Training to Taste: A Wine & Dine 2016 Training Report

CherieFran

Mouseketeer
Joined
Mar 29, 2016
Hi all! In celebration of signing up for Lumiere’s Challenge yesterday (woohoo!), I have finally joined the DISboards after a while of lurking. Thanks for all the past info that I have silently absorbed!

I figured that starting a training journal may help hold me accountable in my training. I have the pretty consistent habit of putting together a great training plan and then skipping, like, a third of my runs. :guilty:

Before I jump into logging my training:

INTRODUCTIONS!

My name is Cherie, and I live in the DC area with my two-year-old pug, Mushu (named after the Chinese food but spelled like the Mulan character). His favorite Disney character is Mickey.


MickeyMushu.jpg

Although I haven’t run a Disney race since 2013, Disney is what started me on my path to running. During my first year of college, I made my very first trip to Disney World (what has now become basically an annual mother/daughter trip with my mom), and it just happened to be during the 2003 WDW Marathon. I saw runners making their way through Animal Kingdom and thought it would be super cool to do that some day. Of course, at that point, I wasn’t and had never been a runner. I made a few failed attempts to start running over the next several years, but it never really stuck.


Finally, in mid-2010, I moved from the East Coast to Texas for graduate school and decided that my new home’s lack of winter/snow meant that I should finally, finally take up running. I started from zero. Literally, I couldn’t run for 2 minutes. And slowly, slowly worked my way up. I ran my first half marathon in December 2011 (with some shorter races beforehand). Once I accomplished that, I decided I was finally ready to take the plunge and sign up for the WDW Marathon. In January 2013, 10 years after I put it on my bucket list, I ran the 20th anniversary WDW Marathon!

DisneyMarathon.jpg

Marathons are rough, but I had such a good time that I signed up for the inaugural Dumbo Double Dare and completed that in 2013 as well for my Coast-to-Coast medal.

DDD.jpg

(I just realized I'm wearing the same shorts in both pics. I own more than one pair of running shorts - I promise!)

Immediately after my trip to Disneyland (like, the day after I got home), I moved half way across the country to DC and haven’t been able to make a Disney race happen since. I’ve run 1 more marathon (Marine Corps – great race but, again, blech, marathons are super hard), 11 total half marathons and a smattering of 5Ks, 10Ks, 5 milers, and 10 milers. The half marathon distance is definitely my favorite – feels like a big accomplishment to finish but doesn’t take the tons of time in training or beat you up the way the marathon does.


So, anyway, I’ve wanted to do another runDisney race for a while. I had my eye on the Wine & Dine Half for a few years (I’ve never been to Disney during the Food and Wine Festival), but wasn’t necessarily thrilled about running a half marathon late at night. I am much more an early morning person. I know a lot of people were disappointed when they announced they were switching to a morning race but that was a big bonus for me. That, plus the cute themes (Remi! Lumiere!), convinced me that this was the year to get back to runDisney. Happily, I survived the stressful gauntlet of registration yesterday, so now I am ready to get started planning and training!!!
 
I'm excited for you for your upcoming training/race...but I'm more excited that you have a picture of a pug in a Mickey outfit...OMG!!!!

Looking forward to following along! And feel free to include more Mushu pictures :)
 
Welcome to the group of former lurkers and now avid posters. One of the best decisions I've made. Excited to follow along in your running journey! I concur with @roxymama with more Mushu pictures. That dog looks like so much fun!
 
Joining in on your report. The 2013 Disney marathon was my first marathon. I don't know how you look so good in that picture after completing it because it was so hot!!

We'll need photographic evidence that you do, in fact, own more than one pair of shorts however.

Mushu is adorable. Nothing like a pug with his tongue hanging out to make a person smile. Looking forward to reading more.
 


I'm excited for you for your upcoming training/race...but I'm more excited that you have a picture of a pug in a Mickey outfit...OMG!!!!

