Lizards and Butterflies

Sunday morning miles--start at 80 degrees-->84 degrees, 83% humidity-->75% humidity

Um, yeah...can you say sweaty?  I had to peel my clothes off afterward.  But that’s 4.15 miles done with the rest of the day ahead to enjoy.  I’m very glad I have a haircut this afternoon as even with my hair in a ponytail thru the back of my hat, it’s gotten long enough that it was sticking to the top of my back, neck and shoulders.  While I wouldn’t mind my hair growing longer, it’s just too annoying for workouts.  I could always pigtail it, but I’ve got way too many layers cut in to try in an attempt get some body out of my very fine hair, so braids just wind up having hair sticking out every which way.

So, I had a couple of peeves going on today.  First--attention all SoFla lizards!  While I respect the fact that you are animals who live outside so pretty much everywhere outside is your home, why oh why oh why do you have to wait until the very last second as I’m coming by to race from one side of the sidewalk to the other?  You have been very lucky so far, but I refuse to hurt myself pulling up or over-lunging to miss stepping on you guys...one of these days it’ll be SQUISH! And at this point I won’t feel badly about it.

Second--my town is actually very fitness-friendly with miles and miles of sidewalks and bike lanes as well as 14 parks plus a YMCA center in our 27-square mile town of just over 65,000 residents.  In fact, most of the sidewalks here are usually 1.5 times as wide as your average sidewalk with many areas at least 2 to 2.5 times as wide.  We have tons (yes, I’m not exaggerating) of cyclists and dozens of bike groups that ride out here, from packs of 2-4 people to well over 100 at a time that will zoom by as I’m doing my miles.  It’s actually pretty exhilarating to be walking or running along and have such large groups flying by.

That said, there are some cyclists to choose not to use the bike lanes and instead ride on the sidewalks.  And I’m fine with that, especially when there’s kids riding.  But when I’m walking or running along all the way to one side of the sidewalk and you are riding two abreast, why do you think that I’m the one who has to move over into the grass while you pass by?  Seriously, and with our sidewalks being as wide as they are?  In the state of Florida, the law says you have to yield the right of way to pedestrians, not the other way around.

Sorry, but this happened to me twice this week so it makes me grumble.

On the “it makes you smile” side today--lots of butterflies out this morning, even as humid as it was.  Made me want to stop and try to get one to land on my hand (love it when they do that), but they were more interested in the flowers than me.  They did make me smile as I passed by though.  Not used to seeing them out early in the morning when it’s still so humid out.  Maybe it’s a sign summer weather will give way to fall weather sooner.  Yeah, not likely but I can dream, right?  In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the butterflies :-)

Oh...only 7 weeks left until the Tower of Terror 10 miler!  

Getting motivated for short races; A new adventure

So right now I only have two races on my schedule-the Tower of Terror 10 Miler at the end of September and the Disney Full Marathon in January.  If I was only training for the full, I wouldn’t need to start my “official” training plan until the last week of August.  With the 10-miler on the schedule, my plan started two weeks ago.  Now I will admit, I kinda stink at cross-training days...I always have (even though I KNOW those days will only help me overall).  I don’t mind yoga or upper body weights so much, it’s the lower body (meh) and core (UGH UGH UGH) that I’m not fond of.  But, I do usually stick pretty close to my mileage days, maybe with some flip-flops here and there--meaning flip-flopping miles with cross training days--when needed due to weather or work or life.

What gets me is my thinking about the 10-miler.  “Oh, it’s ONLY a 10-miler, no biggie”.  And so the motivation to actually DO the training is quite a bit lacking.  Well, at least the cross training part.I even look at the mileage days and think “Eh, just 2 miles today...whatever”.  After completing 9 half marathons and one full marathon, 10 miles just doesn’t seem like something to get excited over.  Is that crazy or what?  When I tell a non-runner friend/co-worker that I’m doing a 10-mile race, they can’t fathom going that far--but then again, neither could I when I first started out.

So the question now is, how to motivate for those shorter distances?  And how to motivate for cross-training in general?  I also train solo-both cross-training and mileage.  That makes it all too easy to blow off a day since I don’t have anyone in my face to be accountable to.  I’m not at all concerned about the full marathon portion of the training.  I actually enjoyed that last time (well, at least the mileage part...), though I still ran into the same motivation issue for the cross-training.  What’s a good way to motivate?  I was thinking of using a rewards system...has anyone ever tried that as a motivation tool for their training?

Okay, now on the the new adventure.  If you’ve been reading my blog for a bit, you probably know I am a Disney freak.  It is my favorite place in the USA to vacation, whether just for a quick weekend or something much longer.  I’m always looking to plan my next trip (often because there’s a Disney race going on!).  Because I love Disney so much...and just travel in general...I decided to work on becoming a Disney Vacation Planner.  After weeks (well, almost two months actually) of comparing host travel agencies, then choosing my agency and getting set up, I am now able to plan and book vacations-Disney or pretty much anywhere else you can think of!

I’ve set up my own Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MagicalMomentsVacationsbyCarraSaigh and today launched my very own website, www.enchanteddreamvacations.com.  Let me tell you, putting together a website is HARD work!  My brain was totally fried.  I did have lots of help from my techie DH (thanks honey!) without whom I’d have floundered around for ages.  I did teach myself some new tricks but am glad DH IS a techie because if he wasn’t I probably wouldn’t have attempted the website (or if I did I’d be working on it for months before it would be presentable).

