New Beginnings

As promised, here is the week update.

I got sick. Yea, Sunday morning I felt not so good and it turned into a full blown cold. It took me out of work for several days this week. I'm still recovering today, a week later.

Tomorrow is a big day though. I got a new scale and we are all weighing in and are finally going to start tracking our weight loss. It's going to keep up on the right track eating wise and help us with our workouts as we will consistently keep working to lose weight.

Short update, but big things are happening.


Tim

Motivation

Hey everyone,

Haven't posted in awhile, my apologies. I wanted to put something down tonight because the Wine and Dine Half Marathon is happening as we speak. As you all know, this is the race we are planning to run in exactly a year from now. It's been fun seeing all the tweets and Instagram pictures from Disney for the event. It looks like so much fun and I am pumped to get there and complete our race.

That being said, we've definitely hit a bump in the road. Dad took an unorthodox trip down the stairs last week and he's been sore so he hasn't been able to run with us. Also, last saturday we completed a 2.25 mile RWR and it almost killed us. No joke. It was intense as it was our longest distance and it was our first distance run at 15 second run intervals. So painful. We ended up just walking on Monday and essentially took the rest of the week off. It was that bad. We all were still feeling it days afterwards. I know I was. I believe we pushed it a little too far on Saturday. What I've come to believe is we are not taking our nutrition as seriously as we need to in order for our runs to be as effective as they can. Without proper nutrition, we are just spinning in circles.

Needless to say, our motivation is down. Realizing our race is now 1 year away puts it into better perspective. We're down, but I refuse to be out. This is one of the best decisions we've made and I am committed to seeing it through. I am not going to quit and I am going to fight to change my life and my family's lives. I feel like I've been here a hundred times before, making some progress and then getting crushed when the road gets tough. I refuse to quit. I simply refuse to quit.

I will have an update in one week and it will be positive. Prayers would be greatly appreciated as we're going to push ourselves to where we've never been before.

Countdown: 364

To Infinity and Beyond.


Tim

2 Miles

Today we RWR'd for 2 miles. So pumped! We all finished below 40 minutes which was our goal. I'm super proud of my family for sticking to the plan and building up our endurance enough to go 2 miles.

Jonathan ran the entirety of the last lap, while Peter ran most of the last lap. Mom, dad and I brought up the rear, but still finished strong.

We jump to 15 second runs and 45 second walks next week. We are a bit unsure of how we'll survive, but we said that about the 10 seconds when we started, so I think we'll make it.

I'm proud and excited for the future. This half marathon is going to be a breeze come next November.

The First 5k

Hello friends,

Blogging here on a cold Wednesday morning, enjoying the quiet. My mom, brothers and I walked our first 5k race on Sunday. For those of you that don't know: a 5k race is a 5 kilometer distance (roughly 3.1-3.2 miles). It was a lot of fun and it was for a fantastic cause: the Susan G Komen: Race For The Cure. We walked this time but vowed to run it next year. Yay for goals! 

As previously stated, the race was on a Sunday in the morning. We got up at 5:30am in fact. Yea, I know what you're thinking...'but TIM, you do your distance run on Saturday! Weren't you too tired to walk a 5k after a strenuous RWR day?!?' The answer, my faithful audience, is absolutely. You bet your favorite pair of new balance I was tired. But I wanted the experience of a formal race. Plus, it was a good cause so it was worth it in the end. 

But man, it was tough. I felt kinda bad because I was definitely the slowest of the group. I kept the pace though! And we were passing people the entire 3 miles so I was proud of that. We finished in 1:03 I think? Peter will have to edit that fact. We got to the race village around 6:30ish? Again Pete will have to edit details, I was still half asleep. We got there very early as we were afraid of there being a limited amount of parking. Turns out there was plenty so a mental note for next year. They were expecting 25,000 people this year! But we heard as we started the race, there were around 30,000 people in attendance! I love seeing a passion for a common goal, this event being breast cancer research and support for those fighting a battle with cancer. 

The race village for this event was interesting. A race village is a central location for a race event where information is handed out, sponsors of the event usually have tents with advertising set up, it's cool. You really get the heart and soul of a race by being at the race village. 

My head was freezing when we got there, so I wandered over to the merchandise truck to see if they had a beanie or something. Luckily they did, it's pink which I think is unique. Real men wear pink, right?...right? Mom got a beanie as well and a shirt for Hannah. 