Looking forward to following along! And feel free to include more Mushu pictures :)

Thanks! More Mushu pictures can be arranged! :)

Welcome to the group of former lurkers and now avid posters. One of the best decisions I've made. Excited to follow along in your running journey! I concur with @roxymama with more Mushu pictures. That dog looks like so much fun!

Thanks for the welcome! Mushu pictures with every update. Got it! paw:

Joining in on your report. The 2013 Disney marathon was my first marathon. I don't know how you look so good in that picture after completing it because it was so hot!!

We'll need photographic evidence that you do, in fact, own more than one pair of shorts however.

Mushu is adorable. Nothing like a pug with his tongue hanging out to make a person smile. Looking forward to reading more.

Haha! I looked like a tomato in my pics around Mile 20! I think all the walking I did in the last 6 miles helped cool me down some. And I have those same shorts in 4 other colors. When you find something that works...
 
Week of 3/28 - 4/3
Monday: 3 miles/27:00
Ran on the treadmill at the office gym during lunch. My office moved in December and I have a much longer commute than I used to, so I've been trying to get all my runs during the week done at lunch. This usually means the treadmill, which I don't love but is the most efficient thing for the schedule. I ran the NYC half marathon on 3/20. I went into it feeling really undertrained (my longest training run this round was 10.5 miles) but ended up having a really great race (second fastest half marathon ever!). Although the post-race soreness died down after a couple of days, my legs were still feeling all jello-y after every running attempt (or even long walks) for the rest of the week. This was the first day I felt like I could actual accomplish a regular run as planned.


Wednesday: 3 miles/26:41
I work from home most Wednesdays so had a nice mid-afternoon run outside in the beautiful spring weather. Unfortunately I’m allergic to all those lovely, blooming trees, so I was a sniffle-y mess by the end, but otherwise this run felt really good.

Friday: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Expo

Last fall I entered the lotteries for both the NYC Half Marathon and the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race hoping that I would get into one. They held their drawings within a week of each other, and I guess I was having a lucky streak because I got into both! Unfortunately they were only two weeks apart. The NYC Half was really, really cold, but the race was a blast and I was thrilled (and surprised) with my time. I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 miler last year when it coincided perfectly with the peak bloom of the cherry blossoms and was a beautiful day (although there was an accident on the course right before the start that they had to divert around so it ended up as a 9.39 miler instead). This year, the trees bloomed much earlier so the blossoms were gone.

The Expo for this race is held at the National Building Museum which is, appropriately, in a super beautiful building in downtown DC built in the 1870s!

Building museum.jpg

I stopped by after work on Friday and picked up my bib and race t-shirt. Took a quick spin around to see if there was any merchandise I couldn't live without (there wasn't). I did end up signing up for the Navy-Air Force half marathon in September. After signing up for Wine & Dine, I was debating whether or not to sign up for another race in the fall. I ran the Navy-Air Force half in 2014 and set my current PR (on my birthday, no less!). I was thinking about another local race in October that I've never done before but decided that Wine & Dine will be my new race for the season, and I will try for a new PR at Navy-Air Force (goodness knows that Wine & Dine won't be run for speed! :D). Signing up at the expo meant a $10 discount and avoiding the annoying processing fees associated with online registration, so I pulled the trigger!

Sunday: 4 miles/37:59
So…this was Cherry Blossom 10 miler day. My alarm went off at 5 am, and I checked the weather. 37 degrees, 38 mph wind.

There was a high wind warning in effect for the area from Saturday night through Sunday morning with gusts 60+ mph. The race had communicated a number of changes on Saturday afternoon/evening, including: no mile markers/time clocks on the course, no signage and no sound system at the start/finish, no extra tents/no post-race awards, half the water stops cancelled. I totally understand why they made these changes. They were trying to remove anything that could become a projectile in a big gust of wind. But it just did not sound like fun. When I woke up all I could think about was how cold and miserable I was before and for the first 2 miles of the NYC Half (even though it was a great race after that). This was basically just as cold plus crazy winds! So, lamely, I bagged it, rolled over, and went back to sleep. I semi-regret it because FOMO, but not too much because I just raced 2 weeks ago. On a super silly note, I was relieved to see on social media later that the medal was not (in my opinion) as awesome as last year, so at least I'm not regretting missing the bling!

