Disney Dopey Challenge Training Week 6

It continues.  Today called for a 3 mile run and a weight session in the gym.  I must still be tired from the combined 20 miles I ran this past weekend, because the 3 was no walk in the park (it was a run in the park, though).  It was still 90% humidity and in the mid 70’s, so a tad bit swampy.  It’s supposed to cool down some today, and we’ve actually gotten rain for the first time in like forever.

And can I just say that with the rain, it brought out like a million snails all over the place.  I don’t know where they came from, but they were everywhere.  I think today in the snail world, will forever be known as massacre day.  Now I can’t be certain, because my morning run was in the dark, but I heard and felt an awful lot of crunching under my feet.  I kept hoping they were nuts that had fallen from trees, but I have a feeling many a brave snail met his doom today.

Stole this pic from my friend. I felt I was moving as fast as this guy on my morning run.

As for the rest of the week, I’ve got 6 miles with hill repeats on Wed.  3 miles with weights on Thurs.  9 miles on Sat.  And Yoga on Sunday.  Still on course to successfully navigate the Dopey Challenge!

What about you, did you witness any exoskeletal massacres today?

Dopey Training Week 2

This past weekend saw the end of training week 2 of 18 for Disney’s Dopey Challenge.  This was basically an “off” week after last week’s “on” week.  In fact, the weekend only called for 7 miles on Saturday and cross training on Sunday.  And halleluiah, I think fall has finally arrived round these parts.  We actually got some rain at the tail end of last week.  Seems like it’s been months since it has.  We’re still far from being out of our drought, but it was nice to finally see some wet stuff fall from the sky.  And a byproduct of the rain were some cooler temps for once!  It went from being 97 one night to 67 a morning later.  So needless to say, my 7 miler felt like a breeze!!!  I actually found myself wishing it was a higher mileage week just so I could run in the cooler temps!  But I’m trying to be smart and stick to the plan.

Who put a cartoon character in charge of a major race?

After the early morning run, I did what I did last year at this time and went to cheer the Addison, TX Oktoberfest 5k.  I had a few friends running the race, but also a few thousand of people I don’t know, but I really enjoy cheering for runners in races that I’m not running – I don’t get many chances to because usually I can’t stand being at a race if I’m not racing it, but this one is different.  You see, the runners (and spectators) get free Paulaner beer.  Yeah we do!

My friend wore lederhosen during the race, so we decided to celebrate.

All the runners floated ALL the kegs, so the Saturday morning party was over by 11am.  Oh well.  On Sunday, for my cross training I went to yoga.  I usually run trails too, but figured it bee too muddee after the rain, so I took it as a sign to get a little extra rest.  B to the W, yoga was plenty of work in itself.  Our instructor kicked our downward facing booties.  I’m pretty sore today from it.  But it’s still a good feeling, ya know?  In addition, I cranked out some yardwork, which can be a workout in itself.

All in all, a good recovery weekend.  This week we’re back at it.  3 miles Tues, 5 miles (with hills) Wed, 3 more Thurs, 4 more Sat, and a fun 14 on Sunday.  There will also be a few weight training sessions throwed in there.

Hope your runs are going well too!  It was a BIG racing weekend around the country – let me hear how ya did!

-Scott

Disney Dopey Training (Week 1 Done)

If you follow this blog, then you probably know that I’m training for the Dopey Challenge and I’m following the Hal Higdon plan for this event.  The first week came and went pretty well.  The weekday runs were pretty uneventful, then came the weekend back to back runs.  The Saturday mileage is still pretty low – Only had to run 3 miles.  Then on Sunday, the plan called for 13.

I backtracked the plan, but it officially started last week.

I met up with a couple friends at White Rock Lake in Dallas.  I like to do my long runs down there because it’s scenic, there’s facilities, and there’s lots of other active people out and about.  My friend Robert was one of the friends.  He’s been getting into running more and more lately.  I was happy for him because he said it was his first time looping the lake without stopping!  My other friend Meg was acting as our pace coach (just under 9 min miles).  She’s a great runner and probably could’ve left us in the dust, but she’s coming back from injury, and she’s nice.

Anyway, the lake is a 9 mile loop, but there’s a secret Batman detour that we took to add an extra mile.  So after those 10 miles, Rob and Meg had to go, but it only left me to run about 2.5 by myself.  I started off taking a new path for me.  There’s the main path, but off to the side at certain places there’s a mystery path that I’ve never run on…until now.  It pretty much ran parallel to the main path, but went through more wooded areas and had less people on it.  I’ll have to explore more of it in the future.

