Y’all, runDisney West Coast has finally given us images of the medals for the upcoming Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. Let’s just say, it was worth the wait! I’m sooooooooo excited about getting to earn that Disneyland Half Marathon medal with Buzz, Woody, and Jesse on the medal. A closer look at the medal also shows building blocks in the middle with the letter “D” in color. As a Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear fan, I’m beyond excited for this race weekend and this medal. The other medals look amazing as well. I love, love the Incredibles 5K medal and the Monsters, Inc. 10K medal does not disappoint! Even the Up Kid Races medallion looks amazing! The only slightly disappointing medal is the Inaugural Disneyland Double Dare medal. I totally get that this medal is all about Pixar the animation studio. However, It’s not as cool to me as the others. So, I’m sort of glad I won’t be running the Double Dare. I will say, though, if this were the 5th anniversary medal of the Dumbo Double Dare, it would have been too tempting to pass up. I do hope that those who run the double dare for the 5th straight year will get credit as a legacy. After all, it’s not their fault that the race name changed in the 5th year.

Now, down to business of recapping my workouts. After taking two weeks off due to illness (one planned, one not), I was back out and running a couple weeks ago. I decided to go for a 3 mile distance to get myself back into the grove. I know that there are parts of the country (if not the world) where 70 degrees at 5am seems cool. For me, this was the warmest temps I’ve had to deal with on an early morning run. Thankfully, without the sun up, it wasn’t too bad at all.

Here are the splits. As you can see, mile 1 was right on par with what I’d normally do. I felt alright through the first mile. However, as I got close to the end, I could feel that fatigue start to settle in as the incline started. Taking two weeks off is brutal. In mile 2, I could feel that I was going slow. I actually remember thinking to myself…”welcome back to running!” Even in the struggle, it felt good to be out and running again. The 13:09 time wasn’t ideal. But, I reminded myself over and over again that it was okay to be slow on this day. By mile 3, the time off came shining through as I didn’t make up much time. I am glad, however, that I finished this run in under 38 minutes. As I powered through that last mile, all I wanted to do was beat 38 minutes and I did! So, even though this run was slow for me, it was still a victory!

After a day off, I was back out the following Thursday! I kept the same intervals as the day before. With cooler temps, I knew I’d have a chance to improve on Tuesday’s time. This would be my last 3 mile run of this cycle. I was determined to make sure the following week I was back up to 4 miles.

Here are the splits. I was a few seconds slower in mile 1 than on Tuesday. That was perfectly okay with me. The improved time was due to finding my running legs again and have the ability to continue pressing on. As you can see, mile 2 was much better. I even felt better as I was going along! At around 2.5 miles, I switched my run/walk intervals from 30/90 to 30/60 because I could. Mile 3 was so much more comfortable to me on this day vs. the Tuesday run! I was hoping to take an entire minute off my Tuesday run, but it wasn’t meant to be. So, 48 seconds would have to do. It was good to be back and running again!

Over the weekend, I knew my training might take a hit and it did. I got to sing with friends from the Disney Cast Choir for the d23 Expo. On Friday evening, I had a rehearsal for the Parks and Resorts Presentation. Did you hear about the story of the Green Mickey Balloon? Well, I not only sang on “When You Wish Upon a Star” to close the Parks and Resorts Presentation, but, I got to go out and hand out some of those Green Mickey balloons. It was kind of crazy. When I got out on the floor to hand them out, I was mobbed. The strings holding up the balloons got tangled up after I gave our 3 or 4 of the 10 I had. Fortunately, a guy nearby has scissors and we cut at the knot and everyone got their balloon!

Sunday, I was up and out the door like I was heading down for a runDisney race. For the second performance, we got to sing in the Lion King panel to open Sunday morning. There were around 250 of us singing “Circle of Life” with Carmen Twillie (who recorded the song for the soundtrack)! This was soooooooo much fun!

Here’s the video of the performance. You won’t see me because I’m out of the range of the camera. However, it lets you know what I was doing.

After the performance, it was a quick change and I was off to the d23 Expo!

Of course, the highlight for me was seeing the model of the Star Wars Lands up close and personal.

There were some awesome backdrops for pics to make us feel like we were in the land! I seriously can’t wait for 2019 and the opening of this new land at Disneyland. Although, the wait times might cause me to delay my first visit.

All the fun of the d23 Expo weekend took its toll on me. I was exhausted with no time to recover. I ended up pushing my Tuesday run to Wednesday instead. It brought about the return to 4 miles in the mid-week runs. I ran a 30/90 run/walk interval the whole way. I was still feeling the effects of a crazy busy weekend with no real time to recover afterwards. Honestly, my expectations were low on this run. I really wanted to beat 53 minutes at the outset and did!

The splits are predictably slow. Here’s the thing about this run. Not only was it my first 4 miles in about a month, but I turned my ankle about a half mile into the run. I thought for sure this run had ended only a half mile into it. However, I stopped for a minute or two to catch my breath and test out the ankle. I knew there was a few places I could turn around and not complete the 4 miles. There is also a point of no return. So, I got to my run/walk intervals but took it easy. At first, there was pain when I walked, but none when I ran. So, I thought…that’s good. The pain gradually subsided to where I was pain free by the end of mile 2. So, I ended up finishing all 4 miles! Considering how the run began, I’ll take it.

On Thursday, I headed out to make it running on back to back days. I initially thought about switching to a 60 second walk break in mile 2, but opted against that. Here’s how it turned out….

I was really happy with how mile 1 turned out! It’s amazing how much faster you can be when you don’t twist your ankle in mile 1! It’s not a great mile for me. But, it was faster and I was happy with that as I headed into mile 2. As you can see, even mile 2 was a faster mile for me than the previous day. So, I told myself that all I had to do was finish in a similar manner as the day before and I’d finish with a faster time! Mile 3 was my fastest mile of the day! I was so happy to be under 38 minutes heading into mile 4! By the end of mile 4, I was super happy with my time. I had thought I’d beat my Wednesday time by a full minute and I beat it by more! Yes, I felt like I was back on a good path!

So, after the great finish on Thursday, I thought I was back on my way. Then, around lunch time, I started feeling not so good. I didn’t even finish half of my lunch and had no appetite the rest of the day. By the time I left work, I had a slight fever and I could feel it. It was the sort of day where you’re sort of just hanging on until it’s time to end the work day. By 7:30pm, the vomit came and I was out for the count. I took Friday off from work to recover and felt better by the end of the day. However, it made me skittish about running the scheduled 11 miles on Saturday. After all, I hadn’t eaten a full meal since Thursday’s breakfast. So, I decided to skip the run to make sure I was okay.

I didn’t run on Sunday either because I didn’t get to bed on time. It was going to be a warm day. So, instead we had a family fun day at the park. Colton LOVED the swing!

Well, that gets us all caught up. I can’t wait to earn my Toy Story medal at the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend! Now, it’s back to training for me.