The race before the race

Tonight's the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon. Can't believe it's been two years since I did this as my first runDisney experience. I choose to think of this race in terms of that particular milestone - not the "worst half marathon record" one. This is also the only half marathon I've ever done at night. I think that's why it was a challenging run - 10pm is right around my bedtime, not 'let's run a half marathon' time.

Borrowing a friend's photo collage from two years ago since I can't find any photos on my own laptop.

BUT I do have to say running through Disney at night is well worth it, as you get to take over Epcot until 4 in the morning after the race is over - no waiting in line for anything! I think my husband, my friend, and I rode test track back to back 3 times.

How am I celebrating? Work. Some technical difficulties I had remote accessing my work computer earlier this week means Saturday is a work day for me. So I was up at 6, got a little bit of work done early, and took a mid-morning break for spin class. If I want to continue my 6am wake up streak, it's important for me to continue the habit on the weekend so that it doesn't all of a sudden feel awful to try to do during the week.

Speaking of feeling awful, I am incorporating more stretching - not just as part of my workouts, but throughout the day. I've had knee and lower back problems in the past training for half marathons, and I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to not allow these to sideline me over the next few months. Typically, my warm-ups really only include 3 minutes of walking, increasing speed every minute until I start up into a jog. According to this article, that's probably ok for easy runs, but if I'm doing speedwork, I need to rethink that approach.  I also don't really do any dynamic stretching - I just hop on the treadmill and go. So I've been doing these stretches in the morning, trying to commit them to memory and make them part of the habit.

161 days left.

Today's Exercise:  Spin Class @ Globo Gym

PWO	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Coffee	Eggs and potatoes	Cereal	Goat cheese and crackers