second hole with the same foot and this time i really wrenched it. I knew I only had a few miles to go so I obviously continued only this time each mile was increasingly more painful and I crossed the finish line looking for a huge bucket of ice to shove my foot in.
A little rest and the ankle survives! I continue my Goofy training with a new found wariness but ever present resolve.
Wed. jan 4th the night before we leave for WDW. Everything is packed I'm feeling loose, relaxed, ready. I planned all year for this weekend and I am completely ready to get started.
part 2 soon, shaky start to the trip but it all works out.......or does it......it does
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