Hi friends!

Another week of training down and I’m feeling especially excited this week. This past Wednesday, runDisney announced the WDW Marathon medals out of nowhere! Seeing the marathon medal made things more real for me. Now I can visualize what to expect at that glorious finish line:

A take on the classic Mickey Marathon medal for the “silver” anniversary, and a spinning feature in the center! WOW

I managed to run 28 miles this week – one of the higher training weeks for Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 2 Half Marathon program. Of course I modified based on my schedule but made sure that the total amounted to what was scheduled.

Training Update: Week 10 Half Marathon Training

Monday: Speed. I love this class. My girl, Kelli, the instructor, kicks my butt. I got up to my highest speed of 10.3 for sprints! GAH! I love that she pushes me beyond my limits and even though I’m flopping around like a sweaty fish during the strength training portions, I feel like I am getting faster and stronger after each class. 🙂

Monday MyStryde crew: I’m top right in the pink tank + towel!

Tuesday: 5 miles. After a busy day of work, my mind wasn’t “feeling it.”  Of course I ended up pushing myself out the door and was surprisingly faster than I expected. I was psyched!

Wednesday: Rest. I’m at the point where rest days feel strange. I get antsy! Since walking is my main form of transportation while commuting to work, I consider that my cross training/light exercise for the day.

Thursday: 4 miles tempo. My coworker brought in my favorite donuts! I had to have one. Okay, I had two. Maybe that’s what helped me with my tempo run!

Not shown: the incredible pillowy, glazed donuts I consumed

I ran one of my favorite routes and looked down at my watch in disbelief. I managed to stay sub 9:30 the entire way, and my last two miles were in the 8:00s! Such a great run. Maybe I should have a donut every day?

Friday: 2 miles + strength training. My favorite kind of running is getting myself from point A to point B. The barre class I take is two miles from my office so I like running there to get some extra exercise in before the weekend. I also feel like after months of taking barre classes I am feeling more flexible and that my form gets better and better with each class. Yay!

I headed home to some homemade fettuccine alfredo with chicken (thank you, Tommy!) and we sat down to watch the original ‘Halloween’ to get in the halloween spirit. I didn’t find it scary until it was time for bed. Then I become a big scaredy cat.

Saturday: 12 miles. I woke up in the middle of the night with a dry cough. I have some kind of upper respiratory “allergies” happening and I REALLY didn’t think I could handle 12 miles. But I forged on and got. it. done.

I felt slow and was hacking the whole time, but I managed to keep moving by thinking about the marathon and half marathon I was preparing for, and used positive mantras to keep going.

I finished my run and immediately went to the nearest convenience store for a water and something with protein, and came across Trimino protein infused water.

It’s a pineapple flavored coconut water and it was insanely delicious. Seven grams of protein, 25 calories, not too much sugar, and as you can imagine, it tasted like a healthy piña colada. I’ll be reaching for this again next week!

Sunday: 2 mile shakeout. To round out my 28 miles for the week, I did a quick 2 mile shakeout run and immediately went to the grocery store. I love feeling like I’ve finished my exercise and my errands before noon. Time to relax and prepare for next week!

You know you’re a runner when…

Thanks for reading and see you next week! 

Gina / Will Run for Disney