After running a few half marathons I had been entertaining the idea of running a full marathon (I mean it only seemed like the next logical step?) I knew I wanted my first marathon to be at Disney since my first half had been there, so last year I finally pulled the plug and signed up. I chose to just register for the marathon and not any of the challenges. The Goofy challenge is the half and full, and the Dopey challenge is all 4 races (5k, 10k, half & full). I was already intimidated enough by the idea of running 26.2 miles I couldn't add 3 more races on top of that! I know a lot of people do go for all 4 for their first marathon, but I just couldn't do it!
Unfortunately I did not keep up with my blog to journal about my training journey, so I will try to remember the highlights now. I started my training in June of last year. There are many different marathon training plans out there. The most popular for runDisney is Jeff Galloway. He uses interval based running based on the run walk run method. I have never been an interval runner. I know it works for a lot of people, but after running several half marathons continuously I wasn't sure I wanted to switch. The miles after 13 did make me nervous so I thought well I will take it week by week and if I start struggling when I get into the higher miles maybe I will try out some intervals. I did loosely follow the Galloway schedule. He has you run for 30 minutes twice a week and than run your long run on the weekend. The long run would increase every other week until the end and then it was every 3 weeks. I am also a member of Orange Theory Fitness. OTF is an interval based work out that is a 1 hour high intensity workout that incorporates treadmill work with rowing and weight training all while being monitoring while wearing a heart rate monitor. The workouts goal is to maintain a target heart rate zone that will stimulate your metabolism and increase energy so you will burn calories upto 36 hours post workout. Since the majority of the classes you spend 30 minutes on the treadmill, I used my OTF classes as my cross training days. My schedule was to attend OTF classes twice a week. Run fast 2-4 miles once a week, my long run on the weekend, and I also incorporated some weights and ab work. For the most part I stuck pretty closely to my schedule. I always made sure I hit my long runs, but life does get in the way sometimes.