Anyway, please take a look and tell me what you think.  I want to make sure the site is user-friendly and appreciate any and all feedback!  Oh, and if you need a vacation quote......  ;-) just let me know.  I’ll be adding a link of some kind here (or maybe a page, like my training calendar is a page and “My Races” is a page, etc) for anyone who may need vacation planning/booking assistance.

Looking forward to January and this again...

Fall Training kickoff!

So today was day 1 of my Fall race training schedule-30 minutes of cross-training. Decided to take an easy walk around the neighborhood...threw in a single run interval just for kicks but overall took it very easy with an average 19mm pace. Temperature was 77 degrees with 77% humidity and one of those barely-there breezes after we had storms come through this afternoon. At least it was better than if I had gone out this morning--by the time I woke up it was already in the 80s. Yeah, just love SoFla summer weather.

I'm thinking I'll be moving most of my cross training indoors for a couple of months...but not the miles for run/walks. I just can't do that on a treadmill, no how no way. Kudos to those of you who can...I'll brave the heat and humidity (what the heck, I'm a South Florida native, I'm used to it anyway).

Anyway, on tap for tomorrow is upper body weights plus yoga. I'm looking forward to getting back to yoga, I always feel so nice and stretched out afterward. I'm hoping that adding it along with regular strength/core training will help out when my back muscles get sore while walking/running. I really suck at staying on a regular core training schedule--upper body weights I love, lower body is okay...but core? Ugh, double ugh and phooey. Yeah, I know once my core is strengthened it gets better but dang, the road to getting there is HARD.

You know what they say though...nothing worth having is ever easy. And..........

And so, gotta make sure I do it!

My training calendar-now LIVE on my blog!

I figured how to embed a Google calendar, so my planned training calendar is now live on my blog on the "Training Calendar" page here.  I stress the word "planned" since of course days can flip-flop and be adjusted depending on what pops up in the family/friend/work world-if there's one thing I've learned during prior race training, it's that you have to be flexible.  There's still some tweaking to happen as time goes on.  This plan is both a Tower of Terror 10-miler and WDW Full Marathon plan merged together so it's about twice as long as just the full marathon plan by itself...so I'm hoping my endurance on the run intervals will grow faster so maybe once it's time for the full marathon I could hopefully be at a 2 minute walk/2 minute run instead of the 3/2 that's currently on schedule.  And again, I might alter it to make it so I'm walk/running every other day instead of just 3 days per week (so would be 3 days/4 days repeated), I just am not sure how to change the intervals if I do that.

Planning on really working on the yoga this time around (which I love) as well as core strength workouts (which I hate).  I'll probably be trying the 100 pushups program again, starting with wall pushups (yes my upper body strength is laughable), then hopefully moving on to "girly" pushups (from the knees but on the floor)...then if I'm really dedicated finally a "REAL" pushup.  Miracles do happen you know.

Did I say yet I'm going to try the morning-run thing?  We'll see how that goes.  It's cooler, just more humid.  Like 95%+ humid.  But the 90+ degree blaring sun won't be out to play yet.  It's a trade-off, need to see what's the lesser of the two evils.  Anything to stay away from that awful modern-day torture device known as the treadmill.

One thing at a time.  First to tackle this:

Then we move on to this (typed with the determined-face smiley):

Damn straight!

Oh, and if you see something amiss in the calendar or have suggestions or questions, please let me know.  The ToT part is based off of Hal Higdon's 15K/10 mile novice training plan and the WDW Full Marathon part is based off of the Walk/Run Marathon plan in Marathoning for Mortals...both with some slight alterations from me.  And yes, I know June and half of July is empty...the calendar is my "official" fall/winter training calendar.

Do you have your training plan in place yet?  What plan(s) do you use?

Yup, officially registered for the 2013 Disney Marathon!

I'd already committed to doing the Disney full marathon in January 2013, but now it's official-I handed my money over to the mouse this evening.

I'm actually looking forward to that crazy training again, I've already filled up my calendar with a blended plan that starts July 23 with Tower of Terror training, then moves in to the training for the Disney full.  Right now it's a 3-day-per-week running plan, but I'm thinking of altering it to every other day being a run day (which would mean my long run day would alternate back and forth between Saturday and Sunday).  I could just turn one of my cross-training days into the extra run day, but I think I prefer having the day in between each run day for recovery.  Any thoughts on that?

The only thing I'm not looking forward to about training?  Starting July 23.  No, I don't mean I want to procrastinate because I don't feel like training--I really am looking forward to it.  I mean the time of year.  Smack dab in the middle of the scalding SoFla summer when we'll be having daily high temps in the mid- to upper 90s...not to mention the frequent thunderstorms.

And yes, my training WILL be outside.  I more than despise the treadmill for running-the last time I tried running on one, I felt so wrong, so uncomfortable, I had to immediately stop.  I can't even explain what it felt like.  I tried just walking on it to finish out my training session but couldn't even do that.  I'd rather chance the heat and rain...thankfully there are many shaded areas around my neighborhood to help out.

And honestly, my body is used to it. When I was training for my first-ever half marathon (2010 Disney Half), even waiting until an hour before sunset to go out (during the week when I couldn't train in the mornings) it was still in the mid- to upper 80s...and I still went out.  I didn't know any better, I figured everyone trained like this, didn't they?  And since I've lived here in SoFla for over 35 years of my life, the temps just seemed normal to me anyway.  But don't get me wrong-I'll take those temps in the 40s at the start line every time!

Looking forward to seeing all the Running of the Ears peeps for another spectacular Marathon Weekend at my favorite place on earth!

Have you registered yet?  Which race are you doing?

Shot from the 2011 Disney Marathon...I wouldn't have minded making a permanent stop here ;-)