Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

Last week, I headed up to Annapolis, MD with my friend Alicia for the Annapolis Running Classic. I had signed up for the Half after a really rough summer without a lot of running and a real need to try to get back into running.

The race started at 7:30 am at the Navy Memorial Stadium at the U.S. Naval Academy. I was surprised to see how small the race was and lined up around the 2:15 pacer. I wasn't actually going for time but I thought that 2:15 was what I could reasonably expect to run.

The race started and the first mile of the course was pretty nondescript. The first mile marker came up pretty quickly though. There was a water station and I grabbed a cup and kept running. I wasn't watching my pace but I felt pretty good. I passed the 2:15 pace group pretty early on and thought I'd be happy to stay ahead of them through the race.

In the 2nd mile, we went over a pretty small bridge and by the time we crossed it, my knee was feeling pretty sore. I changed up my form a little bit using some PT tricks I had learned a few years ago and kept running. We made it into downtown Annapolis which was really pretty to run through! Right at Mile 3, there was another water station but it only had two volunteers and they didn't have any cups out. I found that pretty frustrating and skipped the station. My knee was still twinging and I started to worry about finishing the distance. At Mile 4, we went over the same bridge we had gone over in the second mile and my knee really started to stiffen up. The more I ran, the more it was locking up. There was another water station but this one only had one volunteer and again - no cups out.

I've always had trouble running over bridges because they don't have as much "give" to them as streets and this race was proving to be tough. By the time I hit Mile 5, I knew I was in bad shape. My knee was so stiff and it was really hurting. I hadn't had pain like that all through my training cycle but I definitely had pain like that through the GW Parkway Classic and I had to start walking by Mile 8. I really didn't want to have to walk half of this race, so at Mile 5, I made the decision to drop down to the 10k. The turnaround was at about the 5 1/2 mile marker so it was easy to drop down. As I ran toward Mile 6, I knew I made the right decision. I sprinted through the finish as best as I could but my knee was in bad shape.

I got my medal for the 10k and stuck around to watch the first half-marathon finisher come through and then made my way to the Runner's Village for some oysters, bagels, bananas, and tomato soup - a post-run feast!


I was pretty disappointed with this course overall - water stations with minimal volunteers and no water? It was a cold day out but that wasn't ok in my book! The finish line festival made up for it but I'm not sure if I would return to this course - especially after what happened with my knee.

It took about four days for my knee to start to feel better and I went and got a massage this weekend to work things out and that wasn't pleasant. I'm not really sure whether I'm going to do much about this though - I think I'll just work on building glute strength, which I know is the source of all of my IT band issues and hope it works itself out. I already mentioned that I won't be training for any long distances next year so I'm hoping the added yoga and strength I build from that will solve this problem once and for all!

My last post about my training for the Annapolis Half Marathon was all about making time to run. In a way, I almost feel like I jinxed myself by writing that post because, that week, it seemed almost impossible to make time to run. I also just felt really tired all week and by Friday, I was down and out with the flu.

I was supposed to run 8 miles that weekend but instead, I spent half the weekend sleeping and trying to recover. I even missed a work trip to Indianapolis that I had been looking forward to for months. On Thursday, I was feeling a little bit better and my colleagues and I headed deep into the Eastern Shore of Maryland for an overnight retreat. It was a lot of fun, but it was pretty exhausting.

I got home Friday night and decided to see how my lungs were feeling for a run on Saturday. I managed 3.5 miles and planned for 8-10 early yesterday morning but I was exhausted and slept in. I had an acupuncture appointment and brunch plans with a friend and by the time I got home, I was exhausted and my knee was bothering me. I opted for some at-home yoga which seemed to be exactly what I needed.

With three weeks until Race Day, I'm a little bit nervous that I haven't gotten in these key runs but at the same time, I feel like I've been sidelined by something like this almost every time I've trained for a race. I'll be traveling a lot over the next two weeks so it'll be super important to make time to get those runs in but I do still think I'll be in good shape on Race Day! I just need to stay focused to get there!

At my last job, I used to be wildly creative about how to get my workouts in during the day. I would often run the 7 miles to or from my office or get in 4-5 miles at lunchtime either outside or on the treadmill. I had a running group with a couple of coworkers and we would get together for 4-6 miles a few afternoons a month to knock out our training miles.

I like to do my long runs on Saturday. It gives me the flexibility of having another day in the weekend in case something comes up. It also gives me the chance to start my training week on Monday. I've always struggled when my long runs have fallen to Sunday. I need to take Monday off and then I feel like there's a lot of pressure to get that workout in on Tuesday. If it doesn't happen, my whole week is thrown.

Last weekend, I headed to Orlando, FL with my good friend, Abby, to run the Disney Princess Half-Marathon. It was meant to be a belated birthday trip but after being sick and dealing with everything with my dad, it was more of a much-needed getaway.