Last year's race/medal:
Cherry Blossom.jpg

This year's medal (stolen from the internet):
image1.PNG

Late this afternoon after it warmed up some and the winds mostly died down, I went out for a short "long run." The random time and food eaten today did not make for great feels but glad to at least get some miles in today.

So now I don't have another race until September. I need to figure out my training plans but will probably just coast for the next couple of weeks trying to be somewhat consistent in keeping baseline mileage.

And, by popular request, I end with Mushu and Pluto:

Mushu.jpg
 
I don't blame you one bit for skipping the run. Running in crazy high winds and cold temps is NOT fun. The location of that expo though...WOW! Gorgeous. The shots from last year look beautiful though and the medal is awesome.

Mushu on top of Pluto? Cuteness overload.
 


Week of 4/4 - 4/10
A pretty uneventful week as far as training goes…

Wine & Dine Plans:

Definitely the running-related highlight of the week - I bought my plane tickets for Wine & Dine weekend!! I wasn't necessarily planning to buy them so early but I got a fantastic deal flying down on Southwest and back on JetBlue. It'll be a pretty short trip for me as I don't have a ton of vacation time to spare and am most likely doing this as a solo trip (my first). I'm flying down Thursday night after work and flying back midday on Monday. Hooray for plans!

Tuesday: 3 miles/26:48

Ran on the treadmill at the office gym. Before I got lazy a few weeks before my half marathon, I had worked up to a pretty decent pace on the treadmill using the first mile to ramp up, running max speed for one mile, and gradually slowing down for the third. Trying to build back up to the previous speed I had about a month and a half ago.

Wednesday: 2 miles/24:44

I don't know what the problem was but I just did not feel like running. Maybe because I wasn't able to work from home today. I almost skipped the gym altogether but managed to force myself to go down at lunch. Even when I got on the treadmill, though, I just wasn't feeling it. I tried to run for a minute, then did some walking with a high incline. The incline started making my back hurt after a few minutes, so I took it back down and then did some random run/walking with no real plan. Managed to grind out 2 miles. Better than nothing.

Thursday: 3 miles/26:36

Another day on the treadmill at the office gym. Shook off whatever was the problem the day before and went back to my routine of slowly ramping up my speed.

Sunday: 4 mile hike

I flew to Los Angeles for a long weekend to visit a college friend. The weather forecast for the weekend was looking pretty rainy, and since I'm not really training for anything right now I didn't plan any runs. Luckily, the weather on Sunday was beautiful, and we were able to go for a fairly strenuous hike in Temescal Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. The views were awesome. Although the hike wasn't too taxing cardio-wise, it did do a number on my body. My right hip has been super sore the last two days. The hike definitely didn't offset all the weekend eating, though, but the trip was a blast.

View from part-way up the trail:
IMG_3680.jpg

Always happy to get back to this face:

IMG_3444.jpg

 
Following along! I will be in DC in 2 weeks and all of those lovely spring pictures are making me excited! I hope to get a couple of runs in while I'm there. Love your cute dog btw!
 
Exciting trip planning news. It always feels great to get that airfare booked and congrats on getting a great deal.

The shot of that view on your hike is incredible!!!
 
Following along! I will be in DC in 2 weeks and all of those lovely spring pictures are making me excited! I hope to get a couple of runs in while I'm there. Love your cute dog btw!

Thanks and welcome! Cherry blossoms are gone but other pretty trees are still blooming. The weather this weekend was fantastic for running. Hopefully it'll stay that way for the next few weeks for you to enjoy!

Exciting trip planning news. It always feels great to get that airfare booked and congrats on getting a great deal.

The shot of that view on your hike is incredible!!!

I feel like I need to mentally move about $100 from the price of the race to the price of the plane tickets! The plane tickets would still be a good price and the race wouldn't seem quite so crazy expensive! :D

The hike views were great that day. You could see for miles!
 
