Another Tuesday, another Tuesday on the Run hosted by our favorites: 
Erika from MCM Mama Runs, Marcia from Marcia's Healthy Slice and Patty from No-Guilt Life.This week's topic is How you create your schedule. 
I feel like I'm pretty simple when it comes to races. 

• I have a standard set of rundisney and local races I like to do that get put on the calendar
• I keep a list of others I want to try and fit those in the best I can 
• I have decided I want to travel at least once a year to do a new race in a new place (2015-NYCM, 2016-stayed more local and did Carlsbad and RnRSD, 2017-RnRNOLA)
• Looking at Year, my local races are mostly in the spring with a large dearth in the summer and then more races in the fall. often November is nicknamed #RaceNovember for me. 

I ran a lot of races last year but found it helped with making sure I got in my long runs on weekends when I was stressed to the brim with schoolwork 
Coming up I have 3 of my favorite local races in a week:

• Great Race Old Agoura 10k
• Carlsbad 20k the next day
• Santa Anita Derby 5k the next Saturday

They are all affordable, come with great swag and are a good time! 
Never one to slack, check out my Race Recap page where I put my recaps as well as my upcoming races ​

How about you? How do you decide what to run? 

Time for some weekly accountability! I will recapping how I have done on the 4 Well Rules over the last week: Eat Well, Sleep Well, Exercise Well and Be Well New Linkup for Monday! I will linking up with MissSippiPiddlin and HoHo Runs to talk about my week recap! Welcome to the 4 well rules that I try to follow as I go through my week! Let's get to it!

EAT WELL
Eating was okay at Disney and I did a great job of freezing food for after. I finally went grocery shopping and was able to make creamy salsa chicken and corned beef. Enough food for this week and I will be able to freeze food for after Hong Kong. 

SLEEP WELL
Sleep was not the best at Princess and I have been able to catch up by sleeping almost 9 hours a night. I hope by this weekend I will be caught up as I need to be on top of my sleep game to head to Hong Kong! 


EXERCISE WELL:
LAST WEEK:
Mon- Universal/DIsney day
Tues-Travel Day
Weds-Recovery Yoga
Thurs-Rest Day (and sleeping in!)
Fri-Weights
Sat-3 mile run (my ipod is a hot mess and won't charge)
Sun- 3 Run10 videos-core strength, arms, stability 

THIS WEEK:
Mon- Running Strength
Tues-3 miles
Weds-Piyo and core
Thurs- 3 miles
Fri- Core yoga
Sat- travel to Hong Kong
​Sun-technically traveling to Hong Kong

In Hong Kong-my goal is to workout 20-30 minutes in my room and hopefully go for 2 runs while I am there. 

BE WELL

Two days until I am defending my dissertation. I am ready-I hope! Recovery from princess is always a bit rough but I stayed home all today and am so glad I did. Catching up blogging, emails, tv and cleaning is just what I needed. Yesterday I went out to brunch, Fun Home and had dinner. Fun Home was fantastic! 

I don't think I have talked about it much but I am heading to Hong Kong for Spring Break! I am going with my school and spent the afternoon looking at restaurants and the most important thing-HONG KONG DISNEYLAND! I am so excited we have a free day and I will be spending it all day at my NINTH Disney park! 

​How was your week? 

Another Tuesday, another Tuesday on the Run hosted by our favorites: 
Erika from MCM Mama Runs, Marcia from Marcia's Healthy Slice and Patty from No-Guilt Life.This week's topic is Feb check in. 

Well I feel like my running went better overall. My mid-week runs are a struggle but missed 2 due to weather and feeling run down.  I need to figure out what the deal is-I think it is just I have a lot going on and the rain all the time is NOT helping. 

My focus for this next month is going to be on figuring out how to get those runs in that are 3 miles and not just 2. I know it will make a difference in my fitness. This used to not be a problem but what is it? Ugh, I need to figure this out. I think some of it is just being lazy when I wake up and it is dark outside. 

MID-WEEK RUNS: 5 (missed 2)
RACES: 3 (RnR NOLA, Princess 10k, Princess Half)
Weekend runs: 4 (missed none!)

I would give myself a B for the month. Much better than last month but not where I would like to be. 

How about you? How was your month of running? 

Time for some weekly accountability! I will recapping how I have done on the 4 Well Rules over the last week: Eat Well, Sleep Well, Exercise Well and Be Well New Linkup for Monday! I will linking up with MissSippiPiddlin and HoHo Runs to talk about my week recap! Welcome to the 4 well rules that I try to follow as I go through my week! Let's get to it!

