The Picazo Parade: January 2013

About late October I was stuck with a fitness dilemma. The program I was currently doing was coming to end. I didn’t know what to do next. I had a good momentum going and I was terrified to lose that. I started talking with some friends about running. I have never been a runner and I still do not consider myself a runner. In high school I used to hide in the baseball dugouts when we had to run the mile. I could not physically do it. I was not over weight or out of shape; I was just not a runner. I never saw the point or understood why people enjoyed it.

I came to the decision that I wanted to run a half marathon and I wanted to do it before I turned 30. I started looking for halfs to do and came across the Disney Tinkerbell Half Marathon. It was sold out, I was bummed. I for some reason had my heart set on doing this. So next best thing Craigslist! In mid November I found a lady who was selling her teams bibs. After a couple emails/phone calls I bought my bib and convinced my friend Chenin to do it with me (I more suckered Chenin into it, thank you Chenin!). We would be running under the team name “Electric Monkey”.

Thus began training… Two months to train… URG! I followed this training schedule http://www.marathonrookie.com/half-marathon-training.html I would try and do my shorter runs during the week with Julian in the stroller and my longer run on the weekend with my training buddies. I had two other Stroller Stride moms (Sharon and Robin) who also signed up for the half and another Stroller Stride mom (Sarah) who was starting to train for a full marathon. We would meet on Saturdays or Sundays and run. It became so enjoyable to meet up with these ladies and suffer together. Some mornings we meet early (like 6:30am) and other mornings it was freezing (coldest was 21 degrees). I would not have been able to do it without these ladies.

We arrived to Disney Saturday checked into our hotel and got settled. Then we headed over to the expo. It was packed.

We picked up our bibs.

There were a bunch of cool vendors and stuff to look at but everything was SUPER expensive.

While at the expo we got fairy dusted.

After the expo we headed back to our room. We hung out for a little bit then decided we should go grab an early dinner. We went to cheesecake factory. We enjoyed a nice dinner and got some cheesecake to go (I figured I would be burning extra calories the next day J). I got the red velvet cake and cheesecake combo deal it was AMAZING! Anyways… we tried to go to bed early but I think not being in my own bed, plus the excitement, and being with friends, it was hard. Our alarms started going off at 2:30 am, yes I said 2:30 am! Boo! I maybe got 4 hours of sleep. We got up, put on our tinkerbell gear, and headed to catch the shuttle.