Goofy Challenge Training....Whoa!

For the past 3 weeks or so, my weekly running mileage has gone up significantly due to our Goofy Challenge Training. I transitioned out of Triathlon training into lots and lots of running. For those unfamiliar with Goofy- it's Disney's marathon and a half. Essentially, we run the Disney Half on a Saturday in January, and then turn around and run the full marathon on Sunday. Our training plan involves back to back Saturday/Sunday longish runs.

The first weekend, we ran 5 miles around Annapolis on Saturday, and 10 miles down to Thomas Point Park on Sunday. I was a little tired, but it didn't take too much of a toll. Last weekend, we had Rosh Hashanah services to sing in the AM (which involved standing for almost 3 hours!), and ran the Bay Ridge 5 mile loop around 4 PM. Sunday AM, we ran 11 miles on the B&A Trail. It was a tough run for me...being on my feet so much on Saturday and running late in the day didn't give me enough recovery, I guess.

My old Achilles issue seemed to be bothering me a bit on Monday after the 11 miles on Sunday. It went away quickly, though, and as I assessed it, I think it was more likely a tight calf...from 3 hours standing in heels and all of the abuse I put my feet through that weekend! We will see... I took a couple days off from running just in case. Last night's 3 miles was easy with no pain, so I'm hoping that will help.

We have 10 miles on the schedule for Sunday. We were supposed to run 6 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday as an "easy" week, but my training partner and I have rehearsal at 9:30 and busy days the rest of Saturday, so we are making it a particularly easy week. Next week will only be a Sunday run as well since we are going to attempt the Metric Marathon. Gulp. 16.3 hilly miles...and I likely will come in last. Seriously. Only about 100 or so runners and they are all fast.

So far, I am enjoying the training. We are at the beginning of a long road, though, so we'll see. Hopefully stretching and avoiding heels will help my calf/Achilles, and other than that, I just have to do the work and get the miles in. I'll try to be a more regular updater of this blog, as well.

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