​EAT WELL
I was able to get all of my food either eaten or frozen before I left and even better-I was able to save food for after! I will finally get to go grocery shopping Thursday after work and can't wait to cook again. 
Disney food has been incredible of course! 
 
SLEEP WELL
I slept well up until the trip and then just slept as much as I could. The weather has been very hot so I have felt like I was dragging but overall feel pretty dang good. 


EXERCISE WELL 
LAST WEEK:
M- universal day/stretching 
T-weights 
W-3 miles 
R-3 miles 
F-rest day/first disney day
S-princess 10k 
S-princess half marathon 

THIS WEEK:
M-rest day
T-travel day/also rest day
W-2 easy miles 
R- 3 miles 
F- weights
S-6 miles 
S-yoga


BE WELL
Dissertation is turned in and now all I have to do is wait and also prep for my defense this weekend. Even though I am nervous, I am not as nervous as I thought I would be. 
Princess weekend has been incredible and I can't wait to share my recaps with you! 


How was your week? How was your three day weekend?

Another early morning but I was feeling pretty good. Up around 315, left around 345/4, got coffee and went to the Porto which took awhile. Head to bag check and off to the corrals we went! We dressed as the trio: Rey, Finn and Poe! 

We started in Corral B and took off around 540. Same start as yesterday-headed south and right backstage and came through Bugs Land and the Droids we're the same place as yesterday. Brian caught up (he was in Corral C) and we took a picture. We continued around the pier and stopped for a pic with the Rebels. We continued through Grizzly, down Hollywood Blvd and backstage again. We went through backstage and entered Disneyland at the same place as the day before. We took a great picture by Small World, stopped for some Storm Troopers right beside it and continued through Tomorrowland. We were looking for BB8 and found him by Star Tours! We took a sharp right through Fantasyland, through the castle and down Main Street. We stopped for a pic with Chewy on Main Street and headed through t Esplanade and out of the bus depot and on the streets. 

The Anaheim part is great as it's long and straight, and always with lots of crowd support including bands and cheerleaders. I love leaving property and seeing the people heading back already around mile 11/12! So amazing! We headed to Garden Grove, got our Clig shot and then saw the Rebel Alliance. Next we continued through downtown and the 501st which were amazing as always. After that we headed back towards Anaheim and there was still awesome crowd support! 

We were starting to hit a wall around mile 8 (post marathon, lack of sleep and getting over a cold) but held on. We turned on Katella and ran past the convention center and towards paradise pier and towards the finish line. The line looked a bit sparse compared to past years-maybe new security measures? 

MILE SPLITS: 10:48/10:10/10:09/10:38/11:32/11:05/11:24/11:32/12:44/12:41/12:16/12:06/11:10/9:50
OFFICIAL SPLITS: 5k: 44:32 (14:20)/10k: 1:36:54 (16:53)/15k: 2:16:06 (12:37)
FINISH TIME: 3:04:14 (14:04)/Running time ~ 2:27

We headed through the finish line, and Devin and Brian went back to get ready and I waited for Mallory and we headed back. We got showered and headed back to LA to eat, relax, watch the cowboys get beat and see Amelie. 


This is probably the first ​time I have not gone back into the park for a castle picture but with the traffic, it was not going to happen. 

Overall, this was a great race! I loved every second of it and the rain held off. 

​What was the last half marathon you did? 

**Remember, my recaps now have a few pictures but the majority are in the slideshow at the bottom of the post so make sure to open in a browser so you can see them!! 

What a race! As you know, I had decided on the Goofy challenge as I was dissertation writing (which was the best decision I could have made-I felt barely prepared for Goofy let alone Dopey). Well with the cancelled half, I only ran the marathon. This worked out well as I have already wanted to just do the marathon and see how it went and let's just say, it did not disappoint!

Oh the marathon! We knew from the night before it would be COLD with wind chill in the teens.  As I wrote about in my Race Retreat recap, I got up around 3, left the room at 315 and got there earlier than I have ever been there. I left race retreat at 5 with Jacque for the long walk to the corrals and we met up with Devin. We were COLD and for once I was ready to run. 

We were in Corral H and started about 6:00. One thing that I was concerned about were the people that upgraded to the full, were still in their half corrals. It turned out not to be much of an issue.  The race starts like most-down towards MK. The course wasn't too crowded but we were cold. The one nice thing was the water at all the water stops was nice and cold :)

We had decided from the beginning we would stop for every photo stop and just see how many we get. Our first character stop was Jack Sparrow and Barbosa outside of the MK parking gates. The line was less than 5 minutes which we thought would be great for the rest of them as usually the first stop is long! 

