Training: Week 5

Ran a total of 20k this week (not all at once)!!

• Tues – 5k
• Thurs – 5k
• Sat – 10k

Hit my first weather related ‘speed bump’ this week. Thursday morning was pouring with rain – in fact it had been raining most of the night. I decided I didn’t really want to go out and run in the wet if I didn’t have to as I’d only end up injuring myself. So I took my running gear to work and ran around the Fitzroy gardens during my lunch break (fortunately my workplace has a shower!)

Hit two significant milestones this week. The first - my run around the Fitzroy gardens ended up being my fastest 5k to date. Not sure if it was because it was later in the day, it was light outside or because there were other ‘more serious’ looking runners training in the park making me go a bit faster. It could also be that my training is paying off. Whatever the reason, I was stoked to run my first sub 30min 5K (time 29:33).

The second milestone came today, when I ran 10k for the first time in my training (I ran 10k once before years ago and it nearly killed me). Felt pretty strong today, but was ready to finish by the end. My legs were starting to get bit tired. Really pleased that I maintained the same pace for the 10K that I had for the 9k run I did last week. I think for runs longer than 10k I’m going to have to start thinking about fuelling. Picked up some Gu Chomps this afternoon, so I’ll try them on my next 10K+ long run.

I’m quite amazed at what I have been able to achieve in the past 5 weeks of training. I’m an NOT a runner and certainly not athletic. This is all a big experiment. If you are reading this and even vaguely think you might be interested in doing a runDisney race, I say give it ago – you might surprise yourself!

I’m now toying with the idea of doing the Dopey (crazy I know!!). I’ll be doing the 5k with my Dad (probably more of a shuffle), and I can do the 10K pretty comfortably now. Still trying to talk Dad into doing the 10k– we’ll see. I plan to do the full marathon – so it occurred to me I only (only!!) need to do one more race to complete both the Goofy and Dopey challenges.

Look, I have no idea if it’s even possible to complete such a thing. Maybe I’m crazy to even think it given I have never even run a half or full marathon before. But my training is going well so far and I am enjoying the running. I’m sure the Dopey is going to sell out – so I might just sign up and see how I go. I can always ‘drop’ the half if I don’t think I can go the distance by January.