New Directions

Well, my idea of a fall travel blog sort of sputtered out and fell short of what I really wanted it to be. To be honest, I posted the pictures and really did not have anything else to say.

As most of you know and don't give a shit about. Mom, Karen, and myself started running last fall. The whole idea came about when we did the Race for the Cure back in late October. After doing the 5k, I thought to myself, this shit is easy...I got a free t-shirt, some exercise...some free drinks afterwards, pretty sweet deal. We got home and I thought, lets schedule another. There was a not a ton of races in December...just a few 5k's here and there. We decided to do the Rudolph Run that happens before the Nashville Christmas Parade. Like everything, it was great idea in embryo, but the race started at 6:00 PM on a Friday night...that Friday night, it turned out to be 27 degrees. Karen was not awfully pleased, but we powered through. Karen finished under 40:00 minutes, Mom and I finished at 42:00. We were pleased with the showing for a few reasons:

1. We had been training for about 3 weeks.
2. There were several people behind us.
3. We did not die.

Since then we run every other day, it has become an extension of our lives and feels awesome. The question was what do we do from here?

Sort of off topic, but not really...There are 2 places in the world where I would travel every year if I had the funds and if Karen would deal with it, Las Vegas and Walt Disney World. This part of the story is about WDW. My love affair with WDW started a long time again, thanks to my parents and a several really memorable trips. After our first couple of trips, I can remember reading a 10th anniversary Walt Disney World book over and over...that lasted well into my teens. I would frequent the Disney store because it was one of the few places that you could get "official" books. When I found the 25th anniversary book, I was surprised to see my Uncle Harry made it into it. There was a picture of him painting a carousel horse in the chapter dedicated to the early years. I can remember visiting them in Kissimmee one year and getting to see his workshop which had a few horses he was working on and a bunch of neat photos. Those books remain on my bookshelf along with several out of date travel books...what can I say, I am a collector.

Anyhow, they periodically hold races at Walt Disney World Resort. The GrandDaddy of them all is the Walt Disney World Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. Before our Spring Break trip of 2007, I started listening to several Disney podcasts, the best of which, in my opinion, is WDW Radio...hosted by Lou Mongello, he is kind of a big deal as far as Disney-philes go. Anyhow, the last few years, I have been listening to his marathon coverage...one of the draws of this particular race is that the course meanders through all of the theme parks. For me, that is the best part. My initial thought was to run the 1/2 marathon...the more I thought about it, the more I believed that with over a years training, we could finish the full marathon. This blog is going to serve as our training log. If you choose to continue to read, you will hear about our ups and downs throughout the year...and the results of the other races we are using to train. Currently we have 3 races we are going to be running during the spring.

Predators FANGtastic 5K
Race Judicata 10K
and
Country Music Half Marathon

Currently, we run short runs Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday...those runs are between 3 - 4 miles. We use the short miles to work on our endurance and to keep the blood flowing. Sundays are mileage build days...we are up to 7 and will be at 7 for the next few weeks.

Workouts today:

Joe: 1 mile with Claire, then 3 miles timed at 37:05...my PR so far...
Karen: Her leg was sore, so she took the day off from running, but did her Cardio Max DVD
Mom: Did some fact-finding with the local GroupFit folks, then did Yoga.

Coming up: Our visit to the running store today and what we bought...Why are we doing this?