Week of 4/11 - 4/17
I always put 5 runs on my calendar for the week with the hope of accomplishing at least 4. Lately, though, I've been having a tough time getting in more than 3. This week Mr. Mushu torpedoed a couple of runs. I was working from home on Friday when Mushu starting hacking away with a terrible cough. Spent the time allocated for my Friday run at the vet where they diagnosed him with suspected kennel cough (like doggie bronchitis), probably from spending the previous weekend at doggie daycare. He was sent home with antibiotics, a cough suppressant, and instructions to avoid other dogs for a week. Mushu is a super social guy so staying away from other dogs is no fun at all. On top of that, we were supposed to go to a pug event in DC on Saturday afternoon that I had been looking forward to for weeks. So bummed that we had to miss it! Meanwhile, although the cough medicine was very strong, it seemed to take several doses to kick in, so Mushu spent most of Friday night pacing the apartment and coughing up a storm. Neither one of us got much sleep. I think my longest stretch of sleep was just over an hour. When Saturday morning rolled around, I was in no mood to run. Later in the day, I got caught up in errands and such and never got back to it.

How Mushu spent most of his weekend :(pug::

IMG_3706.JPG

Wednesday: 3 miles/26:38
Lunchtime office treadmill run. Continued with the same pace that I left off with before my trip. Run felt pretty good after being away from it for 5 days.

Thursday: 2.5 miles/24:10

Another lunchtime office treadmill run. Maybe today was payback for vacation. My legs just felt like lead. Threw some walk intervals in at around 3:1 ratio based on distance (.3 run, .1 walk) and got through it.

Sunday: 5 miles/46:00
My "longer" run of the week. The weather was running perfection. 50 degrees to start. No clouds. No wind. So, so nice! I live about a mile and change from the Potomac River, so for my long runs, I tend to run to the river and then run on the Mount Vernon Trail, which is technically a national park. The trail is about 18 miles long. I am about in the middle, so I can run north towards/into DC or south towards Mount Vernon. I usually run south, especially in the summer, as there is more shade and water fountains in that direction. I headed south today but only had a little bit of trail time as half the distance was running to and from the trail from my apartment.

My strategy on long runs is to walk for 1 minute at the end of every mile to help control my pace and give my knees a little break from the pounding. Stuck to strategy today and the run felt great.

On a clear day you can see forever (or all the way to the Capitol - about 8-ish miles from this point):

image1.JPG

And zoomed in so you can actually see it :teeth::

image2.JPG
 
I'm sorry Mushu was sick! Hope he's all better now. That run outside did seem perfect! Weather like that- especially after winter- is something I appreciate so much more as a runner than I did before.
 
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Poor Mushu. I hope he's doing better. I had some sick doggies at my house with a GI bug a couple of weeks ago. Sick doggies are not fun. :(

What a beautiful place to be able to run!!!
 
Week of 4/18 - 4/24
I had a pretty good week, running-wise. And I'm happy to report that Mushu is doing much better and his quarantine has been lifted! He's very happy to be able to play with other dogs again! Today he's back to being a rascal while "helping" with laundry:

IMG_3356.jpg

Tuesday: 3 miles/25:57

Mushu's dog walker didn't want to walk him this week for fear of spreading his germs around. So I was working a strange schedule where I went into the office in the mornings, commuted home at lunch to walk Mushu, and then worked at home for the rest of the day. So I was freed from the office treadmill this week and instead got to take advantage of the spring weather to run outside after work! It was actually a little toasty warm (in the low 80s but some nice high clouds defusing the sun) but it didn't seem to slow me down. Training for my first marathon while living in Texas has made me pretty impervious to the heat (100 degrees used to be my threshold for whether or not I'd go for a run after work. 99 degrees was a go). Anyway, I felt strong on this run.

Wednesday: 3 miles/26:07

About 10 or 12 degrees cooler than the day before but no clouds to temper the sun's rays. Felt a little harder to get started but settled into a good run once I got going. It's interesting how much faster my pace is when left to my own devices than when I am running on the treadmill. I suppose this means I should be pushing myself harder on the treadmill but it usually feels like I am operating on pretty much max effort. I think the problem is probably mental - I still kinda hate the treadmill.

