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

Picture Saturday

What up what up,

Today is picture saturday! I'll be putting up some pictures from our journey sporadically throughout the blog so that you can see what we see as we train. The photos will include shots of our runs or things that we think pertain to the blog. Some will be of things that we see as well as experience, like the sunset below. And some pictures will be random and hopefully hilarious. Well, they'll be hilarious to us anyways. I enjoy photography, it happens to be one of my favorite hobbies. The pictures below are taken with our iPhones, so judgment is not required you photography snobs, you. I hope you all like the pictures because each one of them is important and special to us.

Sunset over our neighborhood during one of our RWRs

I love a good sunset. Sunsets are so ethereal, so majestic. I can see God's handiwork so clearly in a glorious sunset. They serve as a point of inspiration for me to always seek out the best in this world, focusing my time on what is important and not what is trivial. 

Training has been going well for us lately. We upped the times of our RWRs this week while keeping the 5 second run, 55 second walk ratio. Personally, I've been feeling stronger lately and I think everyone else is as well. 

Today though. 

Today was our distance run of 1.25 miles and it was tough. Mom joined us for our run and let me tell you, mom can book it! She kept saying she wasn't in good enough shape to walk with us but she kept the fastest pace out of all of us. I am really happy she joined us, now all I need to convince is Hannah....

Here's a shot of the Maple Quinoa with Red Grapes mentioned in an earlier blog post.  It was delicious! 

Next week we bump up our ratio to 10 seconds of running and 50 seconds of walking. It's going to be a challenge, but I think we'll be up for it. We also have some room to slow down the pace if we need to as our race is still more than a year away. I also got some new runnings shoes (New Balance 1290's) and they are saweet. Can't wait to break them in and start using them on our runs. New shoes make everything seem better, ya know? 

Mickey shaped pizza we made on pizza night. This was totally random: we had a hard time shaping the first few balls of dough and this was one of the results of our handiwork. How could we not record this as we are training for a Disney marathon! 

All in all, it's been a good week. We are sticking to our schedule and learning to live better every day. Sometimes the road is hard, but in the end, it will all be worth it.

 I've included a widget that will allow you to sign up for email notifications of when we post to the blog. The widget should be at the top right corner of our blog so if you feel so inclined sign up and follow us!

'Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.' Hebrews 12: 1-2.


Tim

The Plan

One of the great things about runDisney is the amount of support they provide for new runners. Jeff Galloway, the marathon training expert for runDisney, provides plans and schedules for each Disney marathon event held throughout the year. As young men in various stages of heftitude, we have been following the Conditioning Program recommended by Jeff on his personal website. This program is an eight week course that starts runners off at a 5/55 second run-walk-run (RWR) pace for relatively short time periods, gradually increasing the pace and duration until the runner is ready to start "official" marathon training. Weekday routines focus on 10-30 minute run-walks, with a longer, mile-based exercise on Saturdays.

Over the past two weeks, we have focused on easing into training with Week #1 of conditioning. We try to run together (we find it boosts morale) in the evenings, run-walking up and down our street and driving over to the local community college track on weekends. We're moving on to Week #2 tomorrow, bumping up our exercise times but retaining the 5/55 second pace. As we progress, we'll evaluate how we're adapting to the increases and change our routines accordingly. I think doubling the repetition like we've been doing (i.e., do Week #2 for two weeks before moving on to Week #3) is a good way to go; Tim is more optimistic and thinks we can advance each week.

Week #1 (5/55 RWR)

Day	Duration
Monday	10 min. run/walk
Tuesday	15 min. walk
Wednesday	13 min. run/walk
Thursday	18 min. walk
Friday	OFF
Saturday	1 mile run/walk
Sunday	OFF

Week #2 (5/55 RWR)

Day	Duration
Monday	15 min. run/walk
Tuesday	20 min. walk
Wednesday	17 min. run/walk
Thursday	22 min. walk
Friday	OFF
Saturday	1.25 mile run/walk
Sunday	OFF

Finally, I'm going to look into adding (or writing) a Blogger gadget to track our training schedule on this blog. Within the next week or so you should hopefully see a banner or right-hand sidebar displaying what training regiment we're shooting for that day. This will be a handy reminder for us and would allow you to train with us, if you're so inclined.

Cheers,
Peter

On the Track and in the Kitchen

Week two has elapsed on our road to Wining and Dining and believe it or not, I think we're starting to see some results. We had our distance run this morning and we all agreed that we felt we had more energy in the tank than we did last week. I'm feeling really good about seeing results this early in our quest. It's keeping us positive which is great because our half marathon is so far away.

I tried a new recipe last weekend which was recommended on the runDisney blog by Tara Gidus, runDisney's official nutritionist. The recipe is Maple Quinoa with Red Grapes. I'll post the link on my twitter account as well. I've never cooked with quinoa (pronounced kēn-ˌwä) before and found it to be incredibly filling. Which is a good thing when you want healthy recipes that keep you satiated for long periods of time. the recipe is fairly easy, even those of you who are allergic to being in the kitchen could handle this one.

The quinoa is soaked in water with cinnamon and salt. Once the quinoa has soaked up all the water, you add toasted pecans, maple syrup and red grapes. I really liked the recipe but the only change I would make is to keep the red grapes separate and add them as you're eating the maple quinoa. I didn't like the grapes getting warm from the quinoa. That's just my personal preference. I highly recommend the recipe for runners of all kinds as it is incredibly healthy and easy to make. You could add most nuts and/or fruit to this recipe. The maple quinoa serves as a base for a multitude of flavor combinations. Go crazy and have fun.

I'll be posting more recipes as we go along in this quest. Fun fact about me: I love to cook and be in the kitchen. Preparing food for people you care about is one of the most fulfilling things you can do in my humble opinion. The ladies like it as well, guys ;).

Next week we up our R-W-R (run-walk-run) times so we shall see how we handle the increase in training. With how good we felt after our run today, I think we are ready for the challenge.

Tim