Runner's support and Accountability

@nascfan
Ugh this has been my year for reoccurring injuries for sure!
This one is completely new though and just baffling!!!
Wish I knew what I did!

Guess I’ll be taking a couple more weeks off. Kinda though cause I ran 4 miles sub 10 yesterday.
Oh well. Here we go again…

Went out for a run this morning for the first time in two and a half weeks. Put me sneaks on and felt like I had an extra arch in my shoe on the outer edge below my ankle. Thought, “huh, that’s not good.”
Did it stop me from going out?
Pfft!
Duh!
Ran 2.5 miles for the 2.5 weeks I was being held against my will from the road.
24:15
9:40/m
Against my better judgement, I pushed hard. My plan was to go easy for the entire run, but once I started I couldn’t hold back.
Felt so damn good
I’ll be praying to every god in existence for the next few weeks that I don’t have another setback, and that I can continue to build my miles up again. My virtual half has to be completed by December 15

This one’s going to have to be a walk/run combo
That’s fine. At this point, as long as I’m out there, I’ll be happy!!!

I need some help. I am currently training for my second ever half marathon race. My first was 10 years ago and this one is virtual, planned for Thanksgiving morning, 13 days from now. My longest training run ever is 14 miles and I have never even considered a full marathon. Also, I know that I will most likely never run an actual race at Disney. Between being too expensive (entry fees, travel, etc) and the fact that if I was at Disney, I’d want to be playing more than I’d want to be running and, then there’s the fact that my family would not be into it at all. So… since marathon weekend is Virtual this year, this may be my chance. And, of course, if I do it, I want ALL THE MEDALS which means DOPEY. I’m assuming that even the Dopey would be on the honor system (like the Summer Virtual 5k races which I have done before) so, there might be just enough leeway in how and when the races are run for me to be able to get them done. To me, the big advantage of doing this virtual would be that I could do the full marathon as slow as I needed to since there are no balloon ladies in my virtual race. Of course, I don’t want to disrespect anyone’s REAL Dopey finish so, I feel like I need to stick as close to the REAL race parameters as I can. So, I’d definitely do the four distances in four days. My only issue is that, to build my mileage from half to full in a reasonably responsible way (an abbreviated but mostly faithful take on https://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/marathon-training/) I think the best I could hope for would be to run my Dopey February 11-14. My plan would be to continue training toward the full at 30/30 intervals and then, for the four races, drop back to 15/30 to lighten the load across the whole four days so that maybe I’ll survive through and beyond the final finish.

Here are my questions for you:
1) As a runner, do you think that this is pushing too hard too fast – going from a single half to a full Dopey Challenge (including a first ever full marathon) in 11 weeks?
2) I haven’t seen any hard restrictions but, do you know of any Disney virtual race rules that would require me to run the races on actual marathon weekend January 7-10 versus February 11-14?
3) If you’ve done the real Dopey before, do you feel that my approach is reasonable and responsible?
4) Also, if you’ve done the real thing, am I being in any way disloyal to the spirit of the Dopey by putting it off for a month?

I literally have not decided if I want someone to talk me into this or out of it. Talking me out of it would save me about $250 and many long hours of training so, don’t be shy. Talking me into it… well, it definitely keeps me running and training beyond my half on Thanksgiving and, of course, I’d be really happy to earn the medals. I really can’t decide so I’m counting on your help.

Thank you, @starbee. I appreciate your input. I swear, if I decide to go for it, I will try to be as true to the real thing as possible – even if on a different date since the January dates are simply not even close to feasible for me at this stage of training.

@connie96 Here’s my two cents. Unless you are currently fully trained at a half marathon distance, 11 weeks would be too tight on time to train for Dopey, in my opinion. We started training for Dopey in June and had been in half marathon training mode already since we had done one in November 2016 and April 2017. We ran Dopey in January 2018. So our body was already used to consistently running those types of longer distances. We then upped our distance every 3 weeks after reaching 15 miles and increased by 2 miles at each of those. And we really needed the 3 weeks recovery between long runs. We did shorter runs on those recovery weeks. As a general rule, they recommend upping mileage at 10% per week, no more than that. For me, I don’t think I would feel like I completed a Dopey Challenge if I did it at home. Even with doing the 4 consecutive days and appropriate mileage. Doing Dopey meant getting up at 2:30am and running alongside tens of thousand of runners, going through all the parks and seeing characters along the way. The farthest we ran at home was 23 miles and that was the most painful and never ending run I’ve ever done. No one is there to cheer you on and keep you going. I always hate training and running at home. But it feels way more enjoyable in a race environment, especially at Disney. I vowed never to do another local race because the one I did was horrible and boring. I would wait to run a full marathon until you can do it in person. Otherwise I don’t know that you would feel like you did it, nor did Dopey. I believe the virtual is on the honor system and you likely don’t have to even submit a time, unless you want to print off finisher certificates. But otherwise you are paying for the medals and it’s on you to run the miles or not. It’s a fraction of the cost to do the virtual Dopey. So if you really want the medals and don’t mind not getting the full experience and want the medals, you could do it. I personally wouldn’t do a challenge virtually. But at the end of the day, you are the one that has to decide if you feel like it’s worth the cost to do it virtually, if you feel like it felt you really did Dopey, and if you would want to go run those miles alone with no cheer squads and support along the way. Again, this is my opinion after doing countless half marathons, challenges and one Dopey Challenge at Disney. Running at home just doesn’t do it for me.

I didn’t say this above but, if Mya and I decide to go forward with a virtual Dopey or Mickey, we would make it a priority to do all of the long training runs together. We may be just nuts enough to consider doing this but, we’re not quite crazy enough to attempt THAT many miles alone.

Got back on the running track yesterday for my first run with my First Avenger Garmin! It was a brisk one with our late Autumn weather, but the sun was shining! Since it was my first run in a long time, I went easy on myself. Didn’t want to overdo it.

30 minutes, 2.09 miles, 14:22/mile pace.