Thursday: 2 miles/17:23

Worked a little later than planned trying to get to a good stopping point on a project and had a bunch to do before going out of town Friday/Saturday, so I cut this run a mile shorter than planned. I think it probably was good to do that anyway given the pretty hard effort I had put in the previous two days.

Sunday: 6 miles/56:19

Another perfect weather day for a long run. Low 50s and sunny. Love it so much! I had to get a bit creative with my route today as there was a local 10 mile race between me and my usual running route (I love this particular race and ran it the last two years but opted not to sign up this year because I thought I might be out of town. Was pretty jealous when I saw how great the weather was). I did some creative weaving through neighborhood streets until I got north of the finish line/finish festival before I could cut over to the water. Kept to walking for one minute after every mile and felt pretty strong. My knee was starting to complain a little bit in the last half mile or so. I usually tape my knee if I'm going to be running for more than an hour. I debated whether to tape it and decided not to bother. No major harm done, I think, but I will tape it for 6 miles next time.

 
Glad Mushu is feeling better!

Sounds like you had a good training week. It's funny when I first started running it was all treadmill running before my husband convinced to start running outside. WOW! What a difference. Now I dread anytime I have to run on the treadmill.
 
Glad Mushu is feeling better!

Sounds like you had a good training week. It's funny when I first started running it was all treadmill running before my husband convinced to start running outside. WOW! What a difference. Now I dread anytime I have to run on the treadmill.

Right? It's amazing what a mental difference being outside makes!
 
Week of 4/25 - 5/1
My parents were in town visiting this week, so I used that as an excuse to do very little running. Let's say that it was a planned "step back" week, shall we?

Monday: 2.5 miles/22:42

Starting Monday on the treadmill at work. I was feeling pretty beat up from running Sunday without taping my knee - regretting that decision. I attempted to run my usual progression but at the 1.5 mile mark I was hurting, so I did some walking and then some run/walk intervals to get me to 2.5 miles before I called it quits.

Tuesday: 2.5 miles/22:18

Another day at the treadmill at work. This time, I did the run/walk intervals from the start. I probably shouldn't have run another day in a row, but I knew that my schedule for the week was going to make runs harder to come by so I didn't want to miss this day.

Friday: 2 miles/24:26

A whole week of treadmill-only running. Boo. I was feeling pretty rough from a late night at a baseball game the night before. Did mostly walking with some running in the mix to get something on the books.

Training plans:

One thing I did accomplish this week was to put together my training plan for the next 6 months or so. I'm hoping for a shiny new half marathon PR at a race 8 weeks before Wine & Dine weekend. I've never really been one to follow complex training plans. I usually look at a couple and then cobble together my own plan guided by a gradual increase in my long run and trying to stick to the 10% mileage increase rule. But I've never really done specific workout runs (speed, tempo, etc.) for my non-long runs. I just go out and run them. When I started running on the treadmill at work in December I started doing what were really informally tempo runs. I think they really helped me to get stronger than I realized for the half I ran in March. So I am going to give this training cycle a more formal focused effort. I decided to use Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2 training plan. It focuses on speed (Intermediate 1 focuses on endurance) so will hopefully help me to achieve my PR goal. I'll be out of commission for about 10 days at the beginning of July on a cruise to Alaska (I'll bring running gear but am not planning on training, per se), so I've built that into the training plan. I had about 6 weeks before I needed to start the plan, so I'm going to attempt to do the first two weeks of the plan on repeat a few times to test it out and solidify my base. I also used a post-marathon recovery plan as the basis for recovering and building back between the PR-goal race and W&D weekend. The fun starts next week!

Mushu is excited about it:
IMG_2823.jpg
 
Hi Cheria! I'm following along but am terrible about commenting. Great job getting some running in this week, always tough with house guests.

Love Musha, he's sooo cute!
 

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