The Pilot and I flew into Orlando on a mid-morning flight Friday, checked into our hotel, headed to the Expo, had lunch, and then went to Disney Springs for dinner at my favorite Cuban restaurant, Bongos.

We spent Saturday at Universal visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (more on this later!) before Abby flew in. We had a round of drinks, enjoyed dinner at our hotel, and were in bed by 9 pm for a 2 am wake-up call.

The race started at 5:30 and we had been told that if you weren't on a bus from your Disney resort by 4 am, you would miss the start of the race. I was worried that the buses would get crowded and we would miss one, so we left our room at 3:20 and were on a bus by 3:25.

We were at Epcot 10 minutes later, explored the staging area a bit where they had a stage set up and live music and then, after learning that the Start Line was half a mile away, started making our way over. I had no idea how many runners to expect but I was shocked to see how few people there were when we got to the corrals which were lettered A-P. I was supposed to be in Corral D but Abby was assigned Corral K so we lined up together (after trying unsuccessfully to line up in my corral).

When we got to the race, the temperature was pretty mild but while we were waiting in our corrals, the temperature dropped and it got pretty windy. I tried to keep my muscles warm by doing some stretches and exercises and, when 5:25 am rolled around, I was really annoyed to learn that the race would be starting late because so many people still hadn't arrived. We had been at the start for 2 hours and I didn't think that it was fair to delay the start of the race because there were still (literally) thousands of people making their way from the staging area. The gun finally went off around 5:40 but our corral didn't start moving until shortly before 6. We finally crossed the start at 6:15 and were on our way.

The first mile came up pretty quickly. Captain Jack Sparrow was at that mile and I was surprised to see a long line of runners waiting to take their picture with him. Abby and I kept on running. The first few miles were relatively uneventful.  It took about two miles to warm up after standing in the cold for so long but the miles went by quickly. Early on, the course was mostly walkers and it was tough to weave in and out of so many people.

Around Mile 5, we entered the parking lot for the Magic Kingdom. The anticipation for running into the Magic Kingdom was building and we picked up the pace. When we ran into the park, I was so excited and when we turned onto Main Street and saw the Magic Kingdom, it took my breath away. The sun hadn't been up for long and the castle was bathed in that perfect morning glow that made for a stunning view to run through.

I loved running through the Magic Kingdom and felt like I was flying! Perfect for my Peter Pan costume! Somewhere around Frontier Land, we spotted Woody (The Pilot's favorite Disney character) and I stopped to snag a picture (without waiting in line!).

We left the Magic Kingdom and ran along Disney's golf course for quite awhile, which was beautiful. We had, for the most part, escaped the crowd by this point and were surrounded by more runners than walkers and really started to pick up the pace. Abby and I were both feeling pretty good and I was happy with how good I felt, given my minimal training. I had forgotten my watch in DC and was grateful to not have a watch to stare at the whole race. With all of the weaving and crowds, I think I would have gone crazy if I had my watch on!

Peter Pan and his shadow!

Once we hit  Mile 9, we started running back the way we had come from the start except that there were some hills thrown in as we ran across overpasses and made our way back to Epcot. I hadn't paid much attention to the Course Map since I knew I wouldn't have any idea what it meant, but I was confused when we hit Mile 11 and still felt miles away from Epcot but we entered the park through a back road leading to the parking lot. Mile 11 was almost entirely through the parking lot, leading into the park and we really picked up the pace since we could see the Epcot globe!


We entered the park, made a long loop near the entrance to the park and then sprinted through to the finish line! We finished in 2:19:33. I was hoping to run somewhere close to 2:15 but I'm pretty happy with this time given how crowded it was (and the fact that I had to take two bathroom breaks after drinking so much water while waiting endlessly for the race to start).

Thoughts on my first RunDisney race: It was ridiculously fun running through Disney and even better to have a friend along the way! The spectator support was pretty minimal (but I wasn't surprised by that given the early start time) and I think the race would have been pretty boring without someone running alongside me.

Originally, I was going to dress up as Princess Jasmine originally but when Abby decided she was going to be Tinker Bell, I decided on Peter Pan, my all time favorite story character. I somewhat regretted my decision when we lined up, being one of the few runners not dressed as a princess, but when we actually started running, I think Abby and I got called out and cheered for more because we weren't dressed as princesses than those that were. As a spectator, it doesn't make sense to yell out, "Go Jasmine!" when there are 17 Jasmines in your line of sight! So if you do run one of these races, try to think outside the box when planning out your costume!

Overall, I had a great time running this race but there were some things that I wasn't a fan of, that I thought detracted from the experience.

First, I wasn't thrilled that the race started late because people weren't there on time, particularly when so many of us had been sitting outside in the dark for close to two hours because we followed the race instructions.