Next up was Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater where the race track was (and we saw the people way ahead turning off at Bear Island) and then Jack and Sally a bit further along. We saw our BOGP Lizards squad at TTC and kept going as the sun was coming up. It was narrow as always heading towards MK but manageable. We saw the DJ with the massive Mickey hands.

We were moving at a decent speed and we're on Main St before we knew it! And we got to sit it all lit up! I do wish they would push the chear squad back so we could run more on Main Street-I have no pics of me on Main Street because it was crowded to just one side of the street. 

We headed into tomorrowland and stopped for a picture with Buzz, and continued towards fantasyland and got a picture with tweedle dee and dum in front of the teacups and Donald in front of dumbo. We continued through new fantasyland and stopped for a picture at the fountain and got a picture with Beast! 

We continued through fantasyland and saw Anna, Elsa and Kristoff at the back of the castle and then stopped for our castle picture. We went through frontierland and stopped for a picture with Country bears. And we hit mile 6 around here and headed out of MK and got a picture with the dragon. Behind MK is very narrow but we stayed pretty steady as we hit the DJ and finally some more photo stops. 

We saw penguins at grand Floridian , wedding singers at the wedding pavilion, lilo and stitch at poly and Genie at the golf course. We turned off to Bear Island and the "boring" part in the middle. 

As we turned off, we came upon the "graveyard" of old ride vehicles (Snow White, MR TOAD, nautilus, sky bucket, and rocket rods). We saw came upon the big bad wolf, and then wreck it Ralph and vanellope by the poop plant. We hit a banana stop and continued on to Horace horse collar and clarabelle cow. We saw the lion king dancers heading into AK. We then saw Meeko heading to AK along with a few animals. As we got in the park, we got a picture with Timon and the tree of life. We continued on towards Everest which is at the halfway point and waited in line. We should have done single rider as it made us so nervous but we got it done and then headed towards a restroom and headed out of AK towards the parking lot. 

We stopped for the gravedigger picture (one of my favs!) and then down Osceola. The road was a bit narrow but it was fine to navigate. As we headed towards wide world of sports, we didnt have many photostops except the dino head. It got warm so we readjusted our outfits (the gloves came off!) as we turned towards wide world of sports and knew we would be in there for at least a 5k, we hoped there would be photoshops and there were! 

We got a wet towel as we entered and then saw chip and dale (Donald left while we were in line), Mickey and Minnie, goofy and then one of my favorite photo stops-Joy and Sadness! We headed around the baseball field around mile 20 and honestly we're feeling pretty good! We headed out of WWoS and no one else was coming in! So crazy! We headed towards Hollywood Studios and saw the green army man and then in the park for a hot second. At least we got to take a picture with Oswald at his east coast debut!! We popped into the park down Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd and out. 
The path towards Epcot is narrow but we knew the medical tent at the end was the last sweep point! It was a lot of walking because of crowding but we had fun. We saw the Lizards again at Beach Club and into Epcot. We saw Alice in the U.K., jasmine and Aladdin in Morocco, and Snow White in Germany. Turns out we missed belle in France!! :( 

We wanted a margarita and went and the line was insane, we freaked but the festival of the arts booth was open so we there! Lifesaver!

We took a final picture with the Ball and headed towards the gospel choir at the finish line. We did it! And stopped for over 30 photos! There were happy tears shed (Jacque was Dopey! I ran a marathon in the middle of dissertation crazy! Devin ran a marathon post chemo!) and after getting our medals, and seeing some Lizards and grabbing champagne, Devin headed to the hotel and we went to race retreat. 
​
We showered at the hotel and headed to MK to celebrate and then slept in the next morning as it was still cold (but not too cold!) and continued the celebration at AK and Epcot the next day. ​

FINAL TIME: 7:22 (16:54)
SPLITS in 5 miles segments: 1:16 (15:16)/2:54 (17:16)/HALF: 3:42/20 MILES-5:41 (17:06)
MILE SPLITS: well as you know, my garmin was a hot mess during this race so I don't have accurate ones! good grief is how I feel about that. Who knew so many layers could hit random buttons on your Garmin?!!?

​Well I am already signed up for Dopey 2018 so I will be back for more Marathon action. After doing this race for the second time, it is still my favorite race of all-time and one I think every runner should experience (yes, even better than NYC Marathon!). Running in my favorite place on this planet, with my favorite people just makes for a great experience. 

And 2018 is stacking up to be an amazing year! I know so many friends signed up for Dopey, it will prove to be an epic meet-up weekend and more! 

What is the last marathon you ran? Have you ever done the WDW marathon? 

