Dopey Challenge Training: Week 13

In less than 100 days, the Dopey Challenge will begin at Walt Disney World! Tomorrow marks the end of my 13th week of training. Using Jeff Galloway's 26 week plan, I am officially at the half way mark. This is both exciting and terrifying.

This weekend will be my longest training distance- 15 miles on Saturday followed by 5 miles on Sunday. As in any training program, we've had to adjust some of the training runs to better fit our schedules. For example, we have 17 miles scheduled for October 12th. This is the same day as the Baltimore Running Festival. So, we will line up for the 5k at 8:15 am, run 3.1 miles, and then go get in our corral for the half marathon starting at 9:45am. This way, we'll get 16.1 miles of racing and the other .9 running between the starting lines.

I've also decided to run The Tomato Run (3.1 miles) on October 19 and the Gettysburg Blue-Gray Half Marathon on October 20. If you're keeping track- that's 3 back-to-back weekends of half marathon+ distances. My motto for these races? "Forward is a pace." :-)

In more exciting news, I was recently interviewed for a national news story on mud/obstacle races and the prevalence of injuries in those races. A fellow runner in an online running group that I am part of was looking for runners who had been injured in a mud run for a story (she's an executive producer for a news company)- and I just so happened to have sprained my ankle last summer during Rugged Maniac.



Smiling after a visit to the medical tent!

She reached out to me via email, we chatted on the phone, and then we set up an interview for later in the week. A few days later, a production company came to my house and filmed a 10 minute interview and some footage of Matthew and me running outside. They spent about 2 hours with us. As soon as I get the link to the final story, I'll be sure to share it here!

Chatting before the interview with a pug on my lap! Awesome!

Getting a close-up of the medals.