We have to share the running love!

Okay, just to make this clear I will give you a bit of background. I am not a sleek looking runner with brand name gear and world record pace. I am more of a uncoordinated elephant plodding along, but a very happy and self assured elephant. I honestly couldn't give a two hoots what other people think of me when they see me running my awesome Galloway intervals and stopping to pull out my wedgie. Such is the life of a runner, and in this case a slow and happy runner.

But when you ask about my upcoming races and I tell you about 1/2 marathons on consecutive weekends and my new obsession, the Dopey Challenge, DO NOT ASK ME IF I THINK I WILL FINISH.

Of course I think I will finish! I am blindly optimistic. And barring some horrific injury, I WILL FINISH! I cannot afford to be thinking negatively 5 months out from the event. All I can do is train my little heart out and hope for the best. So when sometimes tells you about their crazy 150 mile ultra, don't ask them 'Do you think you will finish?' because I guarantee you, that they would much rather hear you say '150 miles! You will smash it!'. A little positivity goes a long way people, so hand it out at every opportunity you get!

Generally speaking, I am one happy chappy!

What's the best thing someone has told you before a race?

Ash :)

The wise Garmin knows all.

While on my 7 mile (11.2km) training for RunDisney's Dopey Challenge, I found myself with a lot of time to just think. As I plodded along, I found myself feeling stronger and stronger with each passing kilometer. Now in no way am I complaining about this, but in my experience I am a runner who doesn't really get into the groove of my run until about the 7-8km mark. This is one reason why I really struggle with a 5k, just as I start to feel like I am finding a comfortable rhythm, the race is over. And last year in my maiden half marathon voyage I copped a second half split (10km-end) of 1:11, which is actually 6 minutes faster than my 10km PR. Weird hey?

Anyway, my very wise Garmin obviously records a variety of information, and mostly I am just checking my overall pace/km to check I am still working with RunDisney cut off time (which I am- WAHOOOOO). Today I though I would have a little look at my splits per interval (on a long run I use 1:1 Galloway intervals).

These are the splits from the beginning of my run (warm up, then 1 min run: 1 min walk)

These are the splits from the end of run

As you can see, my run splits improve by over a minute from in the range of 7:14/km-8:13km to a best interval of 6:03/km.

This showed me to two things: 

1) I am not crazy, I didn't just feel like I was running faster, I actually was running faster!

2) If I can find a good warm up that works for me and can get me running those kind of times from the start I will be in much better shape for the Dopey Challenge.

Do you ever look at your GPS data? Have you ever found anything interesting?

Ash :) 

Less than 3 months until Wine and Dine Half Marathon!

As I write this my excitement levels are rising, because there is officially less than 3 months until the beginning of the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Race Weekend.

Wine and Dine half will be my first official RunDisney race and to say I am looking forward to it is a huuuuge understatement! Ever since I found out about the RunDisney race events I have had an interest, but living in Australia and the thought of taking on a half marathon made it seem like a fantasy. I started running, and by running I mean run/walking (which has worked an absolute treat) and built my way up to half marathon distance. After finishing uni and not securing a full time job straight away, the registration for Wine and Dine seemed too tempting to refuse (and it's on my birthday!). So when it opened I registered, and the week after I registered for Avengers Half and a month later I was registering for Dopey. I definitely caught the RunDisney bug!

The hard training is starting to get going, with a big focus on Dopey training, which will nonetheless prepare me for both of my halves in November. I am seriously so pumped and just waiting to board that plane and be on the way to Disney to make my dreams come true!

What is your dream race?

Ash :)