With my last post, I mentioned some of the dreams I have. Usually, bloggers will chart out their goals and aspirations in December or January for the upcoming year. So, why post about a goal that is a year and a half away? Because, it’s going to take a lot to get to Dopey, The Los Angeles Marathon, and The Chicago (and/or) NYC Marathon done in a year. There’s a lot of prep time required for these races. When you see an athlete at the Olympic Games, you don’t see all the work that preceded that moment. All you get is a taste of the preparation given in an interview. Yet, without the preparation before, their Olympic Moment would never happen.

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It has been more than three years since I last finished a marathon. It was magical, awesome, and one huge weight off my shoulders. By the time I got to the finish line of the 2017 TCS NYC Marathon, I was ready for a break in long distance running. However, I had no idea that I’d take this much time off. I’ve tried to re-boot my running several times over the past few years. I even signed up for the 2020 Star Wars Rival Run Challenge at WDW (that got cancelled due to COVID-19). But, none of it brought be back to running fully. So, I’m not in even good shape right now. Life has hit me pretty hard the past few years. Between being bullied by my last boss at Disney, ripping me of most of the confidence I had in myself as a worker and leading to my first (and so far only) anxiety attack, fighting as hard as I could to keep my job at Disney, loosing that fight, being unemployed, and now dealing with the grief of my dad going to heaven, it’s been rough. I now have a new Paralegal job (in a different industry) and am ready to start proving to myself that I can still do really hard things. So, why not put a marathon on the calendar? Right? How about 48. 6 miles in one month and a full marathon two months later? Then, add a World Major Marathon in the Fall? Sound about right. Don’t you think?

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When I think about training for any race, I start with the race day and build the training back. I do this to make sure there is enough time for me to properly train. Marathons are not the kind of thing where you don’t want to have trained for in advance. So….

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I got out the handy duty Jeff Galloway training plans from the runDisney web site and a calendar to see what I needed to do. First off, I wanted to know when I would need to start training for the 2023 Dopey Challenge. Without a firm race date, I started with a guess. Since the Dopey Challenge/WDW Marathon Weekend is usually the first or second weekend of January, I guessed that the Expo would start on January 3, 2023, with the Dopey Challenge starting the next day. If this is turns out to be accurate, I would need to start on the Jeff Galloway Dopey Challenge plan on June 27, 2022. That gives me a little over a year to improve my conditioning! Cool Beans!

So, what do I want to do with this year? Well, it seems like it would be a good idea to run in one half marathon before I start training for Dopey. I realize that this is not needed. But, it will give me the opportunity, to train for and run at last one long distance race as part of getting myself in better shape. So, again, working backwards, I know that….

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The Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon usually runs in the first weekend of June. Assuming that races get back to their more normal timelines in 2022, then the 2022 Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon would be run on June 5, 2022 (with the 5K the day before).

Putting my Jeff Galloway training plan for beginners running a half marathon out there, I would need to start training for the 2022 Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon on January 31, 2022. That gives me 7 months to get used to running again and rebuild my stamina to being able to run 5K’s again.

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The race I’m targeting here is the Rose Bowl 5K (formerly known as the Pasadena 5K). Again, there is no date for 2022 set currently. However, this race has been run in January the past few years (before COVID-19). So, I’m hoping that it is run before January 30, 2022.

As of now, I am considering a return to races with the 2021 Aquarium of the Pacific 5K in Long Beach on October 9, 2021. Given the $50 race entry, I’m not sure that this one is going to happen. But, if it does, I would have just over 3 months to get ready. Then, I’d have, potentially, another 3 months to improve for the Rose Bowl 5K.

In addition to the races above and the training involved, I am also going to take the next 7 months to focus on losing weight. The goal I’m setting for myself is to lose 30lbs by the time I start training for the Rock n Roll San Diego Half Marathon. Then, to lose 20-30lbs before I start training for Dopey. So, I’m aiming at a total weight loss of around 60lbs over the next year. That all seems doable on paper. This week, the focus is on making some changes in my diet and to get out and moving again. I also am going to be trying out extra exercise to add to my running training. However, I’ll get into that next time.