Second, I couldn't believe how crowded the race was, especially given how narrow the course is! It seemed like a problem that could have been mitigated by closing more of the roads to traffic (the race is run on private Disney property, after all), running more of the race in the parks, or allowing more time to pass between corrals. I don't have a problem with how many walkers there were on the course but there were several groups of walkers walking four or five people across, blocking the entire path forward. Most of the races I've run that have had a large number of walkers have started with an announcement that walkers should stay to one side of the course to make it easy to navigate for everyone and, usually, people follow that but without being told to do that, this course definitely seemed more walker-friendly than runner-friendly.

Lastly, I rarely buy race photos but there's a pretty awesome picture of me right in front of the castle that, somehow, doesn't have any other runners in it. I tried to buy the photo and found out that the only way to do so would be to buy all of my race photos for $169. Umm, no thanks!

Would I run a RunDisney race again? I wouldn't not run one again but I don't need to run one again immediately. I think that I may have had a slightly different experience if I had actually started in my corral. You had to submit proof of time for a race back in November and Abby missed the deadline, which put us further back. I didn't mind but if there were that many walkers in Corral K, I can't even imagine what it must have looked like in Corral P!

Disney isn't new to organizing races but there are a few things they need to work on, like spacing out their corrals better, extending the Expo hours (it closes at 3 the day before the race!), and communicating with runners better. We were lucky to have caught an announcement that the Staging Area for the race was a half mile from the Start Line but if that announcement wasn't made on repeat, I imagine that's why so many runners were late to the start.

So, there you go, my 15th Half-Marathon to celebrate my 30th birthday! It was a super fun weekend and I'm so glad I did it! Today kicks off training for my next marathon - the Ottawa Marathon - so you can expect my weekly workout recaps to make a comeback this weekend!

February. My goodness, this month has been endless. For the shortest month of the year, it seems painful how slowly this month has dragged by.


February has been such a strange month. I was gone for nearly half the month, and when I was home, I was sick. I mentioned in my January recap that I've never felt quite as unsettled in this apartment as I have in other moves, and that's still the case. While The Pilot and I did manage to finally hang some pictures in the bedroom and living room, I still have nearly a dozen boxes I haven't unpacked. I still haven't unpacked most of my clothes (yes, I'm serious), and I really feel like I'm drowning. I've been working from home more than usual in an attempt to play catch up on my life and that hasn't helped at all. At least I've finally cleared up space to used my home office as such, rather than as just a storage unit.

So, February. I was in unexpectedly in Texas for the first half of the month when my dad got sick. He's doing much better now and I'm grateful for that. I came back to DC four days before my 30th birthday with the flu. My birthday was completely uneventful because I was still sick. I didn't actually start feeling better until about two days before I left for Florida for the Disney Princess Half this weekend and, while I was worried about being undertrained and having minimal lung capacity from being sick, I managed to have a good race. (Recap coming soon!)

Of course, after being up 22 hours straight because of a ridiculously early start time, I now, again, feel like I'm getting sick. February, go away, you're drunk.

Here's a look at how my month went in numbers:

One of my goals for the New Year was to cook at least one recipe out of every single one of my cookbooks. The idea being 1) to cook more at home, and 2) to actually make use of my slightly problematic obsession with cookbooks. While I don't think I've fully unpacked all of my cookbooks, so I don't know how many I actually have, I have cooked abundantly out of four of my cookbooks and dabbled in one or two others. I did realize that I have no interest in cooking out of one of my cookbooks, so I'm holding on to that for one more month to see if anything jumps out at me before giving it away. I could write a whole post on what cooking so much has taught me, so I think I will. Stay tuned!

Currently Training For: 
Monday: #yogarevolution Day 23 (36:00)
Monday was supposed to be my grand return to running and it poured. It was so disgusting outside. I had plans to run after work with a friend and when we canceled, I was going to go to the gym but by the time I got home, I was so exhausted and couldn't even think about going back out in the rain. I had to pick up a few things at the grocery store and by the time I got home and on the mat, it was already 9:30. I really didn't want to practice but I'm glad I did. It was a good practice and I was so well rested when I finally crawled into bed.

Tuesday: 3.5 miles (9:23 pace); #yogarevolution Day 24 (47:00)
RETURN TO RUNNING!!! After 17 days off from the fall in which I thought I shattered my knee cap, I finally set out for a run! I felt great, although it was shockingly warm in DC and I was way overdressed. I felt a little off but otherwise, really good. The yoga practice was the longest of the challenge and I was dreading it a little bit but oh boy it felt good. This was another great practice that I'll flag for a post-long run day.

Wednesday: #yogarevolution Day 25 (18:00)
I woke up Wednesday morning so sore from Tuesday's run and yoga. I had thought about going to a spin class but my muscles were so achy! I woke up, went to work, went to a few meetings, went about my day, came home, worked some more, grabbed dinner with The Pilot, went to Target, unpacked a few boxes, changed into my pajamas and plopped onto the couch at 9:30 before remembering that I had to practice. I'll be honest, if the practice had been any longer than it was, I probably wouldn't have done it. It was short, quick, and easy, and then I went to bed.

