It’s Official. I’m Addicted.

Posted by Miss Bonnified on September 6, 2010 · 1 Comment 

Now that my marathon cherry has been popped at the Happiest Place On Earth, I realized a few things.

1. I still have a hard time believing I accomplished this.
2. My leaden legs and screaming muscles remind me that I did.
3. I repeatedly catch myself telling Clyde things like “So next year when I do this again…”

That’s right. I said “again”. As in, I’m already thinking of what I can do differently WHEN, not if, I run another half/full marathon.

This was my power song on my Nike+ thingy on my iPod touch. Clyde got it for me and it is all kinds of f*cking awesomenes. This was the song I was blasting as I powered through the pain in my leaden legs towards the finish line.

This is the medal all the finishers received.
Isn’t it puuuurty?

On to the things I learned.

Feed Me, Bonnie! Feed Me!

Know what I love about running? I’m SUPPOSED to eat carbs and lots of it the day before race day. Luckily, I don’t have a problem with diabetes, hypertension or high cholesterol (I like to call those 3 things the Unholy Trinity) so I went to town on the carbs.

I made the mistake of not eating enough carbs, not drinking enough fluids and eating too much salt the night before my last long run for training. Needless to say, I nearly died when I went on that run. Now I know better.

I ate gnocchi, spagetti and LOTS of bread with a small amount of olive oil and balsalmic vinegar. I also drank almost 3 liters of fluids (1.5L of which was the orange flavored Accelerade that Clyde brought).

I peed like my life depended on it the night before the race but it all payed off because I wasn’t carried off on a stretcher on race day. FTW!!!

2. This Is Not The Time To Be A Tourist

I really liked the route of the Disneyland Half Marathon. The only part I did not like was the part where we ran along the dirt road thing along the river. Eating dust while running in a pack of jostling humans is not good considering there was a pretty steep drop on my left.

I calculated my first 4 miles was at about a 20 minute mile because I stopped and gawked at all the marvelous sights Disney put out for us. There was a mini water show going on at California Adventures and all the Disney characters came out to cheer us on. I had to stop and take a picture with Lilo and Stitch even though it meant I waited in line for about 3 minutes before I could start running again.

I can understand how this adds to the magic of the experience but it’s not exactly conducive to running because :

1. People either come to a dead stop right in front of you.
2. People suddenly turned sharply and run BACK to the characters you all just passed because they decided they do want a photo with the characters after all.
3. People ran sideways across the path to get a better shot of whatever it is that caught their attention.
4. It adds a lot of minutes to your finish time.

Next year, I will enjoy the sights….as I run right past them.

3. Be More Consistent With My Training

I wasn’t exactly what you would call “disciplined” with my training this time around. I didn’t really put effort into it until I had less than 9 weeks before the big day. I know I could’ve done better if I had stuck with my training schedule.

I could use all the usual excuses like “I’m too busy” or “I’m too tired” or “I don’t have enough time” but here’s some things I learned from listening to a podcast Clyde played for me. It’s from Marathon Training Academy and it was their first podcast.

What do the following two people have in common?

They both ran a marathon in under 4 hours.

Laugh all you want at Dubya but I have new respect for the man because of this one accomplishment. As for Sarah Palin….well…this is the only thing I admire her for.

So if these two people can do it with their crazy ass schedules and in a time that would qualify them as ELITE runners….really? What’s my excuse? Oh, that’s right. I don’t have one any more.

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Filed under Marathon Training, Working Out · Tagged with Disney half marathon, George W. Bush, marathon training academy, Sarah Palin