Time for some weekly accountability! I will recapping how I have done on the 4 Well Rules over the last week: Eat Well, Sleep Well, Exercise Well and Be Well New Linkup for Monday! I will linking up with MissSippiPiddlin and HoHo Runs to talk about my week recap! Welcome to the 4 well rules that I try to follow as I go through my week! Let's get to it!

​EAT WELL
Did my grocery shopping and made one meal for dinner tonight and prepped another. It's so nice to have food for the rest of the week and also a few meals when I get back too! 
 
SLEEP WELL
Sleep was a bit wonky over the last week but I feel decently rested. My goal is to sleep 8 hours over the next two nights in prep for my red eye. and then sleep as much is possible at disney as my sleep always gets so wonky traveling. 


EXERCISE WELL 
LAST WEEK:
M-rest day
T-core yoga 
W-2 miles 
R- 2 miles 
F- weights
S-rest day 
S-6 miles/Disneyland 

THIS WEEK:
M- universal day/stretching 
T-weights 
W-3 miles 
R-3 miles 
F-rest day/first disney day
S-princess 10k 
S-princess half marathon 


BE WELL
This weekend was the first real weekend I had in a long time! I saw 50 shades darker (don't get me started...but the theme cocktail made it so enjoyable haha), finally saw Main St Electrical Parade, had a Universal morning, went to Margaritaville and took lots of naps. 
And tonight is the night-final dissertation corrections! It's really crazy I'm sending it off to my committee tomorrow.
Also, princess half marathon this weekend! I have to pack tonight as I drive to work on Weds and need to bring all my luggage to work! 


How was your week? How was your three day weekend?

Another Tuesday, another Tuesday on the Run hosted by our favorites: 
Erika from MCM Mama Runs, Marcia from Marcia's Healthy Slice and Patty from No-Guilt Life.This week's topic is 3 running Wishes! Instead of writing about true dreams, I am going to write about three realistic wishes that I wish would happen over night but are actually going to take some time to finish. 

1. Gain my speed back: still a struggle but I am starting to gain ground
2. Find a training plan that works for me: I need to increase my mileage if I want to see results and some of that is with my mid-week runs. 
3. Cross train to get stronger and prevent injuries: Still working on this but I am hoping to keep injuries at bay as I ramp up my mileage for 3 marathons in 3 months! 

Here are 3 more that are more like instant wishes

1. Never get injured
2. BQ
3. Run an ultra and love it! 

​How about you? what are some of your Running Wishes? 

I paid for Race Retreat for the Goofy challenge. Since the half was cancelled, I only got to use it for the full. 

Incase you don't know, Race retreat is where you pay extra cash but you get a temperature controlled tent with private bag check, private bathrooms and changing areas, and fun photo opps (see above and below). They only sell the number of spots as seats so there is not over crowding. it also has food before (coffee, bagels, bananas, oranges, etc) and brunch after: breakfast foods( BACON, eggs, sausage, potatoes) and also brunch items (mac n cheese, sandwiches, cheese, crackers-honestly I was so hungry i dont remember haha). the menus were posted on the tables. they also have the Runner's World VIP as well as a private stretching area and also results after. 

 I got up at 2:40 to get on the bus at 3:10. It was FREEZING (wind chill in the teens!) and I have never walked as fast as I did towards race retreat. when you cross the parking lot past security in the pre race area, you head towards the right and the tent is there. It was larger than I was expecting. 

I got in line right away for Nick and Judy, took a picture with the frame, grabbed a banana and coffee and sat down and made friends. As the Lizards got there, we congregated.  Jeff Galloway and Bart Yasso were there and spoke and they had a DJ. 

They kick you out at 5AM, so we did bag check right at 5, used the porto (NO LINE! WORTH EVERY PENNY) and headed on the cold walk to the corral. 

They set up for the next round, the Platinum cheer squad is allowed in to wait for their runners. 

We ran our race (recap coming soon!) and then had a celebratory drink and then headed into the tent for food, and picking up our bags. 

 Overall, I am super happy with the weather that I did Race Retreat. It was nice to finish, grab a drink and head into the tent for quick food. Since we were slow getting in the tent, we were checked out before changing. I had to walk back to the Epcot buses and I changed in the restroom on the way. 

I already signed up for next year! can't wait to get to do it for 2 races! 

One thing I did not get to participate in was that Race Retreat also included early entry to merchandise and bib pickup before the Expo opened. From what I could see, that was very much worth it! 

Tip: I got on the bus a bit too early. I think next time I would sleep an extra 15-20 minutes and still feel like I got my money's worth. 

have you ever done race retreat?