runDisney Princess Half Marathon: Pre-Race

Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with exercise. Meaning, I love the general idea of exercise, but in reality, I actually hate it. Because of this volatile relationship, I tend to try and “trick” my brain into thinking exercise will be fun! “Oh it's not that I hate exercising, I hate lifting weights, I will love Zumba!” “Oh, it's not that I hate exercising, I hate Zumba, yoga will be better!” “Oh I know, I’ll work out in the morning/evening, because then I will have more motivation!” And so on and so forth until infinity or until they find my bloated body next to a giant vat of macaroni and cheese when they will wonder - hmmbut look at all those Jillian Michael’s tapes she had!

My latest venture into tricking my brain into working out was devious. “I know what will motivate me: DISNEY!” We had started to hear about runDisney event while on our various autumn trips - the Wine and Dine Half marathon is always coming up or has just happened while we are there. And it always seemed like fun in that way that you think “You know what sounds fun? Hard drugs.”, but you never actually DO it. Well, Barry suggested that when the registration opened for the Princess Half Marathon 2017, we should sign up. It would be great, I convinced myself. Registration is in the summer, that will give me PLENTY of time to get into shape and train for this thing! Plus, the runDisney events are not the most budget-friendly things in the world, so I had the added motivation that I would be wasting money if I did not follow through. So- sign up we did.

Let's flash back for a second to the summer of 2014. We had done something similar in that we decided to sign up for the Ocean City Half Marathon which ran from Assateague Island to the Inlet of Ocean City Maryland. Much like the Disney race, we had every intention of training well in advance. However, my father passed away unexpectedly in the middle of us training. Needless to say, I was not in the mood to do any sort of working out (or much of anything really). So training pretty much stalled. The problem with this, as those of you who have signed up and done a race before know, most races are NON REFUNDABLE (cue horror movie sound effects). So despite not having trained at all, we ran the race anyway, figuring we could just walk it.

And walk it we did. We walked the whole darn thing. Which would have been fine , except about half way through the race, the volunteer water stations had packed up and left. And we hadn't brought bottles of water with us, since you know, we thought there would be water stations available. Around mile 10, we were almost in last place and I was becoming extremely dehydrated. So dehydrated in fact, that my calves began seizing/cramping up. But I had come that far, I wasn’t going to stop there! Even when the trucks came by and offered to pick me up.

We had gotten to the point where the race was no longer blocking any traffic and we were now in dead last place. We were walking over a bridge full of traffic trying to get into the small resort city when both of my calves seized up so much, I couldn’t walk. I was in some serious anguish here, people. And then all of a sudden, an angel appeared in the form of a good samaritan, stuck in traffic, obviously taking pity on this poor dehydrated, clearly out of shape create on the side of the road. This angel reached up over the traffic fence and delivered unto me (well, Barry, i was still in horrible pain) a full, unopened SmartWater. That SmartWater was literally the best tasting water i have ever has the pleasure of tasting. It was enough to carry me through the remaining 3 miles, and cross the finish line. And my darling Barry - who is VERY competitive - let me cross the finish line first so that I didn't come in dead last place.

So after this horrible experience, you would think that I would have learned my lesson, but NOPE. We signed up for this runDisney Princess Half Marathon, again with all of the best intentions to train. I wish I could tell you that something dramatic impeded my training process, but it wasn’t. I’m just lazy. And I really really hate exercising. I mean I could totally come up with a ton of excuses - our treadmill broke, it was winter time, the holidays, blah blah blah. But really what it comes down to is that we were too lazy to train and always found something else to prioritize over working out.

So here we are, just under two weeks away from this race, and it's the first time I have ever been anxious and even border-line not excited to go to Disney. I'm trying to stay positive about it. Our treadmill is getting fixed in a few days and I'm planning on getting on it everyday up until the race, which will help convince me I won't totally pass out. But I'm really just hoping the magic of Disney and the adrenaline will be enough to push me through most of it.

Keep your fingers crossed and send us good vibes! If you're spiritually inclined, I wouldn't say no to a prayer or two either!