Back on the main path I had less than a mile to go when I paused my gps watch to grab some water and swag from a local radio station set up on the trail.  If they post the photos, I’ll snag em and share em on this blog.  It was cool because I got a whole swag bag for a training run, just like I would at a race.  Score!

Only problem is that I forgot to restart my watch when I started running again.  I went at least half a mile more that will never be documented.  Ha!  No matter, a little extra is good, right?  For my last stretch, I took a side road off the path.  I see bikers go up this road quite a bit, but I have only done it once…in a race.  This side excursion was very basically a big hill.  People go up it apparently to get some extra work in.  It definitely got my legs and lungs burning.  But I’m glad I did because at the top of the hill it had a great view of the Dallas skyline over the lake.

I felt pretty good during this run.  It helped having friends to chat with along the way.  But what really helped was the slightly cooler temps.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still warm.  Probably around 80’s at sunrise, but that’s much better than it’s been around here.  I felt strong at the end of the run, unlike two weeks prior when it was a battle to get my 12 done.  I’m hoping this weekend was a small taste of what’s to come!

Dopey Training Week 4 (I think) Weecap

Not a typo in the title, I just invented the word for week recap.  Anyway, last week’s runs went fine.  The mileage is still low, which is frustrating, but good too.  The weekdays only had my run 10 miles total.  Then came the weekend’s back to back runs.  Saturday called for 3 miles, I went a tad further.  Sunday called for 12 miles, I didn’t go a tad further.  Sunday was hot again and humid again.  I met a friend at White Rock Lake (9 mile loop) before sunrise…it didn’t matter, the weather was still pretty miserable for running.  We did pretty good the first 7 miles, but by then the sun was up and blazing.  It was a bit of a struggle the next 3 miles, then a noticeable struggle the last 2.

Now I follow some big time runners on Twitter – Hal Higdon, Jeff Galloway, etc.  And I can’t remember who, but one of them likes to tweet that your “wall” hits at the mile of your previous long run’s last mile.  I’m finding this to be true.  So that partly explains my struggles the last couple miles.  But I also know the heat plays a role too.  And I found myself wishing for fall temps.  I have hope with the start of English football and American football, and the fact that the calendar says “September” that it hopefully it will start to cool soon.

But we got her done.  That’s what counts.  Injury free, that’s what really counts.  So on to the next week.  Keep on keepin on.  Bring it!

Dopey Training Week 2 & Unique Duathalon

So week two of my unofficial training is in the books.  It was supposed to be an easy “off” week, but I’m afraid I didn’t make it so.  I did my weekday workouts and runs as planned, but man, the heat makes it tough.  We’ve had double digit days of triple digit heat now.  And the humidity, my goodness gracious.  After I run, my clothes take over a day to dry out from the soaking sweat.  Insane.

The weekend was supposed to be an easy 4 miles on Saturday and cross train on Sunday.  But I turned the weekend into a two day duathalon.  I turned the 4 miler into 5, then went afterwards to yoga.  Sunday I did an 8 mile trail run, followed by yoga.  The trail run was fun.  I met with some friends and we ran Erwin Park.  It’s a great trail with some rather challenging parts if you choose to do them.  It’s mostly mountain bikers out there, but we did see some other runners.  We got started at 6:30 am trying to beat the heat, but we didn’t.  It’s hot at all hours.  Only bonus running that early is that the sun wasn’t leaning against our bodies right away.

As far as the second part of the two day duathalon, yoga also kicked my butt.  For people who think it’s a relaxing easy stretching time.  It is relaxing and stretching, but it’s not easy…especially after running.  It’s hard holding a series of Warrior poses on tired legs.  But hopefully doing so has made me stronger.  I’m a firm believer in yoga for endurance athletes.  It strengthens so many stabilizing and core muscles, which often get neglected by just running.  It also does help those of us unflexible types to get more bendy.  It also works all the other muscle groups that are also neglected by just running or biking.

Anyway, I was pretty sore after my “easy off” week.  But hopefully I’ll be fine for this week’s more challenging set of workouts.  Bring it!

Dopey Training Schedule

So Dopey Challenge (5k, 10k, 13.1, 26.2 in 4 days at Disney World) training doesn’t officially begin in Hal Higdon’s program until Sept, but week one the long run is 13 miles, so obviously we need to be able to run that far by that day.  Doy!  I’ve been smartly and surely raising my mileage.  Last week I ran 11 on Saturday and another 4 on the trails on Sunday.  I’ve been doing 400’s each Tues at the track.  Running on my own on Wed. And of course social running on Thursdays.

