Happy Tuesday, lovelies! This tuesday is extra special and that’s because TRAINING STARTS TODAY!

175 days from now, I’ll be in the happiest place on earth, lacing up my shoes and setting off on the first leg (hah-running puns) of my first ever Dopey Challenge!

What is the Dopey Challenge, you may ask? Well, it’s a lot of things.

It’s waking up at 3 a.m. for the better half of a week.

It’s transforming yourself into your favorite Disney characters only to sweat off all your makeup and lose your ribbons.

 

It’s pasta parties and 5-Hour Energy goo.

It’s learning to love bio-freeze and geeking out over runDisney merch.

It’s four days in Disney that are so worth counting down for–at least, I expect nothing less.

Last year I conquered my first half marathon during the Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend and it was incredible! My friend ran it with me and we took the course by storm as princesses-in-crime.

The atmosphere was amazing and so encouraging. Random strangers cheer you on and people have the funniest signs. You take pictures with characters and run through the Cinderella Castle arches to get that perfect picture.

I loved my first runDisney experience so much I was [captain] hooked! This coming January I’ll be running not only the half marathon again, but also the 5k, 10k, and full marathon. And that, my dear friends, is the Dopey Challenge. Four days. Four races. In my favorite place in the world.

I know when I signed up for the run last year I was scouring the internet for tips and stories from runDisney, so I’ll keep posting as we go, but I wanted to start by giving you a look into my training schedule up until January!

Trainer: I’m using a plan from Hal Higdon, who my friend recommended. She has a long list of successes, but my favorite thing about her plans so far is that she explains why they’re set up the way they are and how that will help you on race day and every day up until then. Beyond that, she developed a plan specifically for Dopeys like me and I can’t wait to start it!

Preface: The plan is actually 18 weeks long, but designed for people who are in the habit of hitting the pavement already (which is–intermittently–me). If you’re reading this around the time I’m writing, you might notice I have more than 18 weeks before race day(s). Good math-ing, friend! I’ve decided to take these next eight weeks to get back to a good starting point for this program, and it’s going to be really gradual and slow to start. I can currently run 3 miles comfortably and go on long run/walks of 5-6 miles. [More on why your Nike’s were made for walking to come.]

Checkpoints: One of the best things about signing up for races is accountability. I thrive on deadline pressure (it’s just a journalist thing) and giving myself deadlines is a good way of keeping myself on track. I did this to some extent last year, but with 5k’s and nothing longer. This year, I wanted to challenge myself to complete a half marathon somewhere around September or October to make sure come January I wasn’t going for this insane challenge without having run a race for almost a year. I’m running the Navy Air Force Marathon in D.C. in September and it looks like it’ll be a blast! [I can’t explain how amazing it is to run around the monuments, but I’m going to try, for sure.]

The Extra’s: Hal’s advice was not to go too crazy with strength training if you’re not used to it. I usually do 3-5 strength workouts per week as part of Kayla Itsines’s BBG program [Any other bbg girls out there?] which I am going to try and keep up. As for cross-training, it’s really important to let your muscles recover properly after a long run, and I’ve recently fallen back in love with biking, partially because it’s convenient and partially because I feel very much like this when I do it:

That is, until I remember how badly I need to re-acquaint myself with biking because it feels like this:

Either way, biking is a really great way to get my legs pumping in a slightly different way from running and since there’s plenty to do and see within a few miles of me, I’m really looking forward to making a habit of it!

The Schedule: The basic jist is that I’ll be running four to five times per week. The mid-week runs, tuesday through thursday, are a cute little sandwich of short runs and then I have rest days on monday and friday as buffers for my long runs. The mileage goes up gradually, but I get little breaks and it’s not a constant “run farther than you did yesterday” tempo.

What makes this program unique is that there are a few key weeks that mirror the Dopey Challenge in that I’ll be running consecutively starting on thursday, to get my body ready for that!

I am so so excited to start training and preparing for another amazing runDisney experience! Anyone else running with the mouse this year? (: