The Countdown Is On

Today is Monday!! (That’s stating the obvious, yes?!)

I’ve never been a fan of Monday’s but today is not just an ordinary day (and this week is no ordinary week)!

Can you guess why I’m excited? I’m sure you can!

It’s officially the week of Disney World’s Marathon Weekend!

After months and months of training, it’s finally here and I cannot believe it – I am SO excited!

This time next week, I will be the proud owner of these bad boys…

Until yesterday, I had no idea what to wear for each race. Posting my packing list helped my brain get moving and now I feel a little more prepared.

This past weekend held a lot of final race preparation talk among my running group friends (those training for the Houston Marathon and Disney) including a race seminar from our running coach.

We were given a lot of useful information and I’ll share a little with you! :0)

1.) Nothing new on race day. This is something we all know, but it’s good to reinforce – no new foods, no new clothing, nothing new that you haven’t tried/worn/trained with in the past.

2.) Get plenty of sleep the week of/leading up to the race. Sleep is important! Go to bed early!

3.) Eat right/take plenty of fluids the week of your race. (This one is pretty self explanatory.)

4.) Prepare for multiple race weather scenarios…have an A, B, and C plan. If it’s perfect weather and you want to PR, then go for it! If the weather is not optimal, give yourself a break! (I really need to take heart on that one!)

5.) NO negative thoughts! You CAN and you WILL do this. You’ve trained, you’ve worked hard, you’ve done everything right – IT WILL ALL BE OK! (I had to repeat this to myself a few times this weekend!)

Our running group slogans have really stuck with me as well….

Train Hard, Train Smart.

&

Plan the Work, Work the Plan.

I’ve done my best with training, I’ve given it as much as I could, now it’s time to DO!

We are READY!

Or so I thought!

As soon as I got into my car, those negative thoughts started to creep in….

…and I kind of started to freak out. Thankfully, my friends were able to help calm me down. If I stop to think about the race, I become overwhelmed and the anxiety gets to me. My solution is to try not to think about it! I decided instead to think about my upcoming DISNEY trip and not the fact that I’m about to run 39.3 miles in two days. Yikes.

I spent time yesterday working on a few reservation odds and ends as well. For starters, I realized that my airline reservation times would not work. I had myself arriving in Disney WAY too late – I just wasn’t comfortable with the time frame. Thankfully, I was able to switch to an earlier flight without headache! Yay!

Also, I called Disney to add two people to a dining reservation as well as modify my existing room reservation. The Cast Member who helped me was AMAZING and in the end, I was upgraded to a higher category room at a lower price than our existing reservation! That’s the way I like it!!

After a little packing….

(Hey! I wish I could take them along!)

…and a lot of preparation, I am ready!!

(Now to get through the next four days…longest week eveerrrrr!)