This week’s group pre-run. We looked different after running in 100+ degree temps.

Of course, I’ve been lifting weights several times a week and I try to NEVER miss my weekly yoga practice.  But anyways, since we’re about a month out, I took Hal’s plan and took his pattern and backtracked it thru today.  It at least gives me a structured plan to follow.  I had been just waking up and randomly running a random distance.  Only problem is that back tracking his plan had some pretty low mileage for some of the runs, but I figure since I’ve already been running further, I can continue to do so without messing anything up really.

The only other adaptations I want to make are adding Yasso 800’s and some Hill Repeats.  It looks like Wednsdays are the days for speed work, so that’s where I’m looking to add them.  Any suggestions for this?  Anyway, here’s the basic plan:

Doesn’t seem so bad on paper…right?

BTW, you can click on the image to enlarge it.  Anywhoodle, that’s all I got.  Here we go!

 

Dopey Challenge Trianing Plan

Who put a cartoon character in charge of a major race?

OK, so I’ve been preparing myself the past couple months for the Dopey training.  Yes, I’ve been training for my training.  Good thing too, cause I just settled on which plan to follow and Hal Higdon is the winner!  As you can see, week 1 requires you to be able to already run 13 miles at once.  So you better have done some pre-training to be ready to do that.

Not too bad, right?

Honestly, it doesn’t seem too bad.  Sure the back to back long runs will be tough, but they’re not as long as I thought they’d be.  I may add a little extra mileage, but maybe I should be smart and stick to the schedule as made.  After all, he’s the expert.  I settled on this plan because I’ve heard a lot of good things from several runners about following his plans before for marathons.  It’s worth a try.  Though I’m sure no plan is perfect since this is the inaugural edition of the Dopey, so if nobody’s done it, then maybe nobody knows the best way to prepare for it.  And maybe there is no best way to train.  I’m sure there are several plans that good for different people.  It’s not an exact science, after all.

True words. It takes a lot of work.

My only addition to his plan is I’ll continue on with my cross training during the week.  I know he has some cross training days in there, but I currently do more than that and want to continue.  I believe it is VITAL to cross train when doing distance running.  Need to keep your body strong in order to run strong.  So I’ll keep up with yoga, weight lifting, etc.  Not sure if I’m going to play soccer this fall though – I’d hate to invest in running this Dopey only to get an injury playing soccer – may have to skip a season.

Anyway, the official kickoff for this program is September 9th, 2013.  Just gotta make sure I’m ready to run 13 miles by the end of that week in addition to the other runs.  Shouldn’t be a problem.  I’m almost to that distance on my current long run and I’m basically running 5 days a week anyway.  Here’s to hoping for a successful training season and a successful Dopey completion!!!

Saturday Long run, Sunday Trail Run

So this past holiday weekend I got up on Saturday for my long run.  No specific plan as Dopey Training doesn’t start until September, but I need to able to run 13 miles for the week 1 long run, so I got’s to be ready before then.  The last couple months my long runs have been kept to 8-9 miles.  Just keeping it in check but also keeping my endurance somewhat up.  So when I started the run I went ahead and decided to go double digits for the first time since April.  It was hot, but I got er done.  I have been able to run from park to park finding drinking fountains in most of them.  Not too bad.

Sunday was Runday.  I had some friends wanting to run trails.  Sounds good to me.  I like running trails.  I like the challenge, the difference, the variety, the mental focus, and the fun of it.  It looks like our Runday trail group might keep it up for a while as several of the newbies got bit by the trail bug (not a literal bug).  I’m sure our group will grow too.  We got up early and ran Arbor Hills.  After we got breakfast and swapped stories.  Not a bad start to the day!  And we only lost 3 people during the run (don’t worry, they were all found safe later on)!

It’s best to run in the back so the leaders are 1st to find snakes and spiderwebs.

Stopped when we realized a few peeps were missing.

We ended up going 5-6 miles.  Great cross training!  But after the run I went for more xtraining – yoga.  Wasn’t sure how my legs would hold up, but they did alright.  I can’t miss yoga during Dopey training.  The stretching, stabilizing, strengthening is so vital to running!

Anyways, took a day off and back at it today with an early run and an afternoon weightlifting session.  The journey continues!

Holla!