We walked around the village more and got to see all of the vendors lined up. There were a lot of people in costumes I noticed, lots of spirit for this race. Made me wonder how deeply breast cancer had affected these individuals and families. I saw one of my friends at the village too. His mom had breast cancer but fought it off like a boss. He was wearing a pink leotard and a pink tutu to match. So funny, yet such a sweet gesture for his mom. 

Soon after, the runners were called to the starting line. We went over and stood where the walkers were to wait until the timed runners and un-timed runners had started. After some time, we were called over to the starting line. This is strange, but I got kinda nervous. I realize it was only a 5k walk, but there's something about being in a huge crowd of people ready to go. It was a bit nerve-wracking for me. I also didn't know if I'd be able to finish, which stressed me out a bit as well. 

The race started and it was slow going at first. Everyone was packed in at the beginning so I spent more time looking at the ground and other people's feet than being worried about anything else. I must've flat tired Jonathan at least 4 times. After about the 1 mile marker, the crowd started to thin out which let us take off. We walked pretty fast I thought, keeping up quite a pace. Nothing really to report during the actual race, just a lot of huffing and puffing on my part. I will say this though: there is more work to be done for me on the mental side of running than the physical. My mind quits 1000 times before my body does. There were many times when I thought I wasn't going to make it through the 5k, yet I made it. My legs hurt and my feet ached but I was able to keep going and keep up with my brothers and mom. I did it even though I kept telling myself I couldn't. This has major ramifications, people. If I can do something I thought was impossible while telling myself I couldn't what can I do if I believe in myself and stay mentally tougher? I think I could do anything. I know how much I can take physically, I think my mental barriers have yet to be explored. I need to start developing mental training for myself along with the physical. As they say, where the mind goes, the body follows. 

All in all it was a good day and a great first 5k/race. I'm actually looking at different 5ks in our area to maybe take a crack at another one soon. I may have been bitten by a 5k bug here...

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment below, +1 on google+ and sign up for email alerts for our blog. Until next time....

Tim 

Pain and Polish

Last week was brutal, just brutal. Monday started off nice; I was feeling good, increasing my stride and really enjoying the pace. 10/50 RWR was finally starting to feel normal, which is good. But Tuesday, oh Tuesday. My left ankle just throbbed. I iced it and decided to take it easy. This extended into Wednesday, which saw the arrival of the rains. We've needed serious precipitation here on the East Coast for a couple months and we finally got it. Various weather stations in the area reported multiple inches of rain over the next several days, extending into and through most of the weekend.

Needless to say, last week was pretty much a wash (pun not...well, ok, yes, pun sort of intended). Tim and Jonathan toughed it out and got through most of the schedule (serious props to them). This week though we start fresh, picking up where we I left off with Week #4 of conditioning:

Week #4 (10/50 RWR)

Day	Duration
Monday	23 min. run/walk
Tuesday	28 min. walk
Wednesday	25 min. run/walk
Thursday	30 min. walk
Friday	OFF
Saturday	1.75 mile run/walk
Sunday	OFF

We've already bumped our walking times up to a half hour flat, since that's relatively easy to do. Overall, we hope to be done the conditioning program by the end of November/early December. Tim has been studying Galloway's different training regimens and has some ideas on how we can bridge the gap between 15 and 30 RWR (the delta between the end of the conditioning program and the beginning of the actual half marathon training). Every day helps.

On a slightly brighter note, I spent some time last week polishing the blog's background theme. Our original was a simple tiled layout using this awesome picture Tim found of Main Street in the Magic Kingdom:

Quiet on Main Street, taken from Magic in Pixels Photography

I spent some time perusing Google and found a ton of cool images pertaining to the various runDisney events, including many really nice shots of the different finisher medal collections.

The Princess Half Marathon Tiara and the Coast-to-Coast medals, found at According to Kelly - The Princess Half Marathon

The Walt Disney World Half Marathon, Marathon, and Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge medals, obtained from According to Kelly - Goofy's Challenge Part 2 - 2013 Walt Disney World Marathon

All sorts of Walt Disney World and Disneyland finisher medals, seen at According to Kelly - Princess Half Marathon 2013

The According to Kelly blog is a neat site run by Kelly Lewis, a pretty prolific blogger who documents all of her running events with runDisney (she's actually considered a member of the media when covering these events). Just seeing all of the different moments captured on her excursions is exciting; there are so many runners at these events it's almost mind boggling. Anyway, I definitely recommend checking out her site if you have time.

The final picture I grabbed for our new background features Maleficent in her dragon form, menacing a runner in front of Cinderella's Castle:

Mile 11: Slay Dragon, original seen at Slowly Tri-ing - 2011...A Mostly Great Year!

The Slowly Tri-ing blog is another neat runner's blog documenting different runDisney events.

I spent an evening playing around in Adobe Photoshop Elements with all of the above images and more, tweaking different collage layouts until I created a scrapbooking style that I thought worked well for the blog. Over time, I plan on adding in pictures of us as we participate in different events. The final result is all around this post so I hope you enjoy it.

Before I close, take a look at that third medals picture, the one with the medal collection. Do you see the white circular medal in the bottom right corner? That is the 2012 Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon medal. In 13 months time, we will all be wearing that medal. Bring it!

Cheers,
Peter

October Rain

It's been awhile since I've posted, my sincere apologies. We have been busy doing our program and transitioning into the fall season. Although it's been hot these first few days of October. This past Saturday was probably the worst training day I've had. It was in the upper 80's and it was very, very humid. I haven't sweat that much since my days playing baseball in high school. Peter continues to excel. He runs faster than any of us keeping a rigid, military like running gait. My calves have stopped burning so badly when I run. Now it's a dull burn which I can push through easier on run days. Jonathan and dad are keeping on as well.

I've found over this last week that I struggled to watch my nutrition as well as the first several weeks we started this journey. A lack in motivation and will is to blame on my part. After a good week of working out, I didn't feel quite as well as I had on the past weeks. I could only surmise that it was due to my poor eating habits. Mulling this over the weekend, I realized what's the point of working out so hard but wasting it on bad eating? My goodness. It makes no sense.

Kicking myself, I promised to stick to my eating plan more securely this week. I think it will help me to have shorter goals leading up to the half marathon as well. I'm gonna think about what kind of goals I can set for myself and possibly everyone else to keep us on track. Today has been good, we had a strong workout in the cool evening and I have done a fine job of watching what I eat. I hope to carry the momentum into the rest of the week.

I'm also considering starting a lifting routine on our days off. I've been meaning to start lifting again and I think that building muscle can only help with the runs. Stronger muscles last longer right?

The Tower of Terror 10-Miler was this past weekend as well. It was a lot of fun to see the tweets coming from those running the race. It seems as though everyone had a great time and the race went off without a hitch. It did seem intimidating to hear of people running ten miles in so little time. But I must remember that we've given ourselves more than a year to get in shape. Seeing that we've done a little over a month of training, we've come quite a ways. The Wine and Dine Half Marathon is the next Disney race on the schedule. It also marks one year until our planned take over of our first (of many) Disney race.

Will we be ready? You better believe it.

Tim

On the road

I'm away on business this week but that hasn't stopped me from sticking to the program. The hotel I'm staying at has a couple of options for our run/walk program. The first is a little exercise room which amounts to a couple of standard pieces of exercise equipment in an actual first floor hotel room, complete with full-wall mirror. You actually need a room key to get in, which I found funny. Since there's only one key, how do multiple guests actually use the space at the same time?

A hotel room moonlighting as an exercise center. With mirrors!

In defense of the exercise room, the treadmill was quite sturdy and the belt never slipped (my usual treadmill nightmare). The second and much more preferable exercise option is a small road that circles the hotel. Two thirds of it is actually parking lot but who's counting?

The view from my room actually overlooks this scenic bit of road.

A bunch of fishermen were parking their boats around the hotel as I ran/walked my laps earlier this afternoon. Just seeing their fishing poles and tackle boxes made me think of lazy afternoons on calm, cool backwater inlets, as opposed to my usual routine trapped in front of a computer screen. Maryland weather is a fantastic 65-70°F this time of year, which really makes it ideal for exercising outdoors.

This week is our first duration increase, bumping our RWR from 5/55 to 10/50. Aside from the great weather, today was definitely the worst day of training I've had so far. My feet were truly aching, the worst I've felt in a while. I'm hoping a new pair of running shoes will fix things soon. Hopefully it wasn't so bad for everyone back home.

Cheers,
Peter