Thursday: 3 miles (PACE); #yogarevolution Day 26 (20:00)
It was another surprisingly warm day in DC and The Pilot and I headed out for a mid-day run to soak up the warm sunshine. It was actually pretty windy once we headed out and I was still sore from Tuesday and moving a lot slower than normal but I was happy to be running again! Today's yoga practice was another short one that focused a lot on core work.

Friday: #yogarevolution Day 27(28:00)
Throughout this entire challenge, I hadn't gotten up and practiced first thing in the morning before work once until Friday. This practice was downright juicy and a fabulous way to start the morning! My mom had gotten to town on Thursday and I wanted to practice before she woke up so that I could get started with work and wrap my day up early so that we could venture around.

Saturday: #yogarevolution Day 28(26:00)
This was a nice, easy mid-day practice to continue the challenge. I had planned to run on Saturday but my knee was feeling a little off and I was exhausted. After taking over 2 weeks off because of my knee, I decided to be ok with an extra rest day ahead of my planned long run for Sunday.

Sunday: 7.5 miles (9:22 pace); #yogarevolution Day 29 (14:00)
I felt like a zombie when I woke up this morning and really wasn't up for the 5 miles I had planned. One mile in, I was feeling ok but I decided I would be ok with 4 miles if I needed to cut my run down. Around Mile 4, I was calculating my weekly mileage and what I needed to hit ahead of marathon training which starts in two weeks and decided to push for 5, come home, practice yoga, and then set out for another 2 miles. When I hit 5 miles, I felt really good and just kept going. I  missed my turn around and ended up running 7.5, my longest run since Philly and I felt great!

I was grateful for the short yoga practice today which featured a hip flexor stretch that I had never done that felt great following that long run.

Total Miles Run: 14
Total Minutes of Yoga: 189

This was a great week and I'm so happy to be back running. I only ran three times but I think that's a good number to hit after a few weeks off. Next week, I'll aim for 4 days of running and higher weekly mileage (but probably a shorter long run, we'll see) and get ready to kick off marathon training while ramping up for Disney Princess, which is just 4 weeks away!

If you look at the Running tab above, you'll see that I've run a lot of races. Before I moved to DC (and subsequently got hurt), I used to race all the time. When I was living in New York, I was running almost every month, mostly to get my 9+1 credit for the NYC Marathon, but also because I was hooked.

I've run six races since 2013. This year, aside from my time goals of running a sub-4 marathon and PRing the half-marathon, I want to race more. DC has so many great local races, of all distances, and I haven't run most of them. I'm also looking to travel more this year for races than I have lately. Here's a look at which races I'm planning to toe the line at this year!

Disney Princess Half-Marathon - February 26, Orlando, FL
This race falls just 10 days after my 30th birthday. What better way to ring in my 30th than by running through Disney World with one of my very best friends?

DC Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon - March 11, Washington, DC*
I love this race. If I run it, this would be my third time on the course. Right now, I might be traveling that week so I'm not sure if I can run it but I hope I get to because it is a great race and the crowd support is unbelievable.

Crystal City 5k Fridays - April, Arlington, VA
I ran one of these 5ks a few years ago. Pacers is a local running store that sponsors these races every Friday in April. I love the idea of really trying to push my 5k PR by racing every week! I usually work from home on Fridays so this wouldn't be too difficult to pull off.

New Jersey Half-Marathon - April 30, Long Branch, NJ
My uncle practically lives on this course and it's been on my radar for awhile. Alyssa and Tracy are running it this year which is really making me lean toward running!

Capitol Hill Classic - May 15, Washington, DC
This 10k runs through my favorite neighborhood in DC. I've heard great things about it and want to add it to my list of local races to run in 2017!

Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon - May 28, Ottawa, ON, Canada
I have never been to Ottawa but The Pilot flies there all the time and loves it. The course is flat and looks pretty, so why not? I really want to run a spring marathon and there isn't anything else that really jumps out at me so I've settled on Ottawa!

Richmond Marathon - November 11, Richmond, VA
I was supposed to run this in 2016 and had to change my plans, bringing me to Philly. It was easier to defer to 2017 so that's what I did.

Annapolis Running Classic - November 18, Annapolis, MD
Courtney ran this race last year and I was super impressed by the course and the swag! While I definitely won't be in half-marathon shape seven days after a marathon, I'm keeping the 10k in mind.

Since I started this blog, I've struggled with finding a way to keep track of my workouts and hold myself accountable in this little internet space. Sunday Sweats are a pretty popular post and I've decided to try them out this year, so here goes!


Currently Training For: