Week 12 of my 2014 Walt Disney World Marathon training is officially in the books. To be honest, there wasn’t anything special about this week as far as training goes. I upped my weeknight runs to 6 miles (from 4 miles) in an effort to help me with those really long 20+ mile training runs. This is purely a gut call kind of thing that I’ll be putting to the test this upcoming weekend with my 23 mile training run. However, I’ve noticed on my last couple long runs that the first four miles went by pretty well and felt really comfortable. That makes sense because I had been running 4 miles twice in the week leading up to each long run. So, I thought that if I pushed up the weekday distance by two miles, it might push the beginning distance I can do with ease to 6 miles. We shall see this coming weekend.

I not only runDisney, but I’ve also run in the Rock n Roll series of races as well. As a fan of their Facebook page, I occasionally get inspirational photos crossing my news feed like this one. This quote is one that reflects my week, as far as training went. I put in 2 six-mile runs and 1 seven mile run. None of the runs were earthshatteringly fast. However, they were consistent. I finished each run with around an 11 minute, 30 second per mile average. That’s actually a really good pace for me. Each of the three training runs were completed over basically the same route (with one extra mile added on Saturday). What’s interesting to me about that is how many traffic lights stopped me. Some of the runs, I’ll get lots of red lights on the first lap of my 3 mile loop and others, it will happen on the second half. However, my finish time has remained consistent. In each run, I felt pretty strong. Although, on Tuesday, I struggled with the fifth mile and almost quit during it. However, I kept reminding myself that in this loop I do, the 2nd and 5th miles are mostly run on an incline. Once I make it to the end of those miles, I get to run mostly downhill for the 3rd and the 6th miles. Knowing the course can mean so much mentally. However, one thing that has blown me away is how well I’m handling this 6 mile distance on this course. Last year, I was running the same course in training for my first 10K race. My second lap was always so much slower than the first back then. That fifth mile used to kill me. I would find myself abandoning any hopes of maintaining my run/walk ratio during that mile. Now, a little more than a year later and I’m finishing all six miles maintaining the run/walk ratios. Progress! Of course, traffic lights do stall some of those intervals. No matter how much they stall me, I’m still able to finish all of my run intervals this year. It reminds me of this inspirational photo the Rock n Roll series folks put out…

If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be training for a full marathon this fall, I wouldn’t believe you. If you would have told me a year ago that I’d finish 3 half marathons this year, I wouldn’t have believed you. When I cross the finish line at the Walt Disney World Marathon in January it will be because I followed this quote. The training I do is necessary and it makes the impossible possible. You don’t finish a marathon in the upright position without doing all of the little things first. This week was a reminder of how important it is to do the little things. They are building blocks of success. All of these 6 and 7 miles runs will pay off huge for me on January 12, 2014 as I run 26.2 at Walt Disney World.

What races are you training for? What dreams are you pursuing? Figure out the little things you need to accomplish in order to make those dreams come true and do them. I wish you all the